Developer Express Inc.

Q&A: Read what viewers asked from live webinar for DevExpress ASP.NET v16.1

The DevExpress Team — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 12:00:00 Z

Q&A: Read what viewers asked from live webinar for DevExpress ASP.NET v16.1

Recently, I presented the "What's new in DevExpress ASP.NET v16.1" webinar to show all the new features, controls, etc. Watch the webinar video here:

Live Q&A

During the live webinar, many viewers asked some great questions about all sorts of things related to DevExpress ASP.NET. Here's the full Q&A which you may find useful too:

General Questions

Q: When v16.1 will be availble to download?
A: We plan to release it in the middle of June. A beta of v16.1 is available now to test and provide feedback on.

Q: When was Beta 2 Released?
A: Monday, June 6th. Check your account to download it: https://www.devexpress.com/ClientCenter/DownloadManager/

ASP.NET Themes & Project Template Questions

Q: When Mehul was covering the themes, he mentioned that certain ones take up more screen space. Is their a comparison grid of the major parameters?
A: No but the mobile friendly themes like Moderno, Material, and iOS have larger paddings than the other themes (in general).

Q: What is the main diference between responsive template and bootstrap template and both include asp identity login?
A: Yes, they both include. As for differences, the responsive template uses DevExpress controls for layout and responsive behavior. While the bootstrap uses, well, bootstrap to do the responsive features.

Q: With Bootstrap being widely accepted, why would you use the DevExpress based Responsive Design instead?
A: We want to offer you choices and it depends on your needs. If you like bootstrap then feel free to use that project template. Otherwise, you can use the DevExpress responsive template.

ASP.NET Core Questions

Q: Does Dev Express v16.1 support ASP.NET Core Framework?
A: We offer ASP.NET Core TagHelpers. Also, check out this upcoming webinar: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1737083611361603332
New ASP.NET MVC Wrappers

ASP.NET GridView Questions

Q: Does Cell merging support text merged at the top of cell like the pivot grid?
A: Not exactly... Cells with the same values are merged vertically. If you need to aggregate by this column, use a regular grouping.

Q: I can see the text merged on grid on the same top position that the next column by default appear on the middle on the cell merged, is possible for the column merged specify top and middle position into cell?
A: Yes, it is possible. Feel free to contact our Support team at Center for additional details.

ASP.NET Spreadsheet Questions

Q: Does the spreadsheet control have multi user support? Similar to excel shared spreadsheet functionality. So 2 people having it open at 1 time and seeing live changes?
A: It is possible to open a single document by several customers at the same time. However the ASPxSpreadsheet doesn't send user updates to another user automatically. Currently, you would need to refresh the document manually to see the other user's changes. We'll consider this feature for a future release.

Q: Does this Spreadsheet control ship with localized function names and function descriptions?
A: Yes, several localization options are available. Please contact our support with your inquiry to get more info.

Q: Is it possible to save the content of the spreadsheet control back to database?
A: Yes, it is possible with server-side API. Please check this example: https://www.devexpress.com/issue=T190812

Q: Does Spreadsheet control support editors like comboboxes in the same form that WinForms Spreadsheet does?
A: Not yet :) , but we have data validation that uses them which seems to cover a lot of cases where other controls are needed.

Q: Do the RichEdit and Spreadsheet controls have an autoheight or 100% height feature in 16.1?
A: Not exactly, however, it has a full screen mode (can be set / toggled programmatically).

Q: Does Spreadsheet control provide spell check capability?
A: Not yet.

ASP.NET Scheduler Questions

Q: Will we be getting the agenda or gannt view that you have released for WinForms?
A: Not in this release but we will consider it for a future release.

Q: Does ASP.NET Scheduler control support control editors like combobox?
A: For example, refer to the http://demos.devexpress.com/ASPxSchedulerDemos/ViewTypes/DayView.aspx demo and open any app using a context menu.

