Brad Abrams : Orcas

.NET Client Application Services

BradA — Thu, 24 May 2007 06:40:00 GMT

Update: hree are some MSDN docs that cover this topic: Exposing Web Services to Client Script and ASP.NET Application Services Overview

One of my favorite features in Orcas is the ability to leverage the ASP.NET Application services from any client application (ASP.NET, Ajax, WinForms, WPF, or even Silverlight!).. This allows you to do things like share a common membership, role management and profiles across a number of presentation tiers. It also enables very easy roaming user state...

Check out how easy it is to use the profile store... here I am using Windows Authentication, but of course you can use forms or your own system just as well. In fact any system can be rolled into the ASP.NET Auth system (there is a whole book on the subject).

Part 1: Create the web site.

1. In Orcas Beta1, Create a new ASP.NET Web Application

2. Fill in the profile section of the web.config. Notice, you have to enable anonymous for the client designer functionality in Beta1 to work...

3. Enable this property to be accessed via web services by adding this section to Web Config

Part 2: Create the client app.

1. Right click on the solution and add a new project (works the same for WPF or WinForms)

2. Right click on the new client project and select properties

3. In the Services tab, enable application services, select windows auth and fill in the services url. For now it is the development server, URL, in production this would be your ASP.NET web site.

4. In the settings tab, click on Load Web Settings... this will pull down all the metadata for the profile properties you defined on the server. You can just hit "skip login" on the prompt for you credentials... Because we enabled anonymous auth, it is not needed

You are now ready to go! You can have strongly typed, async read-write access from WPF, WinForms, Silverlight, ASP.NET and Ajax. And all the user settings will stay in sync no mater where you change them, they are reflected everywhere!

Check out a few examples

ASP.NET Server side code

Client side JavaScript

See the attached solution for all the code!

Looking for more?

Client Application Services in Windows Forms: End-to-End Walkthrough Available

What’s new in for clients apps in Orcas deck

Client application Services Screen webcast

Information about SQL Server Compact - Offline rocks!

DEV10 - Extending the Browser Programming Model with Silverlight

Update... You can get the demo code for how to do this from Silverlight here.. The StockClient/StockService samples make use of the profile (to store the selected stock symbol) and isolated storage (to cache the stock data of the selected stock symbol).

VB "Orcas" What's new Web Cast

BradA — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:47:52 GMT

Kit just forwarded me some information about a cool set of webcasts covering what is new from the Visual Basic team for developers in Orcas...

Check it out, i'd love to hear what you think..

The live series starts April 18th and will continue to the end of May. Come join us for this exciting series direct from the Visual Basic team!!

Here's the schedule (check the VB Developer Center for updates):

Live From Redmond: VB9 - Orcas Overview April 18th, Presented by John Stallo
Live From Redmond: VB9 - LINQ Overview April 25th, Presented by Kit George
Live From Redmond: VB9 - LINQ to SQL & O/R Designer Deep Dive May 2nd, Presented by Young Joo
Live From Redmond: VB9 - Building N-Tier Applications May 9th, Presented by Young Joo
Live From Redmond: VB9 - Offline Data Caching May 16th, Presented by Milind Lele
Live From Redmond: VB9 - Deep Dive into LINQ May 23rd, Presented by Amanda Silver
Live From Redmond: VB9 - Building Service-Oriented Applications May 30th, Presented by John Stallo

For more webcasts past, present and future, please visit the VB Webcasts page.

Orcas enables easy offline client apps

BradA — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 06:13:27 GMT

I just saw that steve does a couple of very cool screen casts showing off how easy it will be for WinForms and WPF client apps to operate effectively offline and in high latency networks...

Going N Tier w/WCF, Synchronizing data using Sync Services for ADO.NET and SQL Server Compact Edition

In part 1, I used the Visual Studio Orcas Sync Designer to configure and synchronize 3 lookup tables to be cached locally in SQL Server Compact Edition using the Sync Services for ADO.NET CTP.
In part 2 of this screen cast, I take the cached lookup tables and split up the client and server sync components using WCF to glue them together.