DXperience 13.1 - New version of .NET components from DevExpress
Not so long ago, we announced the release of a new major version of our set of controls and components for .NET developers - DXperience 13.1. By tradition, the new version contains many new products and enhancements for developers on WinForms, ASP.NET, WinRT, Silverlight and WPF platforms.
The design of Windows 8 has pleased many users and developers. And the need for applications for a classic desktop is still there. Therefore, we continue to develop desktop platforms, but at the same time we do not stay away from trends. As a result, new themes, controls, focused on use with touch screens, navigation and data visualization elements have appeared. And all this you can use on your familiar platform, be it ASP.NET, WinForms, WPF or Silverlight.
What's New came out pretty spreading, so if you don’t want to read it completely in English - welcome under cat.
For those who are interested in a particular platform, you can immediately follow one of these links:
Now consider each direction separately.
The release was rich in new items.
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Spreadsheet control. Now, in your application, you can implement full-fledged MS Excel with support for formulas, cell formatting and data import / export from / to XLS, XLSX, CSV, TXT formats. And it has not been without a ready-made setting for the Ribbon menu, which has all the necessary menu items for the Spreadsheet control. In general, see for yourself.
Map Control allows you to display maps in WinForms applications. The control has the following functionality:
PDF Viewer Control (beta). Now you can view PDF files directly from your application, and it doesn't matter if your end user has a PDF viewer installed. Control supports scaling, scrolling, embedded fonts, vector graphics, etc. There is also a ready-made setting for the Ribbon menu.
WinRTLiveTileManager . This component easily integrates into an existing application on WinForms and establishes a communication channel with Live Tile Manager . Live Tile Manager is an application on WinRT that mediates between the start screen and the WinForms application. Live Tile Manager shows on the start screen a tile with all the necessary information received from the application on WinForms. Details in our documentation .
The list of innovations for WinForms is enough for a separate rather big topic. Therefore, briefly, we have a library of icons, new editors ( Tree-List Lookup , Sparkline and Popup Gallery ), controls optimized for use on touch screens, as well as many improvements for design-time, etc.
In detail (English): What's New in WinForms .
Document Server is our new library for document automation. This library consists of the following parts:
Using these libraries will be easy, here is an example (eng.):
A small digression. When we introduced the Windows 8 XAML controls, they were part of the DXTREME subscription, with the rest of the mobile products. It soon became apparent that the Windows 8 XAML controls do not fit well into DXTREME and we moved them into a separate package.
Although we are copying design innovations from Windows 8, WinRT platform itself has not been forgotten either.
In detail (English): What's New in Windows 8 XAML .
We did not forget about Silverlight.
Well, if we talk about the use of applications on touch screens, it was not done without a theme optimized for such screens: TouchlineDark .
In detail (English): What's New in Silverlight .
If you have not read the list of innovations for Silverlight (a little higher), then still do it, because What's New in Silverlight is true for the WPF-product line.
In addition, many things have been done only for WPF, but more on that below. Since there are quite a few innovations, I will divide them into categories.
New controls:
New wizards and design improvements:
You can view wizards in action on our channel on Youtube .
In detail (English): What's New in WPF .
Let's start with the new controls.
In 13.1 we got control ImageGallery . He can download pictures from the specified directory, automatically creates thumbnails for pictures, supports touch gestures and can adapt to the width of the screen.
Do not stand on the line and extensions for ASP.NET MVC. We have replenished it with three new products:
Now, about the improvements:
In detail (English): What's New in ASP.NET .
For the report generator, we made a new control - XRTableOfContents . This control automatically creates a table of contents and will be very useful when creating multi-page reports.
For a clear and concise demonstration of the dynamics of a particular business process, you can now use Sparkline control.
Now you don’t have to create your own report design in Visual Studio. The new report designer allows your users to collect reports in the form in which they need them.
And for Snap Control, we implemented the ability to add a data source with a wizard, API for creating reports with code, the ability to edit cell styles and much more.
In detail (English): What's New in Reporting .
Below is a list of innovations for Dashboard.
In detail (English): What's New in Dashboard .
The new release has improved handling of parallel editing conflicts. Now users can simultaneously edit the fields of a single object and then merge the changes.
The ability to edit multiple entries in the List View was added, and then immediately save the changes. Now the user does not need to save each entry separately. In addition, you can save edited records by closing the List View.
Now XAF out of the box supports integration with the SplashScreenManager from WinForms, which makes it even easier (literally in a line of code) to organize and show a beautiful and dynamically updated start screen when you start your application.
In addition, we have improved the support for the Entity Framework (not eXpress Persistent Objects (XPO) are alive!) And also made the data protection module even more powerful and flexible: now you can protect certain fields of business entities by the criterion set by the developer or user in the designer .
And finally, we made a bunch of other smaller improvements in our business framework, based on the feedback and wishes of our users.
More information (English), as well as a video showing the new features in action, can be found here: What's New in XAF .
