ClientUI 5 Learning Resources

Earlier this month, we released the first 2011 volume release of WebUI Studio, which includes over thirty new controls across all .NET development platforms. In case you missed the news, click here to read the press release and other related news.

We’re so excited about the new release, not only because it ships dozens of new shinny controls that will make your development faster and easier, but ultimately because we have addressed the most challenging and important development aspects such as data access and connectivity issues, and design pattern challenges in Silverlight and WPF development.

Many Silverlight developers have been long struggling with questions like “How to bind a data grid to a relational database using MVVM pattern?”, “What’s the best way to display dynamic data with server paging and server filtering for the best performance?”, or perhaps more advanced questions like “How to implement editing with batch update that takes account server paging and server filtering?”. These are typical questions every developer will encounter as they are building real-world business applications. Fortunately, we now have confident answers to all these questions, and defied the most challenging data access issues for once and all – thanks to the new MVVM data controls and components in this new release!

In this blog post, I will share a number of new resources that were made available to help you get the most out of the new release.

New Documentation Topics

We added over hundreds of new documentation topics in each release, which includes new walkthroughs and getting started topics for new controls, as well as conceptual topics for fundamental architecture such as data access component model and design patterns.

As you entered client-based development such as Silverlight, the first thing you might realize is that you can’t access relational database the way you used to do as in server-based development such as ASP.NET. That’s true, you will need an intermediate layer called data service that understands what the client is requesting, and consequently response with something that the client recognizes. You will later deal with data operation types such as when to use client-side operation or server-side operation in your data application. Learn about the supported data services, data operation types and find out more about Silverlight data access in Data Access Overview.

Once you grasped the data access concept in Silverlight, you’ll be looking for ways to display data based on dynamic queries using MVVM pattern. Enter QueryDescriptor, the industry’s first MVVM-ready data component for Silverlight and WPF. It lets you write the interaction and data access logic in your ViewModel, while allows the Views to reflect the data seamlessly in “loosely-coupled” fashion. To learn more, head to Understanding QueryDescriptor.

To jump start with Silverlight data application development, make sure you check out the following walkthroughs:

• Walkthrough: Create New Intersoft ClientUI MVVM Data Application (WCF RIA SP1)
• Walkthrough: Create New Intersoft ClientUI MVVM Data Application (DevForce)
• Walkthrough: Bind UXGridView to DevForce Services using MVVM Pattern
• Walkthrough: Bind UXGridView to WCF RIA Services using MVVM Pattern
• Walkthrough: Handle CUD Operation using UXGridView and WCF RIA
• Walkthrough: Handle CUD Operation using UXGridView and DevForce

We shipped two data providers to let you work with the data service of your choice. If you owned a DevForce license, be sure to check out the DevForce walkthroughs above.

As you learn about data application development in Silverlight and WPF, you might find the following resources useful to address specific needs.

• UXGridView Overview
• Sorting Data with UXGridView
• Grouping Data with UXGridView
• Paging Data with UXGridView
• Filtering Data with UXGridView
• Exporting Data with UXGridView
• Editing Data with UXGridView
• Customizing Edit Controls in UXGridView
• How-to: Implement Client-side Sorting, Filtering and Paging using UXGridView
• How-to: Implement Server-side Sorting, Filtering and Paging using UXGridView
• UXDataPager Overview
• How-to: Implement Data Paging using UXDataPager
• How-to: Implement Data Paging using PageDescriptor and UXDataPager
• UXDataFilter Overview
• How-to: Implement Data Filtering using UXDataFilter
• How-to: Implement Data Filtering using FilterDescriptors and UXDataFilter

So far, I’ve shared some of the most essential resources related to data access and data presentation development. However, the new release includes many controls in addition to the data presentation controls.

You might also be interested in the new Treeview and learn how to bind hierarchical data using MVVM pattern, how to use XPS document viewer to load an XPS document, as well as learning how to use navigation pane to build rich Outlook 2010 style navigation interface. All the resources you need can be found in the following links.

• Using UXTreeView
• How-to: Bind Hierarchical Data to UXTreeView using Member Path Properties (MVVM)
• How-to: Bind Hierarchical Data to UXTreeView using HierarchicalDataTemplate (MVVM)
• How-to: Bind UXTreeView CheckedItems Property to UXListBox
• Using UXNavigationPane
• Walkthrough: Create New Intersoft ClientUI Outlook-style Navigation Application
• Walkthrough: Create New Intersoft ClientUI Outlook-style Navigation Application for WPF
• Using UXResizablePane
• Using XPSDocumentViewer
• Document Framework Overview

There are also numerous enhancements in addition to new controls such as smooth content transition, improved memory management and multi-window drag and drop support in WPF. Another noteworthy enhancement is the MVVM support for the ClientUI page navigation framework which allows you to write interaction logic such as query string and data context parsing in the ViewModel. Learn about these enhancements and find out more in What’s New in ClientUI 5.

New Samples

If you haven’t aware, we’ve updated our Control Explorer with many new exciting samples ranging from employee leave records, enterprise assets management to digital magazine reader sample and Outlook navigation sample. Jemmy did a nice write-ups about the new samples, make sure you check it out here.

While the samples are available offline in your development box, you can always access the samples online anywhere and anytime you need it.

Our designers made a minor facelift on the live sample to improve your browsing experiences. You’ll notice fresh new backgrounds on every 15 minutes interval. We hope you enjoyed the new samples and the improved experiences. Visit live.clientui.com to see all new samples online.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing more learning resources such as walkthrough videos and tutorials. Until then, I suggested you to check out the readily-available resources above, or post your questions to ClientUI Forum.

Best,
Jimmy