ASP.NET Upload Control Questions

Q: Any plans to improve the upload control? Better error support or events during uploading.
A: Not in this release. For now, use the first suggestion from the https://www.devexpress.com/kbid=KA18611
Would you also please submit a ticket in our Support Center with a list of features that you'd like to see in the upload control?

ASP.NET RichEdit Questions

Q: Instead of doing spelling inline, is there a button in the ribbon to do complete spell check?
A: We do not have a button in ribbon, but we do have a Client API for it and the dialog in the context menu.

Q: Is the standalone query editor available in both web and win?
A: Yes, Web - http://demos.devexpress.com/ASPxGridViewDemos/DataBinding/QueryBuilderControl.aspx and Win - https://community.devexpress.com/blogs/thinking/archive/2016/05/25/winforms-visual-query-builder-ala-ms-access-coming-soon-in-v16-1.aspx

Q: We use the HTML and Rich Text Editor to allow users to edit dynamically generated documents. Is it possible to lock or prevent editing of certails sections of a document. (I.e. offer letter)
A: Currently, protected sections are supported only in ASPxSpreadsheet. We plan to support this feature in ASPxRichEdit in the future.

Q: Are there plans for edit tracking?
A: Do you mean tracking the changes made in ASPxRichEdit? Not for the near future, at least. Our RichEdit Core does not yet support it https://www.devexpress.com/issue=Q231610

Q: Is there plans for richedit comments?
A: Yes we plan to implement in the future

Q: Thank you! These updates are Awesome!
A: Thank you!

Your Next Great .NET App Starts Here

Year after year, .NET developers such as yourself consistently vote DevExpress products #1.

Experience the DevExpress difference for yourself and download a free 30-day trial of all our products today: DevExpress.com/trial.

Entity Framework and DevExpress ASP.NET

Don Wibier (DevExpress) — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 02:53:00 Z

Last week Mehul and I did a webinar on Entity Framework and DevExpress.ASP.NET.

What is Entity Framework?

Entity Framework is an Object Relational Mapping (ORM) tool, much like our own Xpress Persistent Objects (XPO).

An ORM is a layer between the data storage, and your business logic which allows you to manipulate and query your data store by using C# objects instead of working with SqlConnections, SqlCommands, Datareaders and SQL statements!

It means that you have C# classes which represent all entities (tables) in your database and by decorating classes and properties inside those classes, you can specify things like table names, fieldnames, indexes and relationships in your data.

Under the hood of the ORM tool, the appropriate SQL commands are being created runtime, which also means that if you want to change to a different database backend, if the ORM supports it, you can do that without changing any of your C# code! A good example of this is our own XPO, which supports more than a dozen different database back ends by only changing the connection string.

Why Entity Framework?

With the introduction of MVC, it became clear that the use of an ORM together with the MVC design pattern is an excellent combination since you are already working with models (objects) in MVC, and you are working with objects again to get and store information in the database.

Because of this, Microsoft has been putting some great effort in expanding and optimizing the earlier versions of Entity Framework to what it is today (and will become in the future) and they have even added support for WebForms applications as well by delivering an EntityDataSource to the WebForms Toolbox.

Because it is clear that Entity Framework is the Microsoft way to go, we have already changed over all of our demo applications from Sql Data readers to EntityFramework in v15.1.

This gives you the opportunity to see what is involved in start using an ORM.

What did we cover in the Webinar?

Mehul showed you a couple of different methods on how to start with Entity Framework:

Code first

This means that you will create your data-model directly in C# classes and when you start the application, the ORM will sync the database structure with the C# class hierarchy. This is the strategy Microsoft advices.

Database first

In this scenario, the database is modeled and there will be some synchronization design-time to keep your class hierarchy up to date with the database structure

Model first

This approach will open a designer in Visual Studio which allows you to design your database, where when finished, the C# classes will be created / updated as well as the database structure.

Demonstrated approaches

I have showed you 3 approaches on how to access the data from the Chinook Sample Database, by using the Code First approach. Inside Visual Studio there is a feature which allows you to start a Code First project by existing database. This wizard will analyze the database structure and create the Code First classes for you.

