Earlier this month (August 2010) Microsoft has introduced a new Visual Studio family member, it’s Visual Studio LightSwitch.

Visual Studio LightSwitch is RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool that can be used to build WPF and Silverlight applications in an easy way.

Don’t expect me to explain the features in this post, it will be too long instead please watch the following videos:

• http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Dan/Jay-Schmelzer-Introducing-Visual-Studio-LightSwitch/
• http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/funkyonex/Visual-Studio-LightSwitch-Beyond-the-Basics/

Okay, done watching?

This kind of tool is not new. Many 3rd party software companies has built similar tool and my favorite was Iron Speed Designer but the output is ASP.NET website rather than WPF or Silverlight.

Iron Speed Designer was great. I used that tool in 2007 to 2009 because it was the main dev tool at the company I used to work. But the downside is the cost. It’s too expensive to get the full features. For a single seat of Enterprise Edition it cost $3,975.

This Visual Studio LightSwitch is absolutely a great tool and it absolutely has good market prospect. It’s a very good decision from Microsoft to develop this tool.

I hope Microsoft can release this tool in an affordable price. If that will happen, I can  say “Visual Studio LightSwitch is Iron Speed Designer KILLER”

PS: The free public beta will be available on 23 August 2010.

Iron Speed Designer · LightSwitch · Silverlight · Visual Studio · WPF

Below are some options to work with Image.Source

1. Embedded in the .xap file as Content

Note that the Build Action is “Content”

XAML

<Image x:Name="imgContent" Source="/Assets/Images/2.jpg" />

 Code (C#)

imgContent.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/Assets/Images/2.jpg", UriKind.Relative));

2. Embedded in the .xap file as Resource

Note that the Build Action is “Resource”

 XAML

<Image x:Name="imgResource" Source="/SilverlightApplication1;component/Assets/Images/1.jpg" />

 Code (C#)

imgResource.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/SilverlightApplication1;component/Assets/Images/1.jpg", UriKind.Relative));

 3. Absolute URL

The file is stored anywhere in the internet

XAML

<Image x:Name="imgAbsolute" Source="http://i3.silverlight.net/avatar/meidianto.jpg?cdn_id=10092009" />

 Code (C#)

imgAbsolute.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("http://i3.silverlight.net/avatar/meidianto.jpg?cdn_id=10092009", UriKind.Absolute));

 4. Stored inside the web application/website

Note: in this example the image is stored in the same folder as the .xap file

 XAML

<Image x:Name="imgServer" Source="/3.jpg" />

 Code (C#)

imgServer.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri("/3.jpg", UriKind.Relative));

 5. Async Network Call

Note: in this example the image is stored in the same folder as the .xap file as above

Code (C#)

private void LoadImage(){    WebClient client = new WebClient();    client.OpenReadCompleted += new OpenReadCompletedEventHandler(client_OpenReadCompleted);    client.OpenReadAsync(new Uri("3.jpg", UriKind.Relative));}

void client_OpenReadCompleted(object sender, OpenReadCompletedEventArgs e){    if (e.Error == null        && e.Result != null)    {        BitmapImage img = new BitmapImage();        img.SetSource(e.Result);

        imgServer.Source = img;    }}

image · Silverlight · silverlight 3