Untapped Silverlight Powers: The Interactive Application : Page 4

Saving to Web Service
You are now ready to send the signature to a web service. For this purpose, use an ASP.NET application.

Author's Note: In this section, you will be using the ASP.NET Futures release. You can download the ASP.NET Futures here.

Using the same project created in the previous section, add a new web site project to the current solution (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Use the Same Project: Add a new web site project to the current solution.

Select ASP.NET Futures AJAX Web Site and name the project http://localhost/SignatureWebSite.

In the newly created web project, add a new Web Service item to the Web Site project.

In the WebService.vb file, add the following lines in bold:

Imports System.Web
Imports System.Web.Services
Imports System.Web.Services.Protocols

Imports System.Web.Script.Services

' To allow this Web Service to be called from script, using ASP.NET AJAX, uncomment the following line.
' <System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService()> _
<WebService(Namespace:="http://tempuri.org/")> _
<WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo:=WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)> _
<Global.Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.DesignerGenerated()> _
<ScriptService()> _
Public Class WebService
    Inherits System.Web.Services.WebService

    ...
    ...

End Class

Define the following two web methods:

    <WebMethod()> _
    Public Function SaveSignature(ByVal value As String) As Boolean
        Try
            My.Computer.FileSystem.WriteAllText( _
               Server.MapPath(".") & "\Signature.txt", value, False)
            Return True
        Catch ex As Exception
            Return False
        End Try
    End Function

    <WebMethod()> _
    Public Function GetSignature() As String
        Dim fileContents As String
        fileContents = My.Computer.FileSystem.ReadAllText( _
           Server.MapPath(".") & "\ Signature.txt")
        Return fileContents
    End Function

The SaveSignature() function saves the values of the signature into a text file. The GetSignature() function reads the content of the text file and returns the content back to the caller.

In the Signature Silverlight project, add a web reference to the web service you just created. In the Add Web Reference dialog, click the following (see also Figure 5):

1. Web Services in this solution link
2. WebService
3. Add Reference

Figure 5. Add a Web Reference: Click these buttons to add a web reference to the Web service.

In Page.xaml.vb, code the Save button as follows:

    '---Save button---
    Private Sub btnSave_MouseLeftButtonDown( _
       ByVal sender As Object, _
       ByVal e As System.Windows.Input.MouseEventArgs) _
       Handles btnSave.MouseLeftButtonDown

        Try
            Dim ws As New localhost.WebService
            If ws.SaveSignature(GetSignatureLines) Then
                txtStatus.Text = "Signature sent to WS!"
            Else
                txtStatus.Text = "Error saving to file"
            End If
        Catch ex As Exception
            txtStatus.Text = ex.ToString
        End Try

    End Sub

Here, you send the signature to the Web service.

Next, code the Load button as follows:

    '---Load button---
    Private Sub btnLoad_MouseLeftButtonDown( _
       ByVal sender As Object, _
       ByVal e As System.Windows.Input.MouseEventArgs) _
       Handles btnLoad.MouseLeftButtonDown

        Try
            Dim ws As New localhost.WebService
            DrawSignature(ws.GetSignature)
            txtStatus.Text = "Signature loaded from WS!"
        Catch ex As Exception
            txtStatus.Text = ex.ToString
        End Try

    End Sub

Here, you call the web service to retrieve the saved signature. Save the Signature project.

In Solution Explorer, right-click the http://localhost/SignatureWebSite project, and select Add Silverlight Link.

This will cause Visual Studio 2008 to copy the relevant files from the Silverlight project onto the current project. Select Signature and click OK.

When prompted if you would like to enable Silverlight debugging, click Yes. Notice that a new folder named ClientBin is added to the project and the various files copied onto the project.

The copied files form the compiled Silverlight application.

In Default.aspx, add the following code in bold:

    <form id="form1" runat="server">
        <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" />

        <asp:Xaml ID="Xaml1" runat="server"  
           Width="420" Height="226" 
           XamlUrl="~/Page.xaml" />  

        <div>
        </div>
    </form>

Here, you use the new <asp:Xaml> element to host a Silverlight page.

In the Solution Explorer, right-click the http://localhost/SignatureWebSite project and select Set as Startup Project.

Select Default.aspx and then press F5 to test the project. You can now save the signature to the web service as well as load the saved signature from the web service (see Figure 5).

Useful Last Words
You've seen how to build a Silverlight application to capture a user's signature and then send it to a web service. One particular point to note is the use of the new <asp:Xaml> element to host a Silverlight application from within ASP.NET. In addition, the Silverlight application can only send data back to the web service hosted in the same domain as the web page that is hosting it—cross-domain calls are not supported in this release.

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