LightSwitch Community & Content Rollup–September
Now that the Visual Studio LightSwitch community is really growing I thought I’d start posting some of the cool articles, videos, samples and extensions I find each month. What’s great about a blog post is if I miss something you can just add it to the comment thread below :-). First off, here are the LightSwitch team “hangouts” where you can get training, ask questions, and interact with the LightSwitch team. The biggest one of course is:
LightSwitch Developer Center
This is your one-stop-shop to training content, samples, extensions, documentation, podcasts, a portal to the forums, community, and much more. All of the team content is aggregated onto this site, and we also aggregate all the community submitted extensions and samples. It’s the first place you should go if you’re just learning LightSwitch. Also here are some other biggies:
LightSwitch MSDN Forums
LightSwitch Team Blog
LightSwitch on Facebook
LightSwitch on Twitter (@VSLightSwitch, #VisualStudio #LightSwitch)
Community Sites
There’s some great sites that I know about that have some awesome LightSwitch content run by MVPs and community rock stars that you should check out often. We wouldn’t be anywhere without passionate people like you! Anyone else running a community site or forum for LightSwitch out there? Post a comment below and I’ll include you!
- LightSwitch Central
- LightSwitch Help Website
- LightSwitch on Silverlight Zone
- LightSwitch Tips & Tricks (Italian)
Most Popular Team Content
I figure since I just started this series it would be good to pop in here some of the highest viewed content we have to date. There’s a TON of stuff out there especially on the Developer Center Learn section where we continuously aggregate blog articles, videos and library documentation but here’s some good stuff to check out if you missed it.
- LightSwitch How Do I Videos
- LightSwitch Training Kit
- LightSwitch Technical White Paper Series
- LightSwitch Course Manager End-to-End Sample & Tutorials
- Exploring LightSwitch Architecture
- Extending LightSwitch
You can also take a look at the most popular samples and most popular extensions. We also had a lot of magazine articles, videos and podcasts released in August to check out.
Notable Content this Month
I know the month’s not quite over but I like to get posts out before Europe goes off partying for the weekend ;-). I’ll scoop up anything else for next month. Here’s some of the fun things the team and community has been doing. Check out the 19 FREE extensions released just this month!
FREE Extensions (see all of them here):
- Color Button Extension
- Chart Control Extension
- Green Business Theme
- Group Box
- Hyperlink Business Type
- Legacy System Black Screen Theme
- Light Orange Theme
- LightSwitch Theme Business Grey
- Luminous Business Type Extensions
- Luminous Controls Extension
- Luminous LightSwitch Commands
- Office Black and Silver Theme
- Office Integration Pack Extension
- Password Control
- SindControls.SnapSlider
- Standard Form With 2x Blue Theme
- Sunny Orange Variety Theme
- Traditional Form Theme
- VS Dark Blue Theme
Articles:
- Advanced LightSwitch: calling built-in search from Silverlight controls (Visual Basic)
- Course Manager Sample Part 6 – Home Screen
- Developing real-world applications with LightSwitch - Part 5: Security and deployment in LightSwitch applications
- Developing real-world applications with LightSwitch - Part 6: First Steps in Extensibility
- Diagnosing Problems in a Deployed 3-Tier LightSwitch Application
- Filtering Lookup Lists with Large Amounts of Data on Data Entry Screens
- Fun with the Office Integration Pack Extension for LightSwitch
- How to Allow Adding of Data to an Auto-Complete Drop-down Box in LightSwitch
- How To Change the Currency Symbol for Money
- How To Create a LightSwitch Command Control Extension (A Button)
- How to run LightSwitch 2-tier Applications on Windows 8
- New “Working with Screens” Learn page on Developer Center
- Scrolling Through Records With Custom Previous And Next Buttons
Videos:
- How Do I: Add Commands as Buttons and Links to Screens?
- How Do I: Show Multiple Columns in an Auto-Complete Dropdown Box?
- LightSwitch Reporting Tutorial by DevExpress
Samples:
- Adding images (icons) to the navigation menu of your LightSwitch application
- A way to: check Uncheck records
- Creating a theme inside your LightSwitch application using ExtensionsMadeEasy
- Extension Classes For Securing LightSwitch Screens
- How to make Web access in LightSwitch application
- How to Switch Between LightSwitch's Logical & File Mode With Macros
- LightSwitch Office Integration Pack Extension - Sample Application
- LightSwitch Office Integration Pack Extension - Full Source Code
Conferences Coming Up
Here some conferences and big code camps coming up soon that have LightSwitch presence. More details on the SoCal and Silicon Valley code camps here.
- New York Code Camp – 10/1
- MS SharePoint Conference – 10/3-10/6
- Silicon Valley Code Camp – 10/8-10/9
- SoCal Code Camp – 10/15-10/16
- VSLive! Redmond – 10/17-10/21
Join Us!
I’m sure I missed some great stuff so help me out! The community is world-wide and I don’t see everything. What’s really helpful is that the community has been using the hash tag #LightSwitch on twitter when posting stuff so it’s easier for me to catch it. Join the conversation!
Enjoy!