Building Windows Business Apps Productively with CODE Framework (Lecture & Lab)

Presenters: Markus Egger, Mike Yeager

This event took place on Thursday, May 22, 2014.

Where:   On-site at CODE Training Center (6605 Cypresswood Dr. Suite 300, Spring, TX 77379) or remotely via GoToMeeting
When:    May 22 & 23, 2014 (Thursday & Friday)
Desc:      An in-depth lecture and lab style training to educate attendees about productively building business applications with the CODE Framework

CODE Framework aims at making developers super-productive while building applications with state-of-the-art architecture. This class teaches using the framework to build a modern business application with various user interfaces (emphasis on Windows, with a brief excursion into Web and Mobile UIs) and a sophisticated SOA layer. While this workshop is specific to CODE Framework, many of the techniques are applicable as general development techniques.

The CODE Framework can be downloaded for free (including source code) from Codeplex.com. It consists of various components and tools that help developers with common aspects of business application development, such as simplified SOA development with various clients, or WPF development, data access, and much more. The main focus of this framework is to enable productive, flexible, and highly maintainable business application development. This workshop answers all your CODE Framework questions. Attendees will learn proper application architecture and design, enabling attendees to build systems that are easy and productive to build using the CODE Framework on various the supported platforms such as Windows, Web and Mobile. The workshop teaches highly productive development techniques. These topics are CODE Training specialties that are not taught anywhere else, making this one of our most popular classes. Attendees of this workshop will learn how to work productively and build future proof applications and systems, regardless of their prior knowledge (or lack thereof).

The training class will be held at our offices in Houston, Texas as well as online via GoToMeeting. After the class, attendees will receive the Powerpoint slides, the code samples and videos of each class as reference materials.

Day 1 is presented as a lecture, and Day 2 will be a hands-on lab. On Day 2, it will be necessary for attendees to bring their own computers with Visual Studio loaded. Day 2 may be attended off-site, but on-site attendance is STRONGLY encouraged to get the most benefit from the labs.

Day 1: Lecture

9:00 – 10:00 Introduction to Modern Development and Architecture with the CODE Framework
Modern software projects cover a wide range of technologies, techniques, and scenarios which need to be supported and maintained in a very rapidly changing environment. This session starts out discussing various aspects in the big picture and then moves to discuss how the CODE Framework, as well as related technologies, are used to solve these challenges.
10:00 – 10:15 BREAK
10:15 – 12:00 Services, the Middle Tier and Data
Modern applications feature a set of features, functionality, and business rules that are independent of the utilized user interface. For this case, many modern applications, at core, are built out of a set of business objects and services. CODE Framework has various features and tools that help with this exact process. In this session, we build business objects and a data access layer, as well as a set of services that are exposed in various ways and protocols, including SOAP, TCP/IP, REST, and more. This session also shows various tools provided to make this process productive and easy, both during development and production deployment.
12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH
13:00 – 15:00 Building a WPF Front-End
Windows applications are still a very common interface choice for business applications. This session shows how to use the WPF MVVM/MVC framework subset of the CODE Framework to build a modern and professional interface in a highly productive way. Emphasis is put on building reusable and maintainable interfaces in a structured way that can be taught to all developer skill levels without sacrificing implementation and architecture quality. Note: While the majority of this session revolves around WPF Windows applications, many of these concepts also apply for Silverlight applications, Windows 8 Metro applications, and (to an extent) even Windows Phone applications. The later parts of this session even circle back to HTML scenarios showing advanced reuse scenarios of XAML based interfaces that can even be used in non-XAML environments.
15:00 – 15:15 BREAK
15:15 – 16:45 Understanding Templates, Visual Styles and Themes
CODE Framework has extensive supports for templates and styles. In fact, templates are one of the aspects that drive the super-productive nature of the CODE Framework WPF development approach. This session explains how templates work and how to customize existing templates and even create your own templates. As a secondary topic, this session also explores visual appearance and interchangeable skins and themes.
16:45 – 17:00 Q&A and Odds & Ends
Got Questions? This open ended session will make sure they are answered as well as discuss upcoming enhancements and the future of the CODE Framework

Day 2: Hands-On Lab

9:00 – 9:45 Introduction and Creating a New Project
Day two will be a lab day and you must have a laptop loaded with Visual Studio. You'll take all the theory you learned yesterday and put it into practice!

- Get CODE Framework downloaded and installed
- Create a new project
- Learn the concept of _ExternalComponents project
9:45 – 10:00 BREAK
10:00 – 12:00 Creating a new WPF Project
- Project structure and how CF uses the MVC pattern
- Create Customer controller – add Customer List Model and View
- StartViewModel and its role
- Add Customer Edit view and hook up all its pieces
12:00 – 13:00 LUNCH
13:00 – 15:00 Creating a new Service Project
- Determine Service needs
- Add service contract
- Explain Request and Response pattern
- Add service implementation
- Add Development Service Host
- Create database and add new Data Project
- Update implementation to use the EF objects
15:00 – 15:15 BREAK
15:15 – 16:30 WPF Using Services
- Update existing Customer List to call service
- Point out the AsyncWorker and its features/integration to CF
- Update Customer Edit to call services and commit data
- Add in refresh of list data when edit saved
16:30 – 17:15 WPF Themes
- Ease of switching themes
- Explain xyz.xaml.battleship, default, layout, etc. files
- How to change basic colors, fonts

** Please note that times are approximate and meant to be flexible depending on class participation and questions.

Registration is extremely limited. For more information please e-mail info@codemag.com or call us at 832-717-4445 x 13.

Discounts may be available for companies who have previously attended our classes. Call us for details. Please note that instructors & exact curriculum may change. All sales are final.