ctodx

Julian,

Do you think you'll revert back to a three release cycle in 2011? Is 2010 really a year, like you say, to get all of these new major architecural changes in, or is it also a test year for going to a two releases per year from here out?

I am looking forward to the seemingly beefier minor releases. I am interested to see how this will turn out.

I don't mind the two releases per year, I don't care if it was one IF you would change your policy and consider (please) adding new functionality in minor releases.  Currently the policy within, as I know it, is that you don't add new functionality until a major release (3x/year in the past).  There are minor enhancements that I really hate to wait 6+ months for.  Take the expression editor as an example.  Great start, needs A LOT of work.  Do we need to wait for 2010.1 or .2 to see these enhancements?  I would hope not.  Improve along the way is what I, your customer, would prefer.

Thx

Somehow this reads as the management summary, will there be a more detailed roadmap in the days/weeks to come?

Glad to have ya back onboard Julian, you already know my view but figured I would post it publically.

I am all for less frequency, more features and fully agree with the idea of two releases a year, the dramas around packaging up a product is not only time consuming but problematic as well.

I am most excited about agXPO and agReport/agPrinting, if I can get these all working together nicely it gives me my web platform to move to. Look forward to the coming year.

Hopefully M$ will pull VS2010 together and make it an improvement over VS2008, however I fear that with a "redeveloped" graphic engine (move to WPF) it will mean new bugs and issues. Only time will tell :)

I am also happy with the two releases a year I can imagine a lot of time is spent making sure everything is in sync before a release.

Reading the roadmap I am happy the XtraRichEdit will be in terms of general use feature complete with header footer support and table support. Anything to avoid word interop which is limited and looks unprofessional.

As for silverlight and WPF I am glad reporting and charting will be matched with winforms and asp.net this will mean I can embark on a project using these technologies and/or convert an exising one.

I seem to remember printing was an issue with silverlight 3 which I guess is why you said printing assuming .NET 4 for silverligh, does this mean direct printing as specified by the developer as oppose to some interim PDF type printing?

Peter,

Yup part of the new features of SL4 is a Printing API, timheuer.com/.../whats-new-in-silverlight-4-complete-guide-new-features.aspx

It is apparently a little "basic" and rough within the current Beta but there is strong suggestions the API is being extended a fair bit before RTM, I suppose the big issue ATM is Bitmap printing, therefore the Spooler can get up to 100mb per page as it is sent as just a big picture :) but again we have to wait for RTM to find out the result.

But to have some "built in" way to print is extremely exciting for my development, because it means things like Invoicing, Job Sheets, Stock Sheets etc become doable within the SL app instead of having yet another solution like an ASP.NET page to serve up the report.

Hi Julian,

Welcome back.

In regard to VCL - If I read the detail correctly the year will be focused on refinement and enhancement rather than any new components.

Do I read correctly?

Regards,

Ian

I am also in regard of VCL,

I though that there will be new component at least Gauge Control that have been sounded at VCL Forum last year.

Regards,

Iskandar

Regarding VCL: I would really like to see your controls support all new stuff that came with Windows 7. Also have a look at what enhancements were made to the VCL controls (like, CategoryPanel, TextHint property, Tbutton, etc). Since I use DevEx controls only and basically none of the VCL controls I would like to have that new functionality too. And I'm sure I'm not the only one :-)

Quote " On the reporting front, we aim to provide a reporting services product by the second half of the year. In essence, this product will serve up automated reports to all of our report viewers across all platforms. "

I would like to know more about that - even broad lines. And whether it will be integrated into XAF.

Hmmmm - Not much happening with WinForms, I guess it is time to start looking at WPF. Problem is it looks like 2010 is the year that WPF gets near to WinForms functionality (Dev Express wise that is).

As for 2 major releases - no problem in my book as long as we get the same large number of new features just bundled into these two releases. Of course the time saved on not packaging up that extra major release can be used to improve the help files and produce more videos to prepare us for the releases...

Hi Julian, welcome back!

I have a Q.: Can we expect in the minor releases a few minor improvements that for sure don't break existing code or structure? For example - improvements in design time support for the XAF Model Editor; or Documentation enhancement (in the Help guides for the developers); etc.?

Quote  " adding server mode to other controls "

:)

Julian: Welcome back (I only said it because everyone else seems to be saying it) :). Thanks for publishing the road map it is nice to see what you guys are planning for us for this year.

CAPTCHA control over a possible vertical grid or other enhancements to the asp.net line, seriously? Perhaps I'm totally out in left field but is there really that much demand for a CAPTCHA control?

Something else I wish you guys would do is go back through the list of enhancement requests and give us a realistic answer regarding its implementation. I'm tracking numerous CodeRush/Refactor! enhancements that have been in the "Accepted release TBD" status for at least a year or more.

Funny, i read "reporting services" to mean "sql server reporting services"

your own custom reporting server is pretty cool! really looking forward to that!

Great News....

