Drag-Drop Data Binding For WPF (by Milind Lele)

MilindLele — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:02:51 GMT

One of the improvements in VS2010 (CTP available for download here) is drag and drop data binding for WPF applications. Drag-drop data binding has been available for WinForms since Visual Studio 2005. So those of you that are familiar with that will find the WPF experience quite similar and readily usable. This post briefly outlines the improvements in the VS2010 CTP.

At one end of the binding is, of course the control that you are binding, the target. At the other end is data source. In VS2010 you can add either a DataSet or an Entity Data Model to your WPF application and bind the tables or entities to WPF controls by simply dragging the table or the entity and dropping onto the form.

Entity Data Model designer support was added to Visual Studio 2008 SP1. To add an entity data model to your application click Add New Item on the project menu, then select ADO.NET Entity Data Model.

The EDM wizard is displayed allowing you to specify a connection to your database and select tables that you wish to add to your model.

In VS2010, once an EDM is added to a project it will show up in the data sources window.

This acts as the drag source for your binding. From here there are different ways you can go about establishing bindings to your UI. One is to create the UI control, say a ListBox, from the toolbox, then drag-drop an entity from the data sources window to the listbox. Alternately you could generate the control from the data sources window itself. Select an entity and drop it onto the form. The data sources window allows you to select what control you wish to generate. That control gets generated and bound to the entity.

Visual Studio 2010: CTP Available (by Milind Lele)

MilindLele — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:32:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 are the next generation developer tools we are working on. An early preview, a CTP of VS2010 and .NET Framework 4.0, is now available for download. To learn more about the CTP or to provide feedback go to the CTP feedback page

This CTP is a good way for you to take a peek at what's coming in the next release of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework as well as to provide feedback to the teams.

The CTP includes a set of walkthroughs. These are step-by-step guidelines for previewing the new features or improvements to existing features. The walkthroughs are a good starting point to explore what's new. We have also created a set of MSDN Forums for the VS2010 CTP. I would like to welcome you to use these forums to provide feedback and engage in relevant discussions with others in the community.

Data Binding for WPF

One of the areas of improvement introduced in this CTP is design time support for data binding for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications. There are two walkthroughs describing what's new for this feature area:

Using the Designer to Bind WPF Controls to Data in a Dataset
Using the Designer to Bind WPF Controls to Data in an Entity Data Model

We have also created a section in the forums to discuss Working with Data in WPF Applications. I would love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, comments about these experiences on the forums.

Over the next few weeks I will write more about this. Meanwhile I welcome you to download the CTP and send us your feedback.

Visual Studio Data : CTP

Drag-Drop Data Binding For WPF (by Milind Lele)

Visual Studio 2010: CTP Available (by Milind Lele)