I have used the Chinook Demo Database for this which is freely available on CodePlex at: https://chinookdatabase.codeplex.com/

Microsoft Entity DataSource

The first demo I did was by using the Microsoft Entity Datasource control. It is important to get an updated version from NuGet since the version installed in your toolbox is for Entity Framework v4.5 where the default version as of writing is v6.x.

This version has limited design-time support and you need to type the DB Context class and the desired entity property manually.

The Microsoft Entity Datasource was setup quickly and also supports standard CRUD operations out of the box which I showed with our DevExpress ASP.NET GridView control including standard CRUD operations.

DevExpress EntityServerModeDataSource

Since the sample database does not have mega much data, I am talking about millions of records, the Entity Datasource control performs its task quickly. This will change though when there is a huge database involved and you want to enable the DevExpress ASP.NET GridView’s sorting, grouping, paging, filtering etc.

You can see the impact on our demo site at: http://demos.devexpress.com/ASPxGridViewDemos/DataBinding/LinqDataSourceServerMode.aspx

For such usage, we have delivered the DevExpress EntityServerModeDataSource control. It allows you to perform the required tasks on large datasets much quicker because this control determines what kind of data store is behind the your ORM model and fires the most optimal SQL statements. We have taken some of our XPO expertise and put it in this control.

Also our visual controls like the GridView, DataView and CardView know if they are connected to our EntityServerMode DataSource, and will communicate slightly different with it which results in a dramatic performance increase!

Since this control’s main meaning of live is data reading, you will need to code a number of events manually to allow standard CRUD operations.

Standard ObjectDataSource

While this control was initially released with ASP.NET v2, it is still one of my favorite controls when doing WebForms and data access.

It allows you to totally separate the business logic from the presentation layer and you also have total control on what data to fetch when you enable certain properties on the control.

This control needs a class which implements a number of methods for Selecting and optionally for Updating, Inserting and Deleting.

I have shown you that you can use LINQ queries inside the Select method to fetch results from the datastore. Entity Framework will transform these LINQ queries to SQL statements under the hood.

Conclusion

In case you haven’t checked an ORM like Entity Framework out, we would urge you to take a look at it since it helps you in developing secure and modern applications. We have shown you that it is not MVC proprietary technology and that our DevExpress data controls can take full advantage of it.

You can download the demo project I have been building, as usual, from my GitHub account at: https://github.com/donwibier/DXWebFormsEF.

In the project on GitHub, you will notice that I did implement the CRUD operations, and some additional powerful methods in the ObjectDataSource class for real paged data fetching with LINQ, in combination with Sorting and Filtering.

Let me know what you have already done with Entity Framework or if you’re facing any difficulties!

TestCafe - Wrappers

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 22:11:00 Z

A few weeks ago, I presented a TestCafe webinar on how to include 3rd party controls inside your automated testing, specifically the DevExpress ASPxGridView control. The team have now published the first official wrappers and made them available via GitHub.

Inside the repository you’ll find the wrappers, examples and comprehensive documentation on how to install as well as detailed explanations on how to implement the different elements of the API.

In addition please check out the knowledge base article showing how to create a test for a master-detail ASPxGridView or the YouTube video tutorial.

.NET Grid Controls: Faster Sorting, Grouping and Summary Computations (Coming soon in v14.2)

The DevExpress Team — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 07:35:00 Z

Great news! If you use a DevExpress Data Grid control for ASP.NET, WinForms, and/or WPF then you'll experience better performance just by upgrading to v14.2!

Which Grids?

The performance enhancements we've introduced throughout 2014 apply to the following Grid controls:

ASP.NET: ASPxGridView
WinForms: XtraGrid
WPF: DXGrid

What Changed between v13.2 and v14.2?

As you probably know by now, over the last few release cycles, we've made the decision to move our codebase forward and take advantage of the newest features available in the .NET Framework (see Support for .NET Client Profile being discontinued and DXperience 13.1 will be .NET 4 or above).