Please more components for VCL

What is this VCL you guys keep talking about? ;) ;)

Just to jump on the bandwagon, Please more components for .NET WinForms ;)

And one more year without a WPF Tree. What a shame :(

Any word on Gauges for WPF/Silverlight ?

Thanks, Tom

Julian - Thanks for the brief summary on the reporting server application. The reply is almost as expected ...

Almost as in ...

End user capabilities? Can users register their own reporting needs?

XAF integration?

Luc

Julian, can you tell us how the preview report controls and report server will work together? I mean will you send to the controls the graphical information to be show to the user or will you send the report to be run on the client side? I'm asking this because of SilverLight has several limitations (no DataSets or no direct database access for example)

Thanks

If one critic could I do, it should be the poor emphasis to ASP.NET MVC, because it's not only 'trending' but of real value and powerful; competitors already have finished products, and the goal to 2010.2 is only to have components in beta?

Come on

Silverlight Scheduler BETA at the end of 2010?

Come on...

Thanks for the 2010 RoadMap!

I desperately need an XAF web-based web-user report designer, and since it is not in the roadmap, would beg for a workaround tutorial, where at least using XtraReports web report filtering/subreports we can offer a midway solution?

I don't see any plan for Silverlight 's Pivot

Very exciting!

For logged requests not making it into 2010 (like user-report-designer in Asp.Net) maybe we can get some workarounds? As far as I can see, none of your .Net 'report' competitors have this either, so a partial solution might add even more USP for ASPXperience.

A a little disappointment: 20010 seems to be another year where no new controls will be added to WinForms  Editors Library.

Joe Hendricks,

I beg to differ although it won't be ASP.NET exactly, you may still implement a "web based" report designer in the future.

By the time of the second release of the year, we should have enough infrastructure present that we can then embark on a full-fledged report designer for Silverlight

This is quite exciting, although not as much for me as I have a WinForms admin app ;) but it would be quite amazing if someone could indeed design a report within a webpage. Time will tell if this becomes a reality, but I have to admit out of all the technologies, SL makes the most sense to build a report designer due to it's rich UI and API.

Jerzy Rozmyslowicz,

I too would love to see more WinForms action, but one of the benefits we will see in WinForms will be the implementation of feature requests. So although no "new" controls, we most definately will see "new" functionality in the controls we have. I think the basic fact of the story is with a fair amount of Developers using WPF/SL it would be suicide for DX to keep alot of resources for WinForms, certainly us WinForms devs are still out there by the droves but we do have a reasonably complete suite (I would go as far to say the best valued component suite on the market)

Just my two cents

I was hoping for a very simple barcode editor for WinForms which could be used in the grid also. You already have the knowledge in XtraReports so should be very simple to make for you guys...

Table support in RichEdit... Finally! I hope they will add some support for the grid in there aswell. More functionality to handle images in the RichEdit would be welcome: cropping, rotating, ...

Sigurd Decroos,

Re: BarCode on WinForms, I would hope you are tracking this suggestion www.devexpress.com/issue=S19105, and would suggest you add your input regarding the idea of having a BarCode on a WinForm, myself I sorta was the same as Alan[DX] why would you need it on a WinForm, however I hadn't thought about the idea of having it on a grid (and therefore need to be printable). Maybe mention this on the suggestion. Keep in mind when DX say they aren't going to do a new component for WinForms it doesn't mean they won't implement enhancements. AFAIK something like an editor which implements technologies they already have is certainly within the realm of "enhancement". again just my two cents :)

Nice Roadmap - thank you for the Heads-up!

My BIG QUESTION is.. will 2010.1 get released at the same time as VS2010?

I'm sure I've read in the past that you have or hope to have a 'common' code base for WPF and Silverlight. There is mention of the filter editor being available for WPF in 2010.1 - does this imply it will also be available for Silverlight in the same release?

Hi Julian,

Thanks for this great information. I wonder when VCL team will add Validator features to the ExpressEditor. Could you tell me more on this point ?

Matthew,

VS2010 has been pushed back to First week of april at the moment which as julian said could be the first release of 2010.

<Steve: One of the major reasons for going to two major releases per year is to get *more* features and enhancements into those two releases than we could in three. Some of the features will also be "bigger" since we have more time developing for each release than we did last year.>

The problem there is that my subscription renewal is in August so if release 1 of 2 is mainly about VS2010 (which I wont be in any hurry to switch to) there doesn't sounld like much of an incentive for me in 2010 - since I suspect I release 2 of 2 will be after my renewal.

Hi all!

2 major releases are enough, imho.

Roadmaps - looks promising and challenging...  

Maybe VS2010 is interesting this year ... I'm not sure if it attracts people so much in the first days. We will see. Like always when the IDE is coupled tough to to underlying technology lots of rework has tho be done for having the same running again.

Rethink the domain content ... provide people extensible applications ... then you will get at least feedbacks ...

Good Luck

Mike

@Michael a SL (instead of Asp.Net) -based report designer would be fine by me! :-)