Preface

Storing and manipulating data plays an important role in making any mobile phone effective in business applications or any other data-driven application. Windows Phone 7.5 Data Cookbook covers topics such as how to bind data easily using databinding techniques, how to save data in local storage for later retrieval, how to format XML for data storage, exploring on-device databases for storage options, how to consume cloud data sources like OData, REST, and WCF, and finally, how to scale applications using the most popular MVVM pattern.

This book has a wide range of simple to complex recipes, which help you understand basic concepts of data handling. You will be able to apply the knowledge you gained from these recipes to build your own apps effectively. Instead of diving into writing complex sample applications for the first time, this book focuses on simplifying the concepts in an easy step-by-step fashion using simple straightforward samples.

Windows Phone 7.5 Data Cookbook will make you an expert in the areas of data access and storage. When you are ready to start developing a data-driven Windows Phone 7 application, you will be well equipped with the different scenarios to implement and store data.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Databinding to UI Elements, shows how to create data binding to User Interface elements using any data sources such as CLR Objects, files, XML, or external databases. Various topics such as Element Binding, DataContext, DataTemplates, DataMode, and Data Converters are covered. Finally, a simple app is created applying the different databinding concepts.

Chapter 2, Isolated Storage, demonstrates how to open, create, and save user settings to local isolated storage for later consumption, using name/value pairs or images or XML files.

Chapter 3, XML as a Data Store, covers how to open a local or remote XML file, how to navigate the XML file to search for specific information, and finally, how to serialize XML to an object.

Chapter 4, Using Open Data, explains how to consume OData with a simple URI and then how to search with different operations. Finally, it demonstrates how to execute CRUD operations with OData.

Chapter 5, Using On-device Databases, explores different on-device database options available such as commercial Perst, open source SQLite, and Microsoft's SQL CE. It also explains how to use LINQ to SQL in SQL CE.

Chapter 6, Representational State Transfer—REST, covers basic concepts of consuming REST services and calling different social media services such as Twitter and RSS Feeds. Finally, it demonstrates how to build a simple REST service.

Chapter 7, Windows Communication Foundation–WCF, demonstrates how to create and consume simple web services and understand LINQ features. It demonstrates how to build services using ADO.NET Entity Data Model and LINQ to SQL. Both these technologies significantly automate building service layers quickly and effectively.

Chapter 8, Model View ViewModel, introduces us to basic concepts of the MVVM design pattern and how it can be implemented using simple samples. MVVM Light toolkit is introduced by demonstrating different scenarios of applications. Finally, a sample is created to demonstrate how easy it will be to maintain a MVVM-patterned application.

What you need for this book

The following is the list of software needed for this book. Different software and tools are used during the course of this book to demonstrate specific concepts or techniques.

1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/windows-phone-developer-tools

2. Microsoft Visual Studio Web Developer 2010 Express http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-web-developer-express

3. SQL Server 2008 Manager Express http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26729

4. SQL CE Edition 4.0 http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=212219

5. SQLite Studio http://sqlitestudio.one.pl/

6. SQLite Client http://sqlitewindowsphone.codeplex.com/releases

7. Microsoft Web Matrix http://www.asp.net/web-pages

8. Perst.Net http://www.mcobject.com

9. MVVMLight toolkit http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com/

10. Phone 7 toolkit http://silverlight.codeplex.com/releases

Who this book is for

This book is for developers who understand the language features of C#, XAML, and Silverlight technologies, and want to build data-driven apps, or line-of-business (LOB) applications using Windows Mobile platform. It helps if the developer has some understanding of Metro design philosophy and user interface guidelines from Microsoft. Also, this book helps developers of other mobile platforms to convert their apps to Windows Phone 7.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "First, create a private variable for DataClass before the MainPage constructor."

A block of code is set as follows:

namespace Recipe2
{
  public class DataClass
  {
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Notes { get; set; }
  }
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

<TextBlock x:Name="ApplicationTitle" Text="Phone7 Recipes" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}"/>

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

datasvcutil /uri:http://services.odata.org/(S(bltvbobia1rthiavqczdcr1u))/OData/OData.svc/ /out:.\EditODataModel.cs /Version:2.0 /DataServiceCollection

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click on the New Query icon in the tab bar and then Execute the selected query."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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