This decision freed us up to re-factor older code and throughout 2014, we rewrote major portions of our data processing engine in order to deliver improved grid performance for common data processing operations like sorting, grouping and summary calculations. We also tested these changes across countless use-case scenarios and made certain that performance was either improved or the same as previous releases.

The exciting thing is that in some highly popular use-case scenarios, we succeeded in making our .NET Grid controls about 10 times faster!

Of course, performance generally depends on your specific environment and on how you utilize grids in your apps – but I've shared our test results below so you can see a few of the reasons we think you should upgrade from older versions of DevExpress Grid controls to those shipping in v14.2

The Details

Here are some specifics on how we squeezed more performance out of our grid controls:

If a data controller determines that sorting or grouping operations are thread-safe (for instance sorting properties of basic .NET Framework types with default comparers), it uses multiple threads to utilize the full potential of the modern computers.
Advanced caching strategies were introduced.
All if-checks logic was rewritten to make certain that all if-checks, which give the same result for all rows, are evaluated once (by generating function/delegate that contains only necessary code).
All code is now strongly-typed (whenever possible) eliminating the cost of boxing/unboxing and type-checking operations.
For some cases, upper-level and total summaries are calculated from lower-level summaries.

Test Results

I mentioned earlier that we tested our grids to cover a broad range of use-case scenarios. Here's one of our test results (comparing v13.2 and v14.2):

The DevExpress WinForms Grid control was bound to 4,000,000 (4 million) strongly-typed objects. Tests were performed on a machine with an Intel® Core™ i5-2500 Processor. The table below lists tests operations and execution time (in seconds):

Again, please remember that test results will vary on different machines/configurations - we invite you to compare for yourself and leave your comments/feedback below.

What do think about these performance gains? Leave a comment below. Thanks!

Your Next Great .NET App Starts Here

Year after year, .NET developers such as yourself consistently vote DevExpress products #1.

Experience the DevExpress difference for yourself and download a free 30-day trial of all our products today: DevExpress.com/trial.

DevExpress Grids – Faster Sorting, Grouping and Summaries (Coming soon in v14.2)

Don Wibier (DevExpress) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:21:00 Z

Besides all the new features we have been blogging about, there are also numerous improvements on existing controls and features in v14.2. While our grid controls on all platforms are famous for their speed and are recognized through the awards we keep winning, we just couldn’t resist making them even faster!

Besides putting in some pepper here and there, we also revised our data processing code improving every single detail of it. This relates to sorting, grouping and calculating summaries, basically the most common data operations in the grid.

The actual performance increase on your application depends on a number of other factors as well but we have timed and measured extensively on a number of common scenarios and it turns out that the grids are more then 10 times faster in those cases!

We did our testing on an XtraGrid, bound to 4,000,000 strongly-typed objects on an Intel® Core™ i5-2500 Processor and you will see the differences between v13.2 and v14.2 in seconds.

Because we have a common code base for the different presentation layers, these improvements are implemented on the ASPxGridView, XtraGrid, XtraVerticalGrid and DXGrid.

What did we do?

One of the most important changes we already did in v13.1 is dropping some legacy technologies like DXperience 13.1 will be .NET 4 or above, and the discontinuation of support for .NET Client Profile. These technical decisions allowed us to use powerful and effective C# features which we couldn’t use before. We actually started making changes in v14.1 but didn’t mention this because we were not finished with the entire plan. This does explain why our comparison tests are between v13.2 and v14.2 to give you a good overview.

Conclusion

I you didn’t try our v14.2 beta, please download and test it and tell us what you think!

Stay tuned for more exciting v14.2 news

ASP.NET Data Grid: Enhancements (Coming soon in v14.2)

The DevExpress Team — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:00:00 Z

The excellent DevExpress ASP.NET GridView (or DataGrid) control is getting even better with the v14.2 release!

Check out these features that will be available for both ASP.NET WebForms and MVC versions of the GridView:

Instant Search Panel

I love this feature because it adds one simple but powerful way to filter the GridView. The new 'instant search panel' feature adds one textbox at the top of the GridView that provides an easy and straightforward way for end-users to locate data. Much like how Microsoft Word's Find feature works.

