Setting the Startup Screen for a LightSwitch Application

For the latest documentation on Visual Studio 2017, see Visual Studio 2017 Documentation.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to change the startup screen for a LightSwitch application.

Setting the Startup Screen

When users run an application, the startup screen appears first. By default, the first screen that you create is set as the startup screen. In many cases, you’ll want to show a different screen on startup. For example, if most users use your application to track orders, you'll probably want to show the Browse Orders screen when they start the application.

You might also want to display a startup screen with buttons to launch other available screens. You can do this by creating a screen without any associated data.

To change the startup screen

1. In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the BrowseOrders.lsml node, and then choose Set as Home Screen.

2. Run the application and verify the change.

   When the application starts, the Browse Orders screen appears first.

To add a home screen

1. In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the Screens node, and then choose Add Screen.

2. In the Add Screen dialog box, in the Select a screen template list, choose Browse Data Screen.

3. In the Screen Name text box, enter Home. In the Screen Data list, choose (None), and then choose the OK button.

4. In the Screen Designer, choose the Rows Layout | Group (Tab) node. In the Rows Layout list, choose Columns Layout.

5. Open the shortcut menu for the Columns Layout | Group (Tab) node, and then choose Add Button.

6. In the Add Button dialog box, open the showTab list, choose showBrowseContactLists, and then choose the OK button.

7. In the Properties window, choose the Name property, and then enter Contacts.

8. Repeat steps 5-7 to add buttons for showCurrentProductList and showBrowseOrders, and name them Products and Orders respectively.

   

9. In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the Home.lsml node, and then choose Set as Home Screen.

10. Run the application and verify the change.

    When the application starts, the Home screen appears first, and the buttons can be used to launch the other screens.

Closer Look

In this lesson, you learned how to change the startup screen for your application. A startup screen is required, but it doesn’t have to be a data screen. As you saw, you can also create a blank screen as the startup screen.

Next Steps

In the next set of lessons, you’ll learn how to enable authentication and authorization for your application.

Next lesson: Enabling Authorization and Creating Permissions

See Also

Creating Commands and Working with Menus