Thinking Out Loud

September 2011 - Posts

• ASP.NET CheckBox List Control (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  There are only so many things you can do on a flight…my favorite being to sleep.  Before I pass out on my way to NYC for our Mixer, here’s one more new DevExpress control for ASP.NET. One of the objectives of our ASP.NET team in this release cycle was to develop a few “real-world” demos…among them an Outlook Style Web Mail Client. Even though we had previously implemented multi-select via checkboxes in the ASPxListBox, during development of these demo applications, it became evident that we needed to create a new Control - the ASP.NET CheckBox List Control. Similar to our ASPxRadioButtonList, this new control uses check boxes instead of radio buttons and like the ASPxRadioButonList, it supports RepeatLayout (Table or Flow), RepeatDirection (Horizontal, Vertical), and can arrange items across multiple columns (RepeatColumns).   Posted Sep 29 2011, 11:11 AM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 12 comment(s) Filed under: ASP.NET, v2011.2, list, checkbox

• MVC Pivot Grid Control (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  If you are using our Business Intelligence Controls and Libraries, then you know that our award-winning Pivot Grid Control presently supports the WinForms, ASP.NET Web Forms, and WPF Platforms. With the release of DXperience v2011 vol 2, we'll extend support to both Silverlight and MVC. The following is a few of the features you can expect once we ship our new MVC Pivot Grid Control: Transform Table Data into Cross-Tab Reports OLAP Data Source Support Integration with DevExpress MVC Charting Extension Data Grouping Hierarchical Data Display Automatic and Manually Calculated Totals Sort Data and Display Top Rows Integrated End-User Data Filtering Data Export Options   Posted Sep 29 2011, 03:53 AM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 1 comment(s) Filed under: v2011.2, mvc, analytics, Pivot Grid

• New WPF and Silverlight Themes (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  DXperience v2011 vol 2 will bring those of you targeting the WPF Platform a brand new Theme Editor and 2 new WPF Themes - emulating the Windows 7 and Office 2010 Black Look & Feel. As always, a picture is worth a thousand words... The DevExpres Seven Theme    WPF Data Grid Control WPF Rich Text Editor WPF Dock Window Library The Office 2010 Black Theme  WPF Data Grid Control WPF Rich Text Editor WPF Dock Window Library     Posted Sep 29 2011, 03:17 AM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Skins, WPF, Themes, Office 2010, v2011.2, windows 7

• Two Days @ BASTA!

  It's day four at BASTA!, which for exhibitors is the day three and also the last day. Thanks for stopping by to chat with us and view all the great features coming in DXperience v2011 vol 2. (Sorry we didn't learn German before coming here :-) ) To those interested, I've been showing our not-yet-published What's New in v2011 vol 2 file and you still have time to take a look. If you can't make it, some of the information is already posted in our blogs. Our second DXperience Universal raffle has drawn even more attention than the first, including the cameraman - so the footage is not going to be only on our website, but I guess somewhere on BASTA.net as well. The evening expo receptions have included some Germany's best beer and saugages...Thanks to the Basta Team for a great event. We had great time here and we are looking forward to our return to Germany.   And by the way, if you need a localized UI, don't forget that a lot of our products have already been translated to different languages and we have localized assemblies published on our website. This link just helped one of our customers to translate his entire application into German with one simple re-build.  Thanks for your continued support. See you @ BASTA! next year!   Posted Sep 29 2011, 11:39 AM by Will (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: Conferences, Basta, Basta 2011

• Join Us in NYC

  Dave, Azret, Rachel and I are flying into NYC and will be hosting our DevExpress Developer Mixer on Thursday, September 29th @ 8pm. If you have not yet registered to join us at the Mixer, click the image to the right to be directed to the event registration page...We look forward to seeing all of you there to discuss our plans for DXperience v2011 vol 2, Win8 and the Metro UI and of course to hear about your business, requirements and needs. Over the weekend, Azret and Rachel Reese will stay in town for the NYC Code Camp. If you are not able to attend our Mixer, make sure you catch up with us at the Code Camp. See you in NY! Posted Sep 29 2011, 01:12 AM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: NYC, Code Camps, events

