If you’re like me and used to having line & shape controls , PrintForm and a handy DataRepeater as part of your toolbox then you’ll be excited to know that these controls are also going to be installed with Visual Studio 2010. On Friday, Yunfeng Dong mentioned on the VS Data team blog that the VB...

I’ve posted before about how to use TableAdapters to update parent-child (master-detail) relationships against SQL server. It’s pretty straightforward and Visual Studio generates all the code for you to properly insert, update and delete your data. However if you’re using MS Access then there’s one thing...

Today I got a question that comes up often in data application programming about how to count rows in a DataSet that matched a condition. The DataSet may be bound to a DataGridView or other list control and it’s tempting to start looking at the control to see if you can coax it into returning what you...

I've had a lot of questions lately on how to display data from two separate tables in the database into a single DataGridView for editing. It sure would be nice if all our data was in a single table, but in reality most of the time it's not. Basically the problem is that we want one single table (entity...

Last night I spoke to SF Bay.NET user's group on Data Binding in Winforms and WPF, focusing on Line-of-Business (LOB) application scenarios. I showed how you can use the same data sources with Winforms and WPF, walking through binding scenarios with DataSets, custom object collections and some LINQ to...

In my previous posts this week I showed how to build a simple distributed application with a Windows client, a WCF hosted middle-tier and a data access layer that used LINQ to SQL: LINQ to SQL N-Tier Smart Client - Part 1 Building the Middle-Tier LINQ to SQL N-Tier Smart Client - Part 2 Building the...

In my last post we built the service and data access layer for our LINQ to SQL N-Tier application. In this post we'll walk through building a very simple Windows client form that works with our middle-tier. Adding the Service Reference Now that we have our middle-tier built it's time to add the...

In my previous posts on LINQ to SQL I showed how to build LINQ to SQL classes and set up the data binding in your Windows applications. If you missed them: Related Data Binding and ComboBoxes with LINQ to SQL Creating Lookup Lists with LINQ to SQL One-To-Many (Master-Detail) Forms with LINQ...

In the last few posts on LINQ to SQL I've showed how to set up an object model using the O/R designer and how to handle a couple data binding scenarios with Comboboxes here and here . Last post on this topic we implemented a one-to-many data entry form and I showed how to work with stored procs as well...

In previous posts this month I showed how to use LINQ to SQL classes with a couple different Combobox data binding scenarios. (You can read those articles here and here .) Today I'm going to show you how to create a one-to-many data entry form (and we'll use a couple Combobox lookup lists as well). I...

In yesterday's post I showed you how to bind LINQ to SQL classes to a Combobox in order to filter records on a one-to-many form. Today I want to show you how how you can use a Combobox as a lookup list in order to edit values on a record. We'll be building on yesterday's example. So to recap, we have...

In a previous post I showed how to set up related data binding using ComboBoxes against DataSets and a loyal reader asked how this would be done using LINQ and Visual Studio 2008. I assume he meant LINQ to SQL in this case, because remember LINQ can be used over DataSets too -- you just have to call...

Recently I've had more than a few questions about how to handle working with data across multiple forms. If you've watched my Forms over Data video series you know how to create a database , connect to it , save your data properly , and work with data in your code . In this post I'll expand upon those...

Recently the VB Team received a customer bug submitted through Connect that had to do with binding multiple combo boxes to the same data source. The customer was reporting that once a selection was made in one combo, the other combos were also changing. The resolution was "By Design" because of the way...

In SQL-Server we can store images inside database tables directly using the Image column type. And with .NET 2.0 data binding it can automatically convert these images (stored as byte arrays) into System.Drawing.Image classes for you. For instance, say you have a table called Pictures that has a column...

The VB Team just released an updated version of the Visual Basic Power Packs on the VB Developer Center that includes a new set of controls for Visual Studio 2005 that allow you to draw lines, rectangle and oval shapes on your Windows Forms. These controls encapsulate many of the graphics methods that...

I just released two more videos ( #15 , #16 ) in the Forms Over Data video series . One is on understanding data binding and how it works from database all the way to the controls you see on forms. We talk about the relationship between the TableAdapter, the BindingSource and the DataSet and I show how...

I just added a new video ( #4 ) to the Object Binding Series on filtering your custom objects -- based on customer request -- so keep them coming! The code is also attached . Enjoy!

This how-to video series is focused on more advanced data binding techniques using object binding in Visual Basic 2005. The series walks through creating business objects and how to associate them in one-to-many relationships, how to provide searching capabilities and how to enable sorting. Download...

I just uploaded more videos to Microsoft Downloads! I wanted to post the direct links here and the matching code downloads for all of you immediately even though MSDN will be creating a pretty landing page like this one for them this week, probably tomorrow or Wednesday. (I'll update this post when that...

In my first post on parameterized queries I built a simple login form that really was a contrived example meant to showcase how to use the TableAdapter Configuration Wizard to configure a parameterized query. However, since I opened myself up here, I felt it socially responsible to show how to make this...

In my Forms over Data videos series I show you how to create a one-to-many data entry form in video #3. Recently, I've had a few people ask how to create a form that displays a many-to-many relationship so I thought I'd post on how to do that today. You can actually think of a many-to-many relationship...

I've been asked by a couple readers on how to pass parameters into a SQL statement to your database using the TableAdapters. I actually created a video on how to do this in the context of a search query ( play video | download video | entire series ). It's really easy to do this using the TableAdapter...

Today at DevTeach I packed the house with my ever popular "DataSources and Data Binding" talk. Last year was also a full room and as D'Arcy points out here , the other speakers this year should have hired a circus act to compete :-). That's the nature of data binding, it's a very popular topic because...

Yesterday I posted the first 8 videos of the Visual Basic Forms over Data "How-to" video series on MSDN. These videos are for those who are just starting out with databases and Windows Forms data binding. I plan on continuing the series with more intermediate topics like custom object binding, adding...