Ever wonder what the difference is between a Logical View and File View within the Solution Explorer of a LightSwitch application.

You can select the type of project view of a LightSwitch project by selecting the project view dropdown button on the Solution Explorer pane of the Visual Studio LightSwitch IDE…

Selecting the type of view

First, the “I don’t care I just want to get the job done” Logical View…

The Logical View

Then, the “I need to see everything because I am a control freak” File View…

The File View

YIKES!!

Hmm, how do I express this so everyone can understand. Let’s try this…

For Logical View people…

…and for File View people…

Not sure where the jet pack is on that one, but I am sure it is somewhere.

If your a typical Business Analyst type, or a non-programmer who wants to build a LightSwitch application, your best bet is to not even look at the File View. Unless you absolutely need to, you’ll likely only need the Logical View anyway. It is in the logical view that all the LightSwitch context sensitive menus appear anyway, like when you right-click the Screens folder to create a new screen.

The File View is probably going to be used more by the folks who need to get more out of LightSwitch than what it is really intended for. For example, maybe do some extension work or custom data extension stuff.

Me, I’ll probably mess around with a few things in the File View to see how long it takes before I can royally screw something up. (note to self, back up LightSwitch projects folder on hard drive).

Cheers!