Silverlight 4 provides some very powerful data form capabilities out of the box. You will no longer have to throw an exception just to send a validation error or even worry about hard-coding labels. With support for data annotations, IDataErrorInfo and more, you now have plenty "out of the box" to work with.

Let's explore the surface of some of these powerful new features!

IDataErrorInfo

With support for IDataErrorInfo as well as INotifyDataErrorInfo, you no longer have to raise exceptions just to validate your classes. Fire up VS 2010 and create a new Silverlight 4 application. First, we'll create a "helper" class to derive our entities from in order to perform validation and notify property changes. The class looks like this:

public abstract class BaseEntity : INotifyPropertyChanged, IDataErrorInfo
{
    private Dictionary<string, List<string>> _errors = new Dictionary<string, List<string>>();

    protected void RemoveErrors(string prop)
    {
        if (_errors.ContainsKey(prop))
        {
            _errors.Remove(prop);
        }
    }

    protected void AddError(string prop, string error)
    {
        if (_errors.ContainsKey(prop))
        {
            _errors[prop].Add(error);
        }
        else
        {
            _errors.Add(prop, new List<string> { error });
        }
    }

    protected void OnPropertyChanged(string prop)
    {
        PropertyChangedEventHandler handler = PropertyChanged;
        if (handler != null)
        {
            handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(prop));
        }
    }

    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

    public virtual string Error
    {
        get { return string.Empty; }
    }

    public virtual string this[string columnName]
    {
        get 
        {
            System.Text.StringBuilder retVal = new System.Text.StringBuilder();

            if (_errors.ContainsKey(columnName))
            {
                bool first = true;
                foreach (string error in _errors[columnName])
                {
                    retVal.Append(error);
                    if (first)
                    {
                        first = false;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        retVal.Append(Environment.NewLine);
                    }
                }
            }

            return retVal.ToString();
        }
    }
}

There are a few things going on here. First, we implement INotifyPropertyChanged in to facilitate binding. The protected OnPropertyChanged method allows derived classes to hook into this event.

Next, we implement IDataErrorInfo. This forces us to provide a single error property as well as an extension method that references errors for a given property. John Papa has an excellent article about building a handler for this at Enabling Validation in Silverlight 4 with IDataErrorInfo. In my case, I keep a dictionary referenced by the property name that holds a list in case there are multiple errors I want to show. When the errors are requested, I fold them into a single string using Environment.NewLine (OK, so the beta just came out the other day ... can't say I've fully tested that part).

Data Annotations

Now you can build a PersonInfo class based on this base class. To keep things simple for a contrived example, I chose just a first name, last name, and age. Here we'll need to add a reference to System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations. You must install the latest Silverlight Toolkit for this. If you need to browse to it manually, it's located under the toolkit installation directory (usually c:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight) under v4.0\Libraries\Client. Now we can derive the class and annotate it, like this:

public class PersonInfo : BaseEntity 
{
    private string _firstName, _lastName;

    private int _age;

    [Display(Name="First Name")]
    [Required]
    public string FirstName
    {
        get { return _firstName; }
        set
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value.Trim()))
            {
                AddError("FirstName", "First name is required.");
            }
            else
            {
                RemoveErrors("FirstName");
                if (!value.Equals(_firstName))
                {
                    _firstName = value;
                    OnPropertyChanged("FirstName");
                }
            }
        }
    }

    [Display(Name="Last Name")]
    [Required]
    public string LastName
    {
        get { return _lastName; }
        set
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value.Trim()))
            {
                AddError("LastName", "Last name is required.");
            }
            else
            {
                RemoveErrors("LastName");
                if (!value.Equals(_lastName))
                {
                    _lastName = value;
                    OnPropertyChanged("LastName");
                }
            }
        }
    }

    [Display(Name="Age (Years)")]
    [Required]
    public int Age
    {
        get { return _age; }
        set
        {
            if (value  130)
            {
                AddError("Age", "Age must be a valid integer between 18 and 130.");
            }
            else
            {
                RemoveErrors("Age");
                if (!value.Equals(_age))
                {
                    _age = value;
                    OnPropertyChanged("Age");
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

You'll probably pull out validations into a handler / rule set but basically what I'm doing is validating the value, setting an error or clearing all errors if it passes, then calling the property changed event if the value truly changes. Note the use of annotations to specify required properties as well as "friendly names" for the properties.

