Lessons in Dynamic Data, Domain Service, and DomainDataSource with ASP.NET 4

I have been working with Silverlight a lot lately and have come to love the Domain Service. I recently started a new ASP.NET based project and saw that in VS 2010 I can now create an ASP.NET Dynamic Data Domain Service Web Application. So, I tried it.

I have learned some things since I did this. Below is what I have learned.

Getting Started, Docs, etc.

• For a good starting point to learn about Dynamic Data, click here.
• Here are the best docs I can find for looking at lot of scenarios and customizations you may want to do with Dynamic Data. I recommend reading this.
• There is sample code that is referenced in the docs above. I think the code may be a bit out of date though. Anybody know where newer sample code is?
• Here is the Dynamic Data forum if all else fails.
• Once you create a new project in Visual Studio 2010 the project does run. You need to do a few things first like create your model and Domain Service. This walks you through what you need to do.

Gotchas

• If you create a custom page, you MUST have all the REQUIRED fields on the FormView in Edit mode, otherwise, the form will give your an error when you click the Update button. Click here for more details on this issue. Workarounds include setting Visible to false or creating a new FieldTemplate  or modify the existing implementation. Click here for details on how this can be done.

• I tried to create a total independent page that uses the DynamicDataSource, a form view, and my Domain Service Class and it will not work. It can’t figure out the MetaData it needs to work. The solution is to create a directory under DynamicData\CustomPages. The name should match the name of the Entity (not Entity Set). Hint, the name is the singular, not plural if version usually. To create a custom Edit page for your entity, copy DynamicData\PageTemplates\Edit.aspx (and the .aspx.cs file) to the directory you created above. Correct the class names, etc and you should be in good shape. For more details, try here.
• If you create a custom page in the DynamicData\CustomPages\<YourEntity>\Edit.ascx for example don’t use FormView1.FindControl() in the Page_Load() event. If you do it will cause the DropDownLists to not have an item selected in them. I am guessing it is just early for stuff that DynamicData is doing since if you look in the FieldTemplates a lot of stuff such as binding, etc takes place in the PageLoad event. My solution was to use the PreRender event to put my stuff there. That seems to work fine. No issues yet. :)

Here are some differences between the ASP.NET and Silverlight experience.

• The Domain Service is actually a Domain Service CLASS in ASP.NET and doesn’t use WCF or anything like that from what I can tell. In Silverlight it is actually a Domain SERVICE and actually uses WCF under the hood to communicate with your Silverlight application.
• I don’t seem to have to use .Include(“…”) queries in the Domain Service and [Include()] in the MetaData to make the ADO.NET Entity Framework pull in my related entities.