Enter text within the Find box and the grid will display those records that have matching values:

It's a feature that we've had in our WinForms DataGrid, XtraGrid, for a while and I'm happy to say that we've now ported it for ASP.NET.

Fixed Group Rows

With this update, the DevExpress ASP.NET Grid View can anchor a grouped row to the topmost region of its container as it scrolls records contained within a specific group:

This helps your end-users see the current grouping of the rows easily and quickly.

New Excel® Data Export Engine

The DevExpress ASP.NET Grid Control uses a new, more powerful Excel data export engine. Both the performance and memory usage of this new engine have been significantly improved.

The following grid features are fully supported for all Excel export operations:

Data Grouping - with the ability to collapse/expand groups within a worksheet
Data Sorting and Filtering - allowing end-users to display relevant data in the desired order
Totals and Group Summaries - with the ability to modify/change formulas
Data Validation for Combo-box Columns
Fixed Columns

Learn more here

What do you think about the new GridView features in the v14.2 release? Drop me a line below. Thanks!

Mehul Harry
Email: mharry@devexpress.com
Twitter: @MehulHarry

Your Next Great .NET App Starts Here

Year after year, .NET developers such as yourself consistently vote DevExpress products #1.

Experience the DevExpress difference for yourself and download a free 30-day trial of all our products today: DevExpress.com/trial.

ASP.NET Grid Wildcard Filtering with DevExpress v2012.2

The DevExpress Team — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:11:00 Z

A powerful way to filter the DevExpress ASP.NET GridView is to use the “Like” operator with wildcards. This feature has been updated and now available in the latest DXperience v2012.2 release.

Powerful Grid Filtering

Check out this animation that shows how to use many of the powerful filtering commands with the “Like” operator with wildcards:

How to Enable

1. First, you’ll need to enable AutoFilterRow by setting the Settings.ShowFilterRow to true. The Header Filter (AutoFilterRow) to allow your end-users to filter the individual columns.

2. Then you’ll need to set the columns to support the “Like” filter condition. You can either set it explicitly on the column like this:

<dx:GridViewDataTextColumn FieldName="ProductName" VisibleIndex="1" >
    <Settings AutoFilterCondition="Like" />
</dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>

This uses the “Like” operator as the default.

3. If you would like to give your end-users a choice then enable the Filter Row Menu using the ASPxGridView.ShowFilterRowMenu property. And be sure to also set the GridViewDataColumnSettings.ShowFilterRowMenuLikeItem property on the column too:

<dx:GridViewDataTextColumn FieldName="ProductName" VisibleIndex="1" >
    <Settings AutoFilterCondition="Like" ShowFilterRowMenuLikeItem="True" />
</dx:GridViewDataTextColumn>

This provides your end-users with one of the most powerful GridView filtering options available:

Wildcard Filtering

The Like item allows end-users to create filter expressions with wildcards:

- the '%' symbol - substitutes zero or more characters;
- the '_' symbol - substitutes a single character.

The Like menu item's tooltip displays help text that explains which wildcards are supported:

Represents the LIKE operator that determines whether a specific character string matches a specified pattern or not.

The following wildcard characters are supported:

% matches a string of zero or more characters. For instance:CriteriaOperator.Parse("Name like 'Jo%'") - returns all the objects whose Name begins with 'Jo'.
CriteriaOperator.Parse("Name like '%car%'") - returns all the objects whose Name contains the 'car' substring.

_ matches a single character. For instance:CriteriaOperator.Parse("Name like 'car_'") - returns all the objects whose Name consists of four characters and begins with 'car'.

[ ] identifies a single character within the specified range ([a-c]) or set ([abc]). For instance:CriteriaOperator.Parse("Name like '[A-C]%'") - returns all the objects whose Name begins with 'A', 'B' or 'C'.

[ ^ ] excludes a single character not within the specified range ([^a-c]) or set ([^abc]). For instance:CriteriaOperator.Parse("Name like 're[^de]%'") - returns all the objects whose Name begins with 're', and where the following letter is not 'd' or 'e'.