In the new release of CodeRush, we have focused on supporting XAML. Previously, this was our weak point. We have improved the analysis of resources, data types, properties, and now we allow the user to easily navigate to objects of interest where Visual Studio is powerless. Enhanced innovations will also be the extension of studio intelligence with hints for resources, named controls and binders, automatic declaration of missing XAML namespaces, the ability to easily add / remove rows and columns to the grid and templates (our advanced analog of studio snippets) for quick insertion of controls into markup. You can read more about all this in the blog of CodeRush ideologue Mark Miller.
In the last release, we released our assistant to the developer in the difficult debugging business - Debug Visualizer. In 13.1, he moved to a new level, of the innovations it is worth noting:
To solve performance problems on large projects in a new release, we implemented the asynchronous menu mode of our smart tag. This made it possible to check the availability of our features (which may not be fast for large projects) in a separate thread, thereby avoiding freezes and slowdowns in the user's work.
With a more detailed list of improvements and innovations, we offer you to get acquainted with our What's New in CodeRush .
If you have questions about the new version - ask them in the comments, we will be happy to answer. Thanks for attention!
About general concepts and design
The design of Windows 8 has pleased many users and developers. And the need for applications for a classic desktop is still there. Therefore, we continue to develop desktop platforms, but at the same time we do not stay away from trends. As a result, new themes, controls, focused on use with touch screens, navigation and data visualization elements have appeared. And all this you can use on your familiar platform, be it ASP.NET, WinForms, WPF or Silverlight.
What's New came out pretty spreading, so if you don’t want to read it completely in English - welcome under cat.
For those who are interested in a particular platform, you can immediately follow one of these links:
- Winforms
- Document Server
- Winrt
- Silverlight
- WPF
- ASP.NET
- Reporting
- Dashboard
- eXpressApp Framework (XAF)
- CodeRush
Now consider each direction separately.
Winforms
The release was rich in new items.
')
Spreadsheet control. Now, in your application, you can implement full-fledged MS Excel with support for formulas, cell formatting and data import / export from / to XLS, XLSX, CSV, TXT formats. And it has not been without a ready-made setting for the Ribbon menu, which has all the necessary menu items for the Spreadsheet control. In general, see for yourself.
Map Control allows you to display maps in WinForms applications. The control has the following functionality:
- fast drawing of maps using DirectX
- supports Bing and OpenStreetMap maps
- has a navigation bar for end users
- supports the loading of shapes from the Shapefile format, as well as the ability to draw your shapes
- other nice little things
PDF Viewer Control (beta). Now you can view PDF files directly from your application, and it doesn't matter if your end user has a PDF viewer installed. Control supports scaling, scrolling, embedded fonts, vector graphics, etc. There is also a ready-made setting for the Ribbon menu.
WinRTLiveTileManager . This component easily integrates into an existing application on WinForms and establishes a communication channel with Live Tile Manager . Live Tile Manager is an application on WinRT that mediates between the start screen and the WinForms application. Live Tile Manager shows on the start screen a tile with all the necessary information received from the application on WinForms. Details in our documentation .
The list of innovations for WinForms is enough for a separate rather big topic. Therefore, briefly, we have a library of icons, new editors ( Tree-List Lookup , Sparkline and Popup Gallery ), controls optimized for use on touch screens, as well as many improvements for design-time, etc.
In detail (English): What's New in WinForms .
Document Server
Document Server is our new library for document automation. This library consists of the following parts:
- Spreadsheet Document Server - Spreadsheet Library
- RichEdit Document Server - a library for working with text documents
- Snap Document Server - a library for working with reports
- Compression Library - a library for working with ZIP archives, including encrypted ones.
- Barcode Library - a library for generating all sorts of bar codes
- Unit Conversion Library - a library for converting various units of measurement.
Using these libraries will be easy, here is an example (eng.):
Windows 8 XAML
A small digression. When we introduced the Windows 8 XAML controls, they were part of the DXTREME subscription, with the rest of the mobile products. It soon became apparent that the Windows 8 XAML controls do not fit well into DXTREME and we moved them into a separate package.
Although we are copying design innovations from Windows 8, WinRT platform itself has not been forgotten either.
- Grid has been improved: it now shows summary information for groups and for the whole grid, it has built-in data editing and different types of columns for different data types.
- We have Flyout control, which is useful for displaying pop-up items.
- The latest release will give you a circular context menu, just like from MS Office OneNote.
In detail (English): What's New in Windows 8 XAML .
Silverlight
We did not forget about Silverlight.
- The new release was made Banded View for the Grid control. This is the ability to create multi-line column headings and multi-line rows.
- Built-in tooltips, map selectors, the ability to bind to a database, etc. have appeared in Map Control. In addition, the control added the ability to automatically paint certain areas in accordance with geographic data.
- I would especially note the new touchscreen-friendly controls in Windows 8: FlipView , PageView and SlideView .
Well, if we talk about the use of applications on touch screens, it was not done without a theme optimized for such screens: TouchlineDark .
In detail (English): What's New in Silverlight .
