Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner’s Guide

Cameron Albert, Frank LaVigne

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Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner’s Guide

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Overview

Table of Contents

Author

Reviews

Support

Sample Chapters

An introduction to building enterprise-ready business applications with Silverlight quickly.
Get hold of the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight application development.
Integrate different media types, taking the RIA experience further with Silverlight, and much more!
Rapidly manage business focused controls, data, and business logic connectivity.
A suite of business applications will be built over the course of the book and all examples will be geared around real-world useful application developments, enabling .NET developers to focus on getting started in business application development using Silverlight.
Based on Silverlight 4, Visual Studio 2010, WCF RIA Services and Expression Blend 3, since Expression Blend 4 was released after publication.

Book Details

Language : English
Paperback : 412 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]
Release Date : April 2010
ISBN : 1847199763
ISBN 13 : 9781847199768
Author(s) : Cameron Albert, Frank LaVigne
Topics and Technologies : All Books, Microsoft Development , Enterprise, Microsoft, Microsoft Silverlight, Web Graphics & Video

Preface
Chapter 1: Getting Started
Chapter 2: Enhancing a Website with Silverlight
Chapter 3: Adding Rich Media
Chapter 4: Taking the RIA Experience Further with Silverlight
Chapter 5: Handling Data
Chapter 6: Back Office Applications
Chapter 7: Customer Service Application
Chapter 8: Executive Dashboard Application
Chapter 9: Delivery Application
Chapter 10: Where to Go From Here
Index

Preface

Chapter 1: Getting Started
- Skills needed
  - A special note for ASP.NET developers
  - A special note for Windows Forms developers
  - A special note for WPF developers
  - A special note for Flash/FLEX developers
- New concepts of Silverlight
  - Separation of presentation and Logic
  - XAML: Relax it's just XML
  - Dependency properties
  - Bumps along the road to Silverlight bliss
    - GIF files need not apply
    - Visibility != Boolean
    - It's Button.Content, not Button.Text
- Tools needed
  - Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Studio 2010
  - Silverlight runtime
  - Silverlight toolkit
  - Expression Blend
- Other useful tools
  - Deep Zoom Composer
  - Silverlight Spy
  - Expression Design
  - Expression Encoder
  - InkScape
- Time for action – creating a Silverlight project
- Summary

Chapter 2: Enhancing a Website with Silverlight
- Retrofitting a website
  - Adding pizzazz with Silverlight
  - A few words on search engine optimization
- Building a navigation control from the ground up
  - Picking the right kind of container
  - Stack it up: Using the StackPanel
- Time for action – building navigation buttons in Silverlight
  - Adding a little style with Styles
    - Styles
- Time for action – adding the style
- Creating applications in Expression Blend
  - A crash course in Expression Blend
    - An artsy Visual Studio?
- Time for action – styles revisited in Blend
- Skinning a control
- Time for action – Skinning a control
  - States of mind
- Time for action – learning the Visual State Manager
- Adding event handlers
- Time for action – back to coding
  - Where are we really?
- Animation in Silverlight
- Time for action – animation time
- Getting on the same page
- Time for action – getting Silverlight onto a web page
- Summary

Chapter 3: Adding Rich Media
- Adding media to a Silverlight project
- Time for action – adding background music
  - Embedding files versus referencing files
- Adding video to a Silverlight project
- Time for action – adding video
- Using video as a brush
- Time for action – creating and using a VideoBrush
- Enriching an application with audio cues
- Time for action – adding interactive sounds
- Coding videos with Expression Media Encoder
  - A tour of the workspace
  - Encoding video
  - A quick word on video formats
- Time for action – let's encode a video!
- Summary

Chapter 4: Taking the RIA Experience Further with Silverlight
- Deep Zoom
  - Deep Zoom in action
- Time for action – creating a Deep Zoom photo montage
- Using the Bing Maps Silverlight Control
  - Using the Map Control
- Time for action – getting started with mapping
  - Getting credentials
- Time for action – adding our credentials
  - Taking control of the Map control
- Time for action – taking control of the Map control
  - Adding store locations to the map
- Time for action – adding store locations
- Drawing out ideas
  - The InkPresenter control
  - Capturing strokes
- Time for action – building a basic sketching application
  - Changing drawing attributes
- Time for action – controlling the appearance of Ink
  - Erasing Strokes
- Time for action – adding an erase feature
  - Storing Strokes in Isolated Storage
    - Isolated Storage
- Time for action– adding persistence
  - Uploading sketches
    - Asynchronous calls
- Time for action – submitting sketches
- Summary

Chapter 5: Handling Data
- Data applications
- Time for action – creating a business object
- Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
- Time for action – creating a Silverlight-enabled WCF service
- Collecting data
- Time for action – creating a form to collect data
- Validating data
  - Data object
- Time for action – creating a data object
  - Data binding
- Time for action – binding our data object to our controls
  - Validation
- Time for action – validating data input
- Data submission
- Time for action – submitting data to the server
- Summary

Chapter 6: Back Office Applications
- WCF Rich Internet Application (RIA) Services
- Time for action – creating a RIA Services application
- SharePoint
- Time for action – hosting a Silverlight application in SharePoint
- Summary