Now that our class is prepped, we can get to work on the XAML.

Implicit Styles

With support for implicit styles, we can set a style based on a target type and style it that way - allowing for themes to be set externally. We'll take advantage of that to set the width for our TextBox controls. I also add a reference to the PersonInfo class to use in data binding, so I won't need to touch the code-behind for MainPage.xaml:

<UserControl.Resources>
   <local:PersonInfo x:Key="Person"/>
   <Style TargetType="TextBox">
      <Setter Property="Width" Value="200"/>
   </Style>
</UserControl.Resources>

Data Input Helpers

Next, add a reference to System.Windows.Controls.Data.Input (found in the toolkit as well, same folder as the data annotations). We'll reference it at the top of our XAML (along with the local reference we need for the PersonInfo class:

xmlns:local="clr-namespace:DataForm"
    xmlns:dataInput="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Data.Input"

Great, now let's get to work! I'm going to show you the full snippet of XAML and then explain the pieces:

    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White" DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource Person}}">
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>           
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>
        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <dataInput:Label Target="{Binding ElementName=tbFirstName}"
                         Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" 
                    Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1">
            <TextBox x:Name="tbFirstName" 
                 Text="{Binding Path=FirstName, Mode=TwoWay, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True, NotifyOnValidationError=True, FallbackValue=''}"/>
            <dataInput:DescriptionViewer Description="Please enter your first name."
                                         Target="{Binding ElementName=tbFirstName}"/>
        </StackPanel>
        <dataInput:Label Target="{Binding ElementName=tbLastName}"
                         Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="0"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" 
                    Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1">
            <TextBox x:Name="tbLastName" 
                 Text="{Binding Path=LastName, Mode=TwoWay, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True, NotifyOnValidationError=True, FallbackValue=''}" />
            <dataInput:DescriptionViewer Description="Please enter your last name."
                                         Target="{Binding ElementName=tbLastName}"/>
        </StackPanel>
        <dataInput:Label Target="{Binding ElementName=tbAge}"
                         Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="0"/>
        <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" 
                    Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1">
            <TextBox x:Name="tbAge" 
                     Text="{Binding Path=Age, Mode=TwoWay, ValidatesOnDataErrors=True, NotifyOnValidationError=True, FallbackValue='0'}"/>
            <dataInput:DescriptionViewer Description="Please enter a valid age between 18 and 130."
                                         Target="{Binding ElementName=tbAge}"/>
        </StackPanel>
        <dataInput:ValidationSummary Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="0"
                                     Grid.ColumnSpan="2"/>        
    </Grid>

Some of these helper classes are made available via the toolkit for Silverlight 3 as well.

Labels

The label class lets us bind to an element like a textbox. It will pull the name of the databound property from the annotations and display it. If a validation error is thrown, it will turn red to further reinforce the error. If the field is tagged as required, the label will automatically bold itself to indicate a required field.

Learn more about the Label class

New Bindings

If you take a look at the textbox contorls, you'll see we've added new binding parameters. Specifically, ValidatesOnDataErrors (as opposed to exceptions) and FallbackValue (a value to use when databinding fails).

Learn more about bindings

Description Viewer

The description viewer control provides an easy way to show tips and hints and is similar to the ToolTip service. It will show an informational icon that, when the cursor hovers over, will provide a hint or description.

Learn more about the description viewer

Validation Summary

Finally, we add a validation summary control. The default behavior is to list all errors. When the user clicks on an error, it gives focus to the UI element that caused the error.