• Silverlight Report Designer and End-User Report Wizard (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  With the upcoming release of DXperience v2011 vol 2, XtraReports for Silverlight will feature a new WYSIWYG End-User Report Designer for in-browser report editing.   The report designer will allow your users to: Edit static content. Re-position controls via drag & drop. Change control size using the mouse. In addition to the WYSISWYG Report Designer, v2011 vol 2 will ship with a new Silverlight Report Wizard...allowing your end-users to create new reports using a straightforward wizard interface. Here are a few screenshots of the Silverlight Report Wizard in action...Obviously, one of the steps involves selection of the Table or View to use as the basis of the Silverlight Report... Users must then choose the columns to display within the report.    They'll then move to creating the groups... Choose the appropriate Report Layout And after the Report's Style and  Title is specified, they'll be able to render the Report within the browser ...       Posted Sep 27 2011, 09:51 PM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Silverlight, reports, v2011.2, wizard, designer

• ASP.NET Outlook Style Demo Application

  In the next release, we'll be providing all of our ASP.NET users with a few new demo applications - among them will be a new Outlook Style Web Client. Hopefully you'll be able to use and or extend the capabilities of these applications in your next project...Here are a few screenshots of this app...(I'd give you a link to the actual demos, but we still have a bit of work remaining).   Posted Sep 27 2011, 02:01 PM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 7 comment(s) Filed under: ASP.NET, Scheduler, v2011.2, outlook, email

• Silverlight Calendar and Date Navigator Control (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  We'll be describing some of the capabilities of our upcomingn Silverlight Scheduler Control shortly, but in the meantime, here's a short description of another new control for the Silverlight Platform - The DevExpress Silverlight Calendar. I won't get into explaining what you can do with the control, as I think that is obvious, but we have prepared a short animation to describe some of its features (view animation)    Here are a few of the features you can expect from the DevExpress Silverlight Calendar Navigator Control once we release DXperience v2011 vol 2:  Multiple On-screen Monthly or Yearly Calendars (you can explicitly specify the numbmer of calendar rows and columns) Multiple Calendar Views (Month, Year and Range of Years) Navigation Pane (displayed at the top allowing you to move forward and back through months/years) Three Built-in Selection Modes (single day, multiple day or Outlook style selection) Week Numbers Holidays and Special Days Current Date Indication Optional Today Button Posted Sep 27 2011, 01:38 PM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Silverlight, Calendar, v2011.2, Date, Navigator

• WinForms Pivot Grid Control Enhancements (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  With this release, we'll be extending the capabilities of our WinForms Pivot Grid with the following new features: To improve easy-of-use, filter drop-downs within the DevExpress WinForms Pivot are now able to ignore field values that cannot be displayed because of filters applied to other fields. (view animation to learn more)   To facilitate and improve the way in which end-users construct filters, the WinForms Pivot Grid will include a toolbar designed to unify control over all aspects of the filter. This includes settings and commands you may be familiar with (like filter type setting or invert filter command), as well as the newly introduced Display Only Available Items.     Posted Sep 27 2011, 01:21 PM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 8 comment(s) Filed under: WinForms, Pivot, v2011.2, analytics

• WinForms Picture Edit Enhancements (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  This release of DXperience v2011 vol 2 will include minor additions to our WinForms Picture Edit control. Scrolling Large Images - this new feature allows you to activate scrollbars within the Picture Edit and or enable image scrolling via mouse drag: Zooming Large Images - this new feature allows you to zoom into and out of an image via the CTRL+Mouse Wheel shortcut or the context menu:           Posted Sep 27 2011, 01:10 PM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 3 comment(s) Filed under: WinForms, v2011.2, image, scrolling, picture, zooming

• DevExpress @ BASTA!

