Question

The Scenario

Currently I have a c# silverlight business application. The application is hosted in Asp.net using the ADO.Net entity framework and a domain service class to read/write to/from my sql server database.

The Setup

Client UI

In my silverlight client interface I have an autocomplete box which uses a query to get a list of items relating to the search. The query is in my domain service class and looks as follows:

public IQueryable<Status> GetStatus()
        {
            var q = (from job in Context.Job
                     select job.Status).Distinct()
                    .Select(deliveryState => new Status
                    {
                        DeliveryState = deliveryState,
                        Count = Context.Job.Count
                            (job => job.Status.Trim() == deliveryState.Trim())
                    });
            q = q.Where(job => job.DeliveryState != null);
            return q;
        }

Code Behind

Then in my code behind for the silverlight client interface xaml page, I load the query in the contructor using the following code:

var context = dds.DomainContext as InmZenDomainContext;
            statusFilterBox.ItemsSource = context.Status;
            context.Load(context.GetStatusQuery(), (lo) =>
            {
                //just to show you how to load..  
                //new  ErrorWindow("Loaded.." + lo.Entities.Count()).Show(); 
            }, null);

The Issue

The issue I have is what happens now if I add another autocomplete box to my client interface, and another Get query to perform a different type of search:

public IQueryable<ShortCode> GetShortCode()
        {
            var q = (from job in Context.Job
                     select job.ShortCode).Distinct()
                    .Select(name => new ShortCode
                    {
                        Name = name,
                        Count = Context.Job.Count
                            (job => job.ShortCode.Trim() == name.Trim())
                    });
            q = q.Where(job => job.Name != null);
            return q;
        }

The issue arises due to the fact that the “Context.Load()” function does not support loading multiple queries. Also If I try to declare to separate “Context.Load()” – Only one of them works……..

How can I get around this!?!

Answer 1

This is kind of an indirect answer to you question so take it or leave it.

I have multiple AutoCompleteBoxes on one screen but I am not using a DDS. I gave up the DDS a long time ago when I kept running into problems. The main thing that I dont like about the dds is that so much of the logic is in the view.

What I do is bind my ACB directly to the entity and use a custom filter to do my complex searches. The list that it searches is an entity list that I populate using the get command

public EntityList<Person> Person
        {
            get { return _DomainContext.Persons; }
        }

I could go into more detail but if you are lock into using the DDS then I will leave it at that.