Learn more about the validation summary class

Putting it all Together

When you tie this all together and run it (without any additional code behind), this is an example of what you'll see:

• Note the labels automatically pulled from the DisplayAttribute on the entity class
• The labels are bold due to the RequiredAttribute annotation
• The labels on properties with errors are colored red
• I clicked on the information glyph next to the first name text box and was the hint to enter my first name
• I clicked on the red triangle in the upper right corner of the text box for age and was shown the error that my age is not in the valid range
• The ValidationSummary control has summarized my errors (if I click on one, I'll be taken to the control with the issue)

As you can see, that's quite a bit of functionality right out of the box, and it allows a nice, clean separation of things like attributes and descriptions from the user interface that presents them.

Earlier I explored some options to allow inline hyperlinks in Silverlight 3 using some extensions and the WrapPanel. In Silverlight 4, which was released as beta earlier this week, the problem is solved in the framework. Silverlight 4 gives us the RichTextArea control, which allows us to organize runs, spans, paragraphs, and even embed other UI elements to create a very richly illustrated document.

To illustrate this, I fired up a new Silverlight Application in Visual Studio 2010 and chose a Silverlight 4 application. Grabbing some more "lorem ipsum" text, I threw it into a RichTextArea control and then began embellishing with hyper links, formatting, and tossed in a red rectangle for good measure. The markup looks like this:

<RichTextArea TextWrapping="Wrap">
            <RichTextArea.Blocks>
                <Paragraph>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit.
                    <Bold>Suspendisse eu erat quis nibh laoreet hendrerit.</Bold>
                    <Italic>Tortor quam, auctor vel elementum et, rhoncus id augue.</Italic>
                    <Span Foreground="BlueViolet">Vestibulum nulla augue, dictum ut placerat et,</Span>
                    <Span>hendrerit a lorem. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in</Span>
                    <Hyperlink NavigateUri="http://www.wintellect.com/"> faucibus orci luctus </Hyperlink>
                    <Run>et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Donec sollicitudin feugiat augue, eu 
                        vestibulum eros dapibus vel.
                    </Run>
                    <InlineUIContainer>
                        <Rectangle Width="20" Height="20" Stroke="Black" Fill="Red"/>
                    </InlineUIContainer>
                    Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos.                  
                </Paragraph>
            </RichTextArea.Blocks>
            </RichTextArea>

As you can see, I am able to mix raw text, spans and runs that format colors or fonts, hyperlinks, and even use the InlineUIContainer to toss a rectangle into the mix. After building and publishing, this is what appears in the browser:

As you can see, a very serviceable rendering!

Next, we'll have a quick bit of fun. I add some row definitions and a header:

 <Grid.RowDefinitions>
             <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
             <RowDefinition/>
             <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
         </Grid.RowDefinitions>
         <TextBlock FontWeight="Bold" Grid.Row="0">Header

I wire the text area into row 1, then add this button to the last row:

  <Button Click="Button_Click" Content="Print" Grid.Row="2"/>

Do you get where I'm going? We don't want to print the header or the button, just the lorem ipsum section, so this is what we wire into the code behind:

public partial class MainPage : UserControl
{
    PrintDocument _pd; 

    public MainPage()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        _pd = new PrintDocument();
        _pd.PrintPage += new EventHandler(pd_PrintPage);
    }

    void pd_PrintPage(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs e)
    {
        e.PageVisual = MainText;
    }

    private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        _pd.DocumentName = "Lorem Ipsum";
        _pd.Print();
    }
}

Note that we have three steps:

1. Create a printing surface
2. Trigger the print by calling the print method (and optionally setting some parameters)
3. Wiring into the print event and setting the visual to print only what we want (keep in mind we could have created an entirely new set of UI elements here).

The new page looks like this:

When I click "print" I'm given the familiar print dialog. I selected the XPS writer and saved it as an XPS document. Here is the final result:

I'll continue to follow how Silverlight 4 makes our life easier by integrating into the framework what we used to have to build ourselves!