I. What the what?

            What is LightSwitch exactly? It is a rapid application development tool to push data-centric applications quickly into the hands of customers for use on the desktop or in the cloud.

            Basically, LightSwitch is an intelligent architecture on top of Silverlight 4. The massive amount of plumbing to make this possible is hidden and all is shown to the creator/developer is a drag and drop type of tool that can deploy everywhere that Silverlight deploys, because it is JUST SILVERLIGHT!     

  II. What is all of this cloud nonsense?

            In the world of LightSwitch, and many other applications, the cloud represents a shrinking and expanding universe of servers that host an application and serve that application all around the world. If an influx of traffic comes that would normally destroy your home-server under your desk, well guess what? A cloud hosted application would grow to meet the demand by spinning up more and more servers.

            LightSwitch takes this idea and expounds on it by providing the exact same interface to the user on the desktop as well as the web. Because it is all Silverlight, it will look the same everywhere (even on a Mac!).

III. Where to go for info?

            The LightSwitch site is fantastic, and I suggest starting there. Here are some quick links to some of the “how to videos.”

1. Define Data in a LightSwitch application   - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

2. Create a Search Screen in a LightSwith application – Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

3. Create an edit details screen - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

4. Format data on a screen - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

5. Sort and filter data on a screen - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

6. Create a master-details (one-to-many) screen - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

7. Pass a parameter into a screen from the command bar - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

8. Write business rules for validation and calculated fields - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

9. Create a screen that can both edit and add records - WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

10. Create and control lookup lists - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

11. Setup security to control user access to parts of an app - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

12. Deploy a LightSwitch app - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

13. Deploy a LightSwitch app to Azure - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

14. Modify the navigation of screens - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

15. Open a screen after saving another screen - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP

16. Connect to an existing database - Video: WMV | MP4 | WMV (ZIP) | PSP