DevForce Silverlight

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Build Silverlight Business Applications Today. DevForce Silverlight enables you to build data-intensive rich internet applications quickly. Writing a whole service infrastructure and exposing multiple methods for each data type can be hard and time consuming. With DevForce, you write your Silverlight application on top of a rich business object model that executes on both the client as well as the server. Having a full client-side domain model improves responsiveness and scalability while enabling offline operation. DevForce Silverlight integrates with the new Silverlight 3 features such as the DataForm, DataGrid, and Validation while seamlessly extending Silverlight 3 Validation with IdeaBlade's popular Verification Engine. All of these features enable you to build applications in a fraction of the time and reduce code and maintenance costs.

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DevForce Silverlight V5.2.1

Our prices include ComponentSource technical support and, for most downloadable products, an online backup and a FREE upgrade to the new version if it is released within 30 days of your purchase.  All sales are made on our standard Terms and Conditions and subject to our Return Policy. Please contact us if you require any licensing option not listed above including volume licensing and previous versions.

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DevForce Silverlight allows you to deliver line of business applications in the browser with the kind of responsiveness users expect from a desktop application. Developed for Microsoft Silverlight, the browser plug-in which powers rich application experiences, it allows you to leverage your existing DevForce experience with new tools and techniques to build serious applications.

A few things to note about Silverlight, and thus about DevForce Silverlight:

• Silverlight is inherently n-tier. The client application executes in a sandbox on the browser, and must communicate with a service to retrieve and save data. The DevForce Silverlight Business Object Server (BOS) provides that service, and allows you quickly to have a Silverlight application retrieving and saving to a database, using the domain model and business objects you're already familiar with.
• Silverlight is inherently asynchronous. To avoid blocking the browser, Silverlight requires that all service communications be performed asynchronously. This can be a bit challenging at first, but DevForce Silverlight provides an asynchronous API very similar to the standard synchronous API, plus additional features to make asynchronous programming as easy as possible.

In DevForce Silverlight, you have the EntityManager to hold your client-side entity cache and communicate with the BOS, just like you would in a standard DevForce EF application. The Domain Model is actually shared between the two environments, and DevForce handles the movement of your business objects between tiers. You use the standard EntityQuery syntax to build true LINQ queries, which can be directed against a back-end data source or against the local DevForce cache. Your queries run asynchronously against back-end data sources, or synchronously against the local cache.

Key to it all is the shared domain model. The domain model used by the Silverlight application is the same domain model used on the server, or in any .NET DevForce application: not an anemic object model with an unfamiliar API. You can add business logic - via custom methods and properties, DevForce property interceptors, and DevForce verification - to your shared domain model. You can also choose to deploy logic which is applicable to the client-side or server-side only.

Building on the strengths of DevForce WinClient, DevForce Silverlight allows RIA developers to build scalable applications utilizing Silverlight and the Entity Framework. IdeaBlade have years of experience building object-relational mapping tools and have applied this experience to DevForce Silverlight, giving RIA developers the ability to build rich domain models for their Silverlight applications. Their previous expertise in building n-tier data models combined with their integration with the new Silverlight 3 UI controls and validation provides developers with an environment to create powerful enterprise applications using Silverlight.

Why DevForce?

Data Access
Getting data into a Silverlight application is hard. Constructing a remote domain model for your data is hard. DevForce simplifies n-tier persistence and provides a rich domain model on which to build your application. Stop writing plumbing and infrastructure code and focus on your business logic and user experience.

Single Domain Model
You shouldn’t have to duplicate your business logic in multiple places. The mobile business objects in DevForce enable you to use a single domain model whether you are writing client-side or server-side. The same domain model works with our DevForce WinClient product, so you can have multiple faces for your application in different technologies such as WPF, WinForms, ASP.NET, or Silverlight.

Rich Domain Model
DevForce provides you with rich business objects with real behavior. Use a domain model that represents your problem, not just flat data transfer objects, where you have to do all the bookkeeping and re-implement your logic.

Verification Engine
Verify the correctness of your business objects and provide helpful error messages to the user. Supports cross-field and cross-object validation, and is seamlessly integrated with Silverlight 3 validation. Keeps your business logic in your business objects and out of the UI .

Entity Framework Integration
Standardize on Microsoft’s next generation ORM framework. DevForce is built upon the Entity Framework, enables it to work in Silverlight, makes it easier to use, and adds all the features you see here plus more.

Responsiveness
DevForce applications are snappy. The domain model executes inside the Silverlight client, client-side caching reduces trips to the server, data compression reduces network latency, and asynchronous queries allow background processing.

Full n-tier LINQ Support
Use the full power of LINQ from within the Silverlight client application. LINQ-to-Entities only operates 2-tier, and other LINQ implementations only support a narrow range of queries. DevForce supports them all.

MVVM and Best Practices
DevForce is built around good architectural practices such as MVC and MVVM and enables you to conveniently keep your UI and business logic where they belong without sacrificing usability or functionality.

Offline Execution
Use your application while disconnected or partially connected to the internet. Save your work in isolated storage and resume working later.

Multiple Data Sources
Use multiple back-end databases in a single domain model. Navigate cross-database relations using object properties. Save all your changes safely in a distributed transaction.

Scalability
Client-side caching, connection pooling, and a stateless and multi-core enabled server provide DevForce applications with excellent scalability and fault-tolerant characteristics.

Web Services
Consume other services in your application. DevForce can create web-service backed business objects allowing you to integrate them into your domain model.