Chapter 7: Customer Service Application
- Customer data
- Time for action – creating the data model
- ADO.NET Entity Framework and WCF RIA Services
- Time for action – creating the Entity Framework
- User experience
- Time for action – saving customer information
- Customer service
- Time for action – creating a customer lookup form
- Summary

Chapter 8: Executive Dashboard Application
- Data visualization
- Time for action – creating the Executive Dashboard
- Spreadsheet data
- Time for action – extending the Executive Dashboard
- Summary

Chapter 9: Delivery Application
- Creating a signature capture control
  - Creating our own lookless control
- Time for action – creating a custom control
  - Improving the default template
- Time for action – putting the control together
  - Dependency properties
  - The OnApplyTemplate method
  - TemplateBinding
  - Implementing the custom control
- Time for action – putting our lookless control to the test
- Time for action – finishing the control
- Mapping application
  - Geocoding
- Time for action – Geocoding addresses to work
  - Route planning
- Time for action – adding routing to our application
- Summary

Chapter 10: Where to Go From Here
- More Silverlight features
  - Checking network connectivity
- Time for action – detecting network connectivity
  - Executing outside the browser
    - Enabling out of browser support
- Time for action – creating an out-of-browser solution
- Time for action – checking the InstallState property
  - Installing a Silverlight application locally
  - Deployment concerns
  - Uninstalling a Silverlight application
- Beyond Silverlight
  - Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
    - When to use WPF
- Time for action – creating a WPF application
- Future of Silverlight
- Summary

Index

Cameron Albert

Cameron Albert is an independent software development consultant with over ten years of experience, specializing in Microsoft technologies such as Silverlight, WPF, WCF, SQL Server and ASP.NET. Having worked in the medical, insurance and media/entertainment industries Cameron has been involved in a variety of development solutions featuring a broad range of technical issues. Cameron also dabbles in game development utilizing Silverlight and maintains a blog detailing his exploits into the development world here: http://www.cameronalbert.com

Frank LaVigne

Frank LaVigne has been hooked on software development since he was 12, when he got his own Commodore 64 computer. Since then, he's worked as developer for fi nancial fi rms on Wall Street and also in Europe. He has worked on various Tablet PC soluti ons and on building advanced user experiences in Silverlight and WPF. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC. He founded the CapArea.NET User Group Silverlight Special Interest Group and has been recognized by Microsoft as a Tablet PC MVP. He blogs regularly at www.FranksWorld.com.

Much like a recipe book this kind of thing is right up my ally so I can focus on making the applications User eXperience cool. That being the case I would recommend it.Read more

I would definitely recommend this book for anyone getting started with Silverlight. Read more

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Errata

- 2 submitted: last submission 12 Mar 2013

Errata type: Language | Page number: 2

Chapter 10 description '...and a look to toward the future of Silverlight.' The word 'to' should be removed.

Sample chapters

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What you will learn from this book

Learn the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight 4 business application development.
Discover how to enhance your Silverlight business applications with rich data such as sound and video.
Know when and how to customize your data in Silverlight using important data controls.
Understand how your Silverlight business applications can connect to various Data Sources.
Deliver your Silverlight business application in a variety of forms.

In Detail

Microsoft Silverlight is a programmable web browser plug-in that enables features including animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback—features that characterize Rich Internet Applications. Silverlight makes possible the development of RIA applications in familiar .NET languages such as C# and VB.NET.

Silverlight is a great (and growing) Line of Business platform and is increasingly being used to build business applications. Silverlight 3 made a big step in LOB; Silverlight 4 builds upon this further. This book will enable .NET developers to feel the pulse of business application development with Silverlight quickly.

This book is not a general Silverlight 3/4 overview book. It is uniquely aimed at developers who require an introduction to building business applications with Silverlight. This book will focus on building a suite of real-world, useful business applications in a practical hands-on approach. This book is for .Net developers, providing the answers to many questions that are encountered when creating business applications in Silverlight, ultimately enabling rapid development with ease!

This book teaches you how to build business applications with Silverlight 3 and 4. Building a suite of applications, it begins by introducing you to the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight development. It then dives deeply into the world of business application development, covering all the required concepts needed to build sophisticated business applications and provide a rich user experience. Chapters include: building a public website, adding rich media to the website, incorporating RIA into your website, and much more!

By following the practical steps in this book, you will learn what’s needed to create rich business applications—from the creation of a Silverlight application, to enhancing your application with rich media and connecting your Silverlight application to various Data Sources.

This book is based on Silverlight 4, Visual Studio 2010, WCF RIA Services and Expression Blend 3, since Expression Blend 4 was released after publication. However, you can also use Expression Blend 4 with this book as downloadable code is now available.

Approach

A Beginner’s Guide tutorial, this book offers learning and techniques through a suite of business applications. It contains step-by-step instructions for developers who want to build rich business applications using Silverlight. The book focuses on practical examples and has a friendly approach, with the opportunity to learn by experiment and play. It uses illustrations, screenshots, and interactive experiences to understand the most complex topics related to Silverlight business application development. It is designed in such a way that you can refer to topics chapter by chapter, and read them in no particular order.

Who this book is for

If you are a .NET developer who wants to build business applications with Silverlight, then this is the book for you. No experience of programming Silverlight is required. Basic understanding of Visual Studio, C#, .Net development, XML, and Web development concepts (HTTP, Services) is required.