See Criteria Language Syntax to learn more.

Learn more

The DevExpress ASP.NET GridView helps your website with powerful features like the Filtering, Grouping, Sorting and a lot more. Learn more by watching the “ASP.NET GridView Tips and Tricks” webinar:

Mehul Harry presents the DevExpress ASP.NET GridView webinar. #GettingStarted #Tips #Tricks

DXperience? What's That?

DXperience is the .NET developer's secret weapon. Get full access to a complete suite of professional components that let you instantly drop in new features, designer styles and fast performance for your applications. Try a fully-functional version of DXperience for free now: http://www.devexpress.com/Downloads/NET/

ASP.NET Controls - Touch Enabled on the iPad...

Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:19:00 Z

Here's a quick little teaser video demonstrating some of the ASP.NET touch-enabled features coming in DXperience v2011 vol 2....including the DevExpress ASP.NET Grid and ASP.NET Scheduler Controls. I especially love the acceleration support within the grid and of course nothing is sexier than a touch enabled scheduler control.

As always, we welcome your feedback...Mehul will be describing implementation details in the coming weeks...

ASP.NET GridView: How-To Add Multiple Check-Box Column Filter

The DevExpress Team — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:40:00 Z

Watch the "Mastering ASP.NET GridView: Filtering and Multiple Checkboxes" webinar and learn how-to add this easily the ASPxGridView.

Check out this slick Code Central sample that shows you how to add a multiple selection header filter to the DevExpress ASP.NET GridView:

Code Central Sample:

Implementing pivot grid like filtration style

How to use Code Central

How-To:

To get a header filter like our ASPxPivotGrid, here's a short explanation:

Add an <img> tag to the column's CaptionTemplate Container
Then handle its' click event and show the PopupControl containing all required items. It is possible to populate the ASPxPopupControl with items using the ASPxCallback control.
You should send a callback to the server, add all the required items and finally return the rendering result to the client.
When the end-user selects several items and clicks the OK button, send the GridView's callback to the server and filter it as needed.

You can try this sample online now. Then download the code central sample to your local machine and have fun with the project yourself.

Try this useful filter sample for the ASPxGridView. Then drop me a line below with your thoughts. Thanks.

Accept No Limitations - Voted Best Grid by readers of DevProConnections Magazine for 4 straight years

The ASPxGridView Suite is a feature-complete grid and editors library for ASP.NET. With blazing fast data loading, extensive data shaping options, and lightweight memory footprint, the ASPxGridView allows you to deliver a highly compelling and effective end-user experience with ease.

Go with the winner - the most decorated ASP.NET Grid Control in the market.

Check out all the great features now: ASP.NET Data Grid and Data Editors

ASP.NET MVC & WebForms: Multi-Row Editing Gridview With Instant Updates using jQuery Ajax

The DevExpress Team — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:25:00 Z

Check out these 2 great Code Central examples that show you how to enable multi-row editing with instant updates using Ajax callbacks.

And you can do it in both ASP.NET MVC and ASP.NET WebForms!

ASP.NET MVC

In this sample, we use the DevExpress MVC GridView and TextBox Extensions together with the jQuery Ajax method to instantly update changes. Using our our ASPxClientEdit.ValueChanged event as a trigger, we call the jQuery.ajax method to save the changes on the server side.

Code Central Sample:

ASP.NET MVC - How to perform GridView instant updating using different editors in the DataItem template

ASP.NET WebForms

In this sample, we use the DevExpress ASPxGridView and it's built-in callback support to update the changes made on the client-side instantly to the server side.

Code Central Sample:

ASP.NET WebForms - How to perform ASPxGridView instant updating using different editors in the DataItem template

Check out the How-To samples above on Code Central. Then drop me a line below with your thoughts. Thanks!

Build Your Best - Without Limits or Compromise

Try the DevExpress ASP.NET MVC Extensions online now: http://mvc.devexpress.com

Read the latest news about DevExpress ASP.NET MVC Extensions

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