WPF
If you have not read the list of innovations for Silverlight (a little higher), then still do it, because What's New in Silverlight is true for the WPF-product line.
In addition, many things have been done only for WPF, but more on that below. Since there are quite a few innovations, I will divide them into categories.
New controls:
- Property Grid - the same as in the properties window in Visual Studio.
- Controls optimized for use on touchscreens (in addition to those listed above for Silverlight): DateEdit and Range Control .
New wizards and design improvements:
- Chart Control Wizard is a wizard that will help not only to create and configure a new diagram, but also to edit an existing one. Moreover, this wizard can be embedded in the application and your end users will be able to customize the diagrams themselves.
- The WPF Data Source Wizard is a wizard that allows you to configure a data source for any data controller in three steps.
- Scaffolding Wizards are wizards that do all the tedious work of generating various views (View) and data models (Data Model) for you.
- Instant Layout Assistant - as the name implies, helps to create a complex layout in a couple of clicks.
You can view wizards in action on our channel on Youtube .
In detail (English): What's New in WPF .
ASP.NET WebForms & ASP.NET MVC
Let's start with the new controls.
In 13.1 we got control ImageGallery . He can download pictures from the specified directory, automatically creates thumbnails for pictures, supports touch gestures and can adapt to the width of the screen.
Do not stand on the line and extensions for ASP.NET MVC. We have replenished it with three new products:
- ImageSlider
- Filemanager
- Captcha
Now, about the improvements:
- If you like uploading the content of the page as it scrolls (the so-called infinite scrolling, so popular in social networks, for example, on Twitter), now you can do the same in your web application. The following products support endless scrolling:
- Gridview
- Dataview
- NewsControl
- ImageGallery
- We improved ImageSlider . Now he can show pictures from the binary storage, supports templates and got two new modes (Slideshow Mode and Navigation Bar Mode).
- FormLayout can now work directly with data sources.
- If you want your application to look native in SharePoint 2013 (which, by the way, we supported in this release) or as cool as MS Office 2013, then please: the new theme is Metropolis Blue .
In detail (English): What's New in ASP.NET .
Reporting
For the report generator, we made a new control - XRTableOfContents . This control automatically creates a table of contents and will be very useful when creating multi-page reports.
For a clear and concise demonstration of the dynamics of a particular business process, you can now use Sparkline control.
Now you don’t have to create your own report design in Visual Studio. The new report designer allows your users to collect reports in the form in which they need them.
And for Snap Control, we implemented the ability to add a data source with a wizard, API for creating reports with code, the ability to edit cell styles and much more.
In detail (English): What's New in Reporting .
Dashboard
Below is a list of innovations for Dashboard.
- OLAP Server Mode . In this mode, all data manipulations are performed on the server, which can significantly improve performance.
- Dashboard Title.
- New theme and many improvements for printing.
In detail (English): What's New in Dashboard .
eXpressApp Framework
The new release has improved handling of parallel editing conflicts. Now users can simultaneously edit the fields of a single object and then merge the changes.
The ability to edit multiple entries in the List View was added, and then immediately save the changes. Now the user does not need to save each entry separately. In addition, you can save edited records by closing the List View.
Now XAF out of the box supports integration with the SplashScreenManager from WinForms, which makes it even easier (literally in a line of code) to organize and show a beautiful and dynamically updated start screen when you start your application.
In addition, we have improved the support for the Entity Framework (not eXpress Persistent Objects (XPO) are alive!) And also made the data protection module even more powerful and flexible: now you can protect certain fields of business entities by the criterion set by the developer or user in the designer .
And finally, we made a bunch of other smaller improvements in our business framework, based on the feedback and wishes of our users.
More information (English), as well as a video showing the new features in action, can be found here: What's New in XAF .
CodeRush
In the new release of CodeRush, we have focused on supporting XAML. Previously, this was our weak point. We have improved the analysis of resources, data types, properties, and now we allow the user to easily navigate to objects of interest where Visual Studio is powerless. Enhanced innovations will also be the extension of studio intelligence with hints for resources, named controls and binders, automatic declaration of missing XAML namespaces, the ability to easily add / remove rows and columns to the grid and templates (our advanced analog of studio snippets) for quick insertion of controls into markup. You can read more about all this in the blog of CodeRush ideologue Mark Miller.
In the last release, we released our assistant to the developer in the difficult debugging business - Debug Visualizer. In 13.1, he moved to a new level, of the innovations it is worth noting:
- Added analysis of expressions causing exceptions.
- added support for XAML binders in Silverlight 5
- Information about all actions that occurred during debugging is saved in a separate window
To solve performance problems on large projects in a new release, we implemented the asynchronous menu mode of our smart tag. This made it possible to check the availability of our features (which may not be fast for large projects) in a separate thread, thereby avoiding freezes and slowdowns in the user's work.
With a more detailed list of improvements and innovations, we offer you to get acquainted with our What's New in CodeRush .
If you have questions about the new version - ask them in the comments, we will be happy to answer. Thanks for attention!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/184552/
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