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

  • Article

[July 2010: The lab has been updated in order to reflect RTM changes -->  https://blogs.msdn.com/b/swiss_dpe_team/archive/2010/08/03/hands-on-lab-silverlight-4-line-of-business-application-using-wcf-ria-services-now-updated-to-reflect-rtm-changes.aspx ]

After building this lab from the ground 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.

screenshot1

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.

Optional Components

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