CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-studiovisual-studio-lightswitch
DMor
DMor

Reputation: 789

How can I create a custom menu/navigation screen in Visual Studio 2012 LightSwitch?

Visual Studio 2012 LightSwitch gives you a default of 5 or 6 screens such as: search, create new, etc..

I would like to create a very basic custom navigation/main menu screen. All this screen would contain is literally 6 vertical buttons in a maximized window (For starters and for simplicity of the question) and each button would pop up another screen.

Is there anything resembling the drag-and-drop of a regular Visual Studio 2012 application? I would basically like to create a new Screen Template called: "Navigation Menu" or something similar.

Thanks, DM.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 4632

Answers (1)

Yann Duran
Yann Duran

Reputation: 3879

You can only create a new Screen Template by creating a LightSwitch Screen Template Extension.

However it's not really a job for the faint hearted. I've created a number of extensions over the past couple of years, & I regard the Screen Template Extension to be the hardest to do. I understand what goes into designing a Screen Template. It can be quite code-intensive, depending on what you want the template to create for you. I have a couple of screen templates that I want to create for my own needs, but I keep putting them off.

I don't want to put you off, just give you a heads up about what you're in for, if you do decide to create your own screen template extension.

One question though. Are you wanting to reuse this screen, either in the same application, or in other applications? If ther answer is "no", then creating a screen template extension would be overkill.

If you're only wanting one of these screens, to do what you described, all you have to do is add a RowsLayout control to a screen, then add one RowsLayout controlfor each navigation "button" that you want on the screen. Use the Add Button context menu option (right-click the RowsLayout control) to add a button. Set the size etc to what you want, & set the RowsLayout controls Horizontal Alignment setting to Center.

The buttons won't be all that "sexy", they'll just be larger versions of the same buttons that you'll see anywhere else in the application (except for size, if you decide to change that). The main advantage is that you can do it, quickly, & out of the box.

Or you could do something like in this article, Course Manager VS 2012 Sample Part 6 – Home Screen, if you want to improve the look of the screen.

Upvotes: 3

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