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Monday, April 27, 2009

Paging with the Silverlight RIA services DomainDataSource

by Maurice via Maurice de Beijer on 4/27/2009 8:57:46 AM

Using the declarative DomainDataSource that is part of the upcoming Silverlight 3 RIA services makes it quite easy to work with data. All you need to do is add a DomainDataSource control to the the XAML, point it to the generated DomainContext class (in this case NorthwindContext) and tell it which method to use to load the data from the web service(in this case LoadCustomers). Next add a DataGrid to display the data and you are good to go.

     <UserControl xmlns:dataControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data.DataForm"  x:Class="LOBUsingRIAServices.CustomerListPage"

                 xmlns:data="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data"  

                 xmlns:riaControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Ria.Controls"

                 xmlns:web="clr-namespace:LOBUsingRIAServices.Web"

                 xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 

                 xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">

        <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">

            <riaControls:DomainDataSource x:Name="CustomerDataSource"

                                          LoadMethodName="LoadCustomers">

                <riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

                    <web:NorthwindContext />

                </riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

            </riaControls:DomainDataSource>

            <data:DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding Data, ElementName=CustomerDataSource}" />

        </Grid>

    </UserControl>

Pretty simple and that is the way I like it Smile

Adding paging.

Sometimes the lost of data to load can get somewhat large and you might not want to load all data. In that case all you need to do is add a PageSize and the DomainDataSource will only load enough data to display on a single page. You can do this by just setting the PageSize on the DomainDataSource but as we also need a control to allow the user to page trough the data it is easier to also add the DataPager control. Now you have the option of setting the PageSize on the DomainDataSource or the DataPager. I found that setting it on either would work just was well except for the initial load where the DataPager shows page 0 when the PageSize is set on the DomainDataSource while it is set to 1, the correct value, when set on the DataPager. I assume this is just a small bug in the current preview.

Another thing you can specify is the LoadSize. This determines how many rows are loaded with each request and if not set equals the PageSize. Setting this to double the PageSize will improve the responsiveness of the the client application so might be a good idea if the data isn’t too large.

    <UserControl xmlns:dataControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data.DataForm"  x:Class="LOBUsingRIAServices.CustomerListPage"

                 xmlns:data="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data"  

                 xmlns:riaControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Ria.Controls"

                 xmlns:web="clr-namespace:LOBUsingRIAServices.Web"

                 xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 

                 xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">

        <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">

            <riaControls:DomainDataSource x:Name="CustomerDataSource"

                                          LoadMethodName="LoadCustomers"

                                          LoadSize="40">

                <riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

                    <web:NorthwindContext />

                </riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

            </riaControls:DomainDataSource>

            <data:DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding Data, ElementName=CustomerDataSource}" />

            <dataControls:DataPager Source="{Binding Data, ElementName=CustomerDataSource}" 

                                    PageSize="20" />

        </Grid>

    </UserControl>

The DataPager control is quite easy to use as well. Just drop it below the DataGrid and point it to the DomainDataSource to use and it just works. One problem I ran into was adding the DataPager above the DataGrid though. When I did that the DataPager didn’t show up on the UI so the user could not page through the data even though it still limited the data to the first page.

Using progressive loading

Another nice option is delayed loading. When using progressive loading all you need to do is specify the LoadSize on the DomainDataSource. The DomainDataSource will now load the specified number of rows, wait a bit and load the next set of rows. It will keep on doing this until all data is loaded. The nice thing here is that all the data is loaded but the UI still stays responsive for the user. De the default interval between load requests is 0.75 seconds but this can be fine tuned using the LoadDelay time span on the DomainDataSource.

    <UserControl xmlns:dataControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data.DataForm"  x:Class="LOBUsingRIAServices.CustomerListPage"

                 xmlns:data="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data"  

                 xmlns:riaControls="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Ria.Controls"

                 xmlns:web="clr-namespace:LOBUsingRIAServices.Web"

                 xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 

                 xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml">

        <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White">

            <riaControls:DomainDataSource x:Name="CustomerDataSource"

                                          LoadMethodName="LoadCustomers"

                                          LoadSize="10"

                                          LoadDelay="0:0:0.25">

                <riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

                    <web:NorthwindContext />

                </riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

            </riaControls:DomainDataSource>

            <data:DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding Data, ElementName=CustomerDataSource}" />

        </Grid>

    </UserControl>

And all of this was done without writing any code add everything was completely declarative. Of course it is just a matter of setting properties so doing so from code is easy enough.

Enjoy!

27 comment(s)

Original Post: http://msmvps.com/blogs/theproblemsolver/archive/2009/04/27/paging-with-the-silverlight-ria-services-domaindatasource.aspx

© 2005 Serge Baranovsky. All rights reserved.
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