Step 3: Create Screens in LightSwitch
In this lesson, you'll create screens to enter, display, and change data in your LightSwitch contact management application. You'll choose a screen template to create a common set of screens and specify the data to display.
Create a Screen
To create a screen for your application
In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the Screens node, and then choose Add Screen.
The Add New Screen dialog box appears.
In the Select a screen template list, choose Common Screen Set.
Note
The Common Screen Set template is only available if you have installed Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 or higher. If you don’t see the Common Screen Set template, you can create each of the three screens individually by using the other three screen templates.
In the Screen Set Name text box, enter ContactList.
In the Screen Data list, choose Contacts, and then choose the OK button.
Three screens are added to Solution Explorer: AddEditContactList, BrowseContactLists, and ViewContactList.
The Screen Designer opens and displays a representation of the layout and commands for the BrowseContactLists screen as the following illustration shows:
.png "The Screen Designer")
Closer Look
You just created a set of screens for your application. The BrowseContactLists screen displays a list of contacts and is the home screen for your application. The ViewContactList screen displays the details for a contact, and as you might expect, the AddEditContactList screen lets you add or edit contacts.
LightSwitch sets up the navigation between screens without the need for any code. For example, when you choose a contact on the Browse screen, the View screen for that contact is automatically launched.
For this application, the default screen settings are appropriate, but you will usually want to customize screens in the Screen Designer. For example, you can hide fields, make fields read-only, or change the appearance and layout of data.
Next Steps
In the next lesson, you'll run your application and test its capabilities.
Next lesson: Step 4: Run and Test the LightSwitch Application
See Also
Tasks
How to: Customize a Silverlight Screen in a Running Application
Concepts
Step 2: Define the Data in LightSwitch