Synchronize Your Data Easily

Live Mesh gives accessibility to your data from multiple devices (including

Mac, Mobile) and allows you to share data with others. Imagine you are creating

sales proposal that needs updates from team members situated at different

geographical locations. Live Mesh helps you put your documents inside a folder

and share them with others, even from a mobile phone browser. To use Live Mesh,

visit the site www.mesh .com and sign in using your Windows Live ID. Mesh

provides Live Desktop with 5 GB space, capability of remote connection, and a

client that can be downloaded on machine that adds machine to mesh. Besides,

every folder created inside mesh has Mesh Bar that helps in managing and

notification of content.

Implementation



Here, we are going to build a Silverlight application to run locally as well

as on live desktop provided by Live Mesh. To build the mesh application, one

needs to login into a different mesh environment. Visit https://developer.mesh-ctp.com

and login using Windows Live ID. This is an environment created specially for

developers and is different from actual mesh environment as mentioned in the

introduction. Add your machine to mesh by installing 'LiveFrameworkClient.msi'

from this page. Now to start building an application, one needs to download Live

framework SDK and tools for Visual Studio. These files can be downloaded from

dev.live.com/liveframework/sdk using invitation tokens that can be obtained

after registering to Microsoft Connect website.

There are three downloads available on the download page 'LiveFramework

SDK.zip','LiveFrameworkTools.msi' and 'Silverlight_tools.exe'. Download all

these files, extract 'LiveFramework.zip' file inside 'Microsoft SDK's' folder

at'C:\Prog ram Files\Microsoft SDKs'. After this, install 'LiveFrameworkTools.msi'

and 'Silverlight_tools.exe'. This will add new project templates to your Visual

Studio 2008 SP1 namely 'Live Framework' , click on it and create new project (PCQ_Silver_MEWA)

using 'Silverlight Mesh-enabled Web Site' template (we are using C# as

programing language). Before creating an application, one needs to add

reference. This can be done by right clicking 'References' and clicking on 'Add

Reference'. Go to 'Browse' tab and go to 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Live

Framework SDK\v0.9\Libraries\.Net Library' and select all three references there

and add them. Here is the content of 'Page.xaml':

Once debugging of Silverlight application starts you need to complete these three steps mentioned above to complete the process of debugging.

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"



xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"


Width="400" Height="300">

Here, we have created simple button, with an event on button click. In this

example, button click will display a message box as shown in 'Page.xaml.cs':

Here silverlight app is running inside developer mesh in Live Desktop. Click on 'MEWA' to get a message. Same application can be run locally using Live Framework Client.

using Microsoft.LiveFX.Client;



using Microsoft.LiveFX.ResourceModel;


namespace PCQ_Silver_MEWASilverlight


{


public partial class Page : UserControl


{


private MeshApplicationService meshApp;


public Page()


{


InitializeComponent();


meshApp = Application.Current.GetMeshApplicationService();


meshApp.LoadCompleted += new EventHandler(meshAppLoaded);


meshApp.LoadAsync();

Upload application package by clicking on 'Upload Package' on Azure Services Developer Portal. Go to Visual studio and click on the link in pop up window to get the path.

}



void meshAppLoaded(object sender, EventArgs e)


{


}


private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)


{


MessageBox.Show("This application runs ONLINE as well as OFFLINE");


}


}


}

Fun part starts now. As soon as you debug this application, it will generate

pop up window with three steps. First one needs to create a new project on

'Azure Services Developer Portal'. This can be done by clicking on the link

provided in the pop up window. On developer portal, click on 'Live Services Live

Framework Community Technology Preview', and fill in 'Project Label' and

'Project Decription'. From next window, select 'Create a Mesh-enabled Web

application'. One needs to upload application package by clicking on 'Upload

Package' button. Simply go back to Visual studio and click on the link in pop up

window to get path of package. Once package is uploaded, it will generate

application self link under 'Web Site Embedding'. Copy this link and pase it in

pop up window and click on 'OK'. This wil launch appliction in 'Live Desktop'.

Now same application can also be launched on user machine using shortcut created

on desktop.

This way, same application runs on web site as well as on local machine, and

further changes made on this application can easly be synchronized with mesh.