So if you encountered the same problem, that initially your associated/referenced entities are null when loaded, read more to see how to solve this issue.

A week ago, I wanted to bind the DataGrid with Employees from AdventureWorks DB with contact information as FistName, LastName, etc. Contact is with Employee table associated by ContactID foreign key, so in SQL I would go for inner join (or left outer join) on these two tables.

In my Data Model I had the Employee entity with navigation property Contact.

But when you load it by a service query in your domain context on the client, you’ll basicly populate your domain context Employees collection with data. Navigation property to Manager is working since, this is also an already laoded Employee entity. But all the other navigation properties like Contact are null. Of course, this is logical, since you probably want don’t want to transfer a large amount of data, you know, all the associated entities, which you usually do not need.

The usual scenario is that you have a list of entities and you download some detail only after one is selected, for example. In my problem, I had to either change the domain model in way, that Employee entity will contain some of the Contact attributes, but that’s not correct.

So what you actually have to do, to download entities also with specified associated entities?

At first, open the metadata class for the domain service.
Find the Contact navigation property in the Employee entity class. Add [Include] attribute above the property. This way we tell Ria Services to change the query to get Employee also with associated Contact entity.

[Include]
public Entity<Contact> Contact;

Now change the Domain service class retrieve method to include the Contact.

return this.ObjectContext.Employees.Include("Contact");

Illustration

Although it looks that localization of Silverlight Business Applications is not worth of writing a post, there are some really inconspicuous problems which you have to resolve.

If you want to localize the application by creating resource files of strings for a particual language (AppStrings.sk-SK.resx, AppString.de-DE.resx) you should definitely read this post (with sample source-code) to not get into trouble.

At first I create a New project with Business Application Template.

The strings resource files are in the template located in both Client and Server (Web) projects.

The most important resource is the ApplicationStrings.resx file, in which almost all the strings from the client side are stored.

Strings which are used in the login and registration form are stored on the server side in RegistrationDataResources.resx.

To localize the strings you have to create copies of desired resource file with an appropriate sufix according to the culture, so slovak copy of AppStrings will be ApplicationStrings.sk-SK.resx. Do the same to all resource files in the project and translate them to your language.

Don’t add resource files to the Web\Resources directory in the client project, because in this folder should be placed just links to files in Resources folder in Web project. Link to a file si added by adding Existing item to client side Web\Resources and choosing “Add as link” option. Till now, we did similar work we do in ASP.NET applications when localizing them.

To test whether it works add following line to App.xaml.cs

...
using System.Threading;
using System.Globalization;
...
private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e)
{
    // This will enable you to bind controls in XAML files to WebContext.Current
    // properties
    this.Resources.Add("WebContext", WebContext.Current);

    // This will automatically authenticate a user when using windows authentication
    // or when the user chose "Keep me signed in" on a previous login attempt
    WebContext.Current.Authentication.LoadUser(this.Application_UserLoaded, null);

    //Change current culture to slovak, just for the test
    Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo("sk-SK");

    // Show some UI to the user while LoadUser is in progress
    this.InitializeRootVisual();
}

Run the project and you’ll not see any localized string there.

Now, you’ll have to do a bit of manual work to make your localization working. At first, unload your client side project by right-click on a project and select “Unload Project”.
Navigate to the project folder in your filesystem and open the .csproj file in notepad or similar text editor.
Locate <SupportedCultures> element a place there all the culture that you want to have in your app separated by comma (<SupportedCultures>en-US,sk-SK</SupportedCultures>).

Reload the project back, build it and run. Localization should work.

Localized page

Now, let’s look on how to localize new strings, which are not stored as resources. In this template, not localized are “Home page content” and “About page content” strings.

I created new resourcefiles HomeView.resx and AboutView.resx plus sk-SK localized equivalents and rebuild the project. In those I will store my strings for each view. To enable use of these resoruces in these views, add some piece of code to the ResourceWrapper.cs Helper class, which holds as a StaticResource in the XAMLs.
Note: Your resources are in Assets.Resources namespace in this case.

using Assets.Resources;
...
public sealed class ResourceWrapper
{
private static SecurityQuestions securityQuestions = new SecurityQuestions();
private static HomeView homeView = new HomeView();
private static AboutView aboutView = new AboutView();
...
public HomeView HomeViewStrings
{ get { return homeView; } }

public AboutView AboutViewStrings
{ get { return aboutView; } }

Then in our XAMLs we may use our ResourceWrapper properties HomeViewStrings and AboutViewStrings to bind to desired string.

<TextBlock ... Text="{Binding Path=HomeViewStrings.HomeContent, Source={StaticResource ResourceWrapper}}" />

Localized content

You can localize the whole application this way, so I hope this article was helpful.

Remember what is the most important:

1. Change the project file in text editor to allow the client to support different cultures (via SupportedCultures XML node).
2. Login and registration resources are stored in the Web project.
3. Add your own resourcefiles also to ResourceWrapper.cs Helper class to allow binding to it in XAML file.
4. I recommend to set the Access Modifier in default resource files to “Public” (default is internal) and for culture-specific resource files to “No-code generation”, because we don’t need it in these.

Download source code of the sample. (Silverlight 4, .NET 4.0, VS 2010)

If you find some errors in my sample or you would like to share your knowledge about localization, some new ideas, etc, please leave comment below.

MIX '09 logo

I’ve found a lot of useful videos about Rich Internet Application, Silverlight and .NET RIA Services.

Visit MIX 09 web site to see all videos related to Microsoft Technologies or continue reading and watch my recommended webcasts.

***

I. User Experience Design Patterns for Business Applications with Microsoft Silverlight 3

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V. NET RIA Services – Building Data-Driven Applications with Silverlight and ASP.NET

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IX. What’s New in Microsoft Silverlight 3

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X. Building Microsoft Silverlight Controls

Learn how to encapsulate structure, animation, and logic inside custom controls that handle theming, layout, validation, and data binding. Using Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Blend, explore advanced design, coding, debugging, and testing techniques for building components that work interchangeably in Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

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I hope you enjoy some of these webcasts