January 19, 2010  

Hands-on Lab: Silverlight 4 Line of Business Application using WCF RIA Services

After building this lab from the ground up and running it successfully in three classes last week, we are now ready to publish it.

In this 108 page hands-on lab you will learn how to use Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2010 and Beta 1 of Microsoft Silverlight 4 to create a data driven line of business style rich internet application that implements many of the new features that Silverlight 4 introduces. We will base our solution on the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) RIA Services.

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The solution will be an order-management system that shows a list of orders in a data grid and details of a selected order in a details pane. The system will validate user entries and have the capabilities of printing order reports and exporting order lists to Microsoft Excel.

Download the hands-on lab manual in PDF and Word format, the database and the final sample solution.

These features are implemented in the lab:

True multi-tier architecture.

  • Entity framework and service layer definition.
  • Data filtering, paging, sorting and grouping.
  • Data modification and validation.
  • Foreign key management.
  • Projections.
  • Programmatic printing from a Silverlight application.
  • COM interop with Microsoft Excel and running full-trust out-of-browser.

    The following are the system requirements needed to complete the hands-on lab. The links point to the download location of the product or a trial version.

    One of the following operating systems:

    Windows XP (x86) with Service Pack 3 – all editions except Starter Edition

  • Windows XP (x64) with Service Pack 2 – all editions except Starter Edition
  • Windows Vista (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 1 – all editions except Starter Edition
  • Windows 7 (x86 and x64) (download trial)
  • Windows Server 2003 (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 (x86 and x64)
  • Windows Server 2008 (x86 and x64) with Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64)

    • Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Professional

    • SQL Server 2008 Express Edition

    • Silverlight 4 Beta 1 Tools for Visual Studio 2010

    • Silverlight 4 Beta Toolkit November 2009

    Optional Components

    Microsoft Internet Information Services

    • Microsoft Excel

    The hands-on lab manual has detailed instructions on installing all the prerequisites.

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    About TechPreacher

    Software Development Engineer working for Microsoft in Switzerland. Focusing on the Internet of Things and Windows development. EV geek and passionate gamer, with a life.