Fix to blank LightSwitch app bug with Visual Studio 2012

I needed to populate a database I’m designing with some test data and thought to myself “LightSwitch will be ideal to knock out some screens”.

One hour later I got a LightSwitch screen to actually display! Until then all I got when running it in Desktop mode (the default) was a blank window hosting Silverlight (right click to verify)

After lots of searching and playing around I found the answer near the end of this very long thread. 

1. Navigate to the Client.Properties folder inside your project
2. Open OutofBrowserSettings.xml
3. Change <SecuritySettings ElevatedPermissions=”Required” /> to <SecuritySettings ElevatedPermissions=”NotRequired” />
4. And you may also want to then make the file readonly

 Now, when this happens again I will be able to find my own post to resolve it! Enjoy!

P.S. This isn’t specific to Visual Studio 2012 … but the post title corresponds to how I was searching

Blend for Visual Studio 2012 nice touch #2

Following on from nice touch #1…

I disliked the way old versions of Blend relied on something as a subtle as a few pixels of colour to tell you something relatively important.

Circa 2010

Circa 2013

although admittedly this doesn’t appear to be universal across all properties.

Thank you.

Blend for Visual Studio 2012 nice touch #1

[Really I’m just testing out twitterfeed which has failed for me… but I needed something to post on ]

I’m just skimming through some blend tips by Mike from 2010 and  spotted a nice touch in Blend for Visual Studio 2012 I hadn’t noticed before (amongst no doubt hundreds of improvements )

When working with grids and rows (or columns) you now get a lovely visual indicator with in place editing, rather than needing to visit properties.

circa 2010 (from this post)

circa 2013

Windows Store Tips: Turn off Internet Client in Visual Studio if you don’t use the Internet

[Windows Store Tips]

When you create a new Windows Store project in Visual Studio 2012 it “helpfully” turns on one Capability in the manifest – “Internet Client”.

Which is great … if you use the Internet.

But… having this turned on means your application must have a privacy policy to be approved for the Windows Store else it will fail submission. There are other reasons why you might need a privacy policy – but this one has tripped up many development teams.

If you don’t need it, turn it off.

Read other Windows Store Tips

MCSD: Windows Metro Style Apps – but which one?

While I was at the Worldwide Partner Conference last week in Toronto I had dinner with an old friend and colleague Tim Sneath. Tim has been instrumental in a lot of the great evangelism around XAML and Windows 8 but now has a new challenge, heading up Microsoft Learning.

We got onto the subject of Microsoft Certifications and their importance (or not) when companies are hiring developers – a great little discussion which a week on has popped back into my mind as I will be interviewing candidates this month for a vacancy in my team. Plenty of the candidates who apply for technical roles in Microsoft do indeed have certifications. I on the other hand (as interviewer) do not. Hmmm. (Well, actually I do – but I seem to recall the last couple I did were on SQL Server 2000 and that is a long time back.)

However I am moving more back to development in my new role around Windows 8 and potentially could do with setting myself a “little dev challenge”.

Right now I’m thinking the “little dev challenge” should be passing MCSD: Windows Metro Style Apps.

Hmmm…. now which one to go for?

And more importantly… by when…

Windows 8 Developer Camps in London during July

The team has worked to create a day that is flexible enough to help someone brand new to Windows 8 dev OR is already working on a Windows 8 application. That is very cool.

And there is even a Saturday session on the 21st.

Register today:

• Thursday 19^th July, London: Windows 8 DevCamp
• Friday 20^th July, London: Windows 8 DevCamp
• Saturday 21^st July, London: Windows 8 DevCamp
• Tuesday 24^th July, London: Windows 8 DevCamp
• Wednesday 25^th July, London: Windows 8 DevCamp
• Thursday 26^th July, London: Windows 8 DevCamp

First impressions of Telerik RadControls for Metro… very nice. #TelerikMetro

Just spent 30mins with the beta of Telerik RadControls for Metro. Looking very promising, certainly enough for me to register for their free Webinar on the 24th of July 6pm UK time -  Why Build for Windows 8 and How RadControls for Metro can Help.

The beta includes the following controls:

And comes with a nice sample:

Although I think snapped view needs a little work

P.S. Don’t forget to unblock the downloaded chm file

Windows 8 Virtual Labs – nice idea but….

We have many great virtual labs for exploring our latest technology and I was excited to see that we had added Windows 8 development labs.

However…the graphical performance I get against these labs when run from the UK is poor. Turns out the labs are done by remoting into a Windows Server 2003 image which then remotes into a Windows 8 image. Ouch.

I did manage to improve things by changing the remote desktop experience to the Windows 8 machine. After you make these changes, disconnect and reconnect to the Windows 8 image.

Your experiences may be better…

Windows 8 Release Preview Virtual Labs

• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 1 – Creating a Windows 8 Metro Style App – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 2 – Orientation, Snapping, and Semantic Zoom – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 3 – Searching and Sharing – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 4 – Application Bars and Media Capture – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 5 – Process Lifetime Management – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 6 – Settings and Preferences – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 7 – Tiles and Notifications – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 8 – The Windows Store – C#
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Windows 8: Lab 9 – Touch and Pointer Input – C#

Developing for Windows on ARM – looking great!

On June 12th Jason Zander posted What you need to know about developing for Windows on ARM (WOA) along with a companion video on Channel 9. All looks very impressive to me – well done to the team.

In summary:

• You do the dev on an intel machine
• You can then deploy to ARM and get:
• a great remote debugger
• a great remote test tool
• a great remote profiling tool

And if you were wondering “How much do I need to worry about ARM?”, the following summarises it nicely:

• Javascript, C# and Visual Basic apps – write once, run on x86/x64/ARM
• C++ needs to be compiled to the platform you are targeting

Related Links:

• Develop Metro Style Apps for Windows 8

Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop

As much as I love Metro style applications, the announcement on Friday (8th June) gets a big thumbs up from me

Read more on the Visual Studio Blog.