Wcf – Configuring the timeout for a WCF RIA Services call from a Silverlight 3 client

Actually, although I blogged (see Luke's answer), I think this is better than my IDisposable wrapper. Typical code:

Service<IOrderService>.Use(orderService=>
{
  orderService.PlaceOrder(request);
}); 

(edit per comments)

Since Use returns void, the easiest way to handle return values is via a captured variable:

int newOrderId = 0; // need a value for definite assignment
Service<IOrderService>.Use(orderService=>
  {
    newOrderId = orderService.PlaceOrder(request);
  });
Console.WriteLine(newOrderId); // should be updated

Agree with ChuckJ - generally the DomainContext forms part of a view model. For example, say I had a search page that allowed searching against a product catalog. Here is how I'd structure things:

On the server:

class Catalog : DomainService {
    IQueryable<Product> GetProducts(string keyword) { ... }
}

The generated DomainContext:

class Catalog : DomainContext {
    EntityList<Product> Products { get; }
    void LoadProducts(string keyword);
}

The view model I would write:

class SearchViewModel {
    Catalog _catalog = new Catalog();

    public IEnumerable<Product> Results {
        get { return _catalog.Products; }
    }

    public void Search(string keyword) {
        _catalog.Products.Clear();
        _catalog.LoadProducts(keyword);
    }
}

And then finally in my xaml, I'd set my UserControl's DataContext to be an instance of SearchViewModel, and bind an ItemsControl to the Results property. I'd use the ViewModel pattern of your choice to bind a button click to Search (which is effectively a command that SearchViewModel exposes). I personally like something that I have working with Silverlight.FX as in:

<Button Content="Search"
  fxui:Interaction.ClickAction="$model.Search(keywordTextBox.Text)" />

and as initially shown here.

As Chuck mentions I might indeed have other state in my view model, for example, the SelectedProduct that might be two-way bound to the SelectedItem of a ListBox in my xaml, and then bind the same SelectedProduct as the DataContext of a DataForm to show details of a selected product.

Hope that helps! I'll be blogging about this some more on my blog soon.