Pro Business Applications with Silverlight 5, 2nd Edition

Silverlight 5 has the potential to revolutionize the way we build business applications. With its flexibility, web deployment, cross-platform capabilities, rich .NET language support on the client, rich user interface control set, small runtime, and more, it comes close to the perfect platform on which to build business applications. It’s a very powerful technology, and despite its youth, it’s moving forward at a rapid pace and is gaining widespread popularity.

This book guides you through the process of designing and developing enterprise-strength business applications in Silverlight 5 and C#. You’ll learn how to take advantage of the power of Silverlight to develop rich and robust business applications–from getting started to deployment, and everything in between.

In particular, this book will serve developers who want to learn how to design business applications. It will introduce the patterns you’ll use, the issues you’ll face, and how to resolve them. Author Chris Anderson, who has been building line-of-business applications for over a decade, demonstrates his expertise through a candid presentation of how to tackle real-life issues, rather than just avoiding them. Developers will benefit from his hard-won expertise through business application design patterns that he shares throughout the book.

What you’ll learn

• How to structure your project to ensure a robust and maintainable application
• How to create user interfaces with XAML and bind controls to data
• How to communicate securely between the server and the client
• How to view and maintain data within a Silverlight user interface
• How to design unique user experiences and use advanced styling techniques
• How to implement standard business application paradigms in Silverlight

Who this book is for This book is for developers experienced in other .NET technologies, such as WinForms or ASP.NET, looking to translate their existing skills to developing business applications with Silverlight. Patterns and methodologies associated with building robust applications will be introduced and are not prerequisite knowledge.
Table of Contents

1. Getting Started with Silverlight
2. An Introduction to XAML
3. The Navigation Framework
4. Exposing Data from the Server
5. Consuming Data from the Server
6. Implementing Summary Lists
7. Building Data Entry Forms
8. Securing Your Application
9. Styling Your Application
10. Advanced XAML
11. Advanced Data Binding
12. Creating Custom Controls
13. The Model-View-View Model (MVVM) Design Pattern
14. The Managed Extensibility Framework
15. Printing and Reporting
16. Out of Browser Mode and Interacting with the Operating System
17. Application Deployment