  Vladimir and Tolis here...It's day one of the BASTA! Conference in Mainz, Germany and we are really excited to show everyone what's coming in DXperience v2011 vol 2. If you are at BASTA! stop at our booth to get a free t-shirt and learn about new features.   We raffled a DXperience Universal license today at lunch (thanks to Oliver Sturm for helping us out with that) and the lucky winner is getting his account set up right now. We'll be doing to same tomorrow, so stop by our booth at around 1:30 PM. For our German speaking users, here's your chance to see XAF and CodeRush presented in German.     Enjoy the conference! For those of you not attending, we are taking some pictures and shooting some video which will be published on DevExpress.com a little later, so stay tuned.   Posted Sep 27 2011, 08:07 AM by Will (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: XAF, Community Events, Conferences, Basta, Basta 2011

• ASP.NET Touch Support for the iPad and Android Tablet Devices (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  A couple of weeks ago, we posted a teaser video demonstrating touch support across a number of different DevExpress ASP.NET Controls. I wanted to expand on that post a bit and describe what our ASP.NET Team has implemented. First and foremost, the following is a list of ASP.NET Controls with touch support (along with what can be executed using gestures): ASP.NET Callback Panel-ASP.NET Panel - scrolling ASP.NET Popup Control-ASP.NET Dock Panel - dragging, resizing, scrolling ASP.NET Splitter - pane scrolling, pane resizing ASP.NET Menu - scrolling ASP.NET ListBox-ASP.NET ComboBox - item list scrolling ASP.NET Grid - column header dragging, column resizing, scrolling ASP.NET TreeList - column header dragging, node dragging ASP.NET Scheduler - scrolling, appointment dragging ASP.NET Pivot Grid - Scrolling, column header dragging,  customization window resizing Note that these apply to both WebForms Controls and MVC counterparts of each control (yes, we will release an MVC PivotGrid Extension in this upcoming release). If you have never used our 80+ ASP.NET Controls, you can obtain more information on our award-winning products here: http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/Controls/ASP/ Supported Browsers Touch is supported on the Safari browser and Android 3+ browser. Win8 support will be around the corner. How it Works Our team created a scrollbar extender (a client object that can draw scrollbar indicators on the client side). Each control that uses scrollbars uses this extender. It includes a public API which can be used for your specific business needs.  Posted Sep 26 2011, 03:01 AM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 15 comment(s) Filed under: ASP.NET, v2011.2, Touch, iPad, android, mvc, webforms

• Silverlight and WPF Ribbon Bar Merging (MDI Apps) and Runtime Customization (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  Silverlight and WPF Ribbon Bar Merging For those who prefer building WPF or Silverlight MDI applications, you may already be using our WPF Docking Library...If you are considering MDI for your next application, you can read more about the WPF DXDocking Library using this link: http://devexpress.com/Products/NET/Controls/WPF/Dock_Windows/mdi.xml With the upcoming release of DXperience v2011 vol 2, your DXDocking based MDI applications can contain both our Silverlight and WPF Ribbon and Ribbon Status Bars...with appropriate Ribbon merging support. During merge operations, Ribbon elements (categories, pages, page groups and all commands within page groups, quick access toolbar and status bar) are added from the Ribbon Control within a child MDI window to the Ribbon Control on the main window. The following animation details this new capability... Silverlight and WPF Ribbon Customization DXperience v2011 vol 2 will ship with runtime customization options much like those found in Office 2010. To initiate customization, you simply right-click the Silverlight or WPF Ribbon Control’s "free space" and select the Customize Ribbon menu item. When you enable this feature, your end-users can: Add new pages/groups or hide existing pages/groups. Re-arrange existing/custom pages and page groups as needs dictate. Add existing commands to default and custom page groups. Save your custom layouts in XML files. Import layout settings to quickly configure a Ribbon Control's appearance. Easily restore the original Ribbon Control layout.    Posted Sep 26 2011, 12:18 AM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Silverlight, WPF, Ribbon, MDI, v2011.2, customization, merging

• WinForms Tab Control: Colored Tabs (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  Yes - a small enhancement, but definitely one we get asked about a lot here at DevExpress...DXperience v2011 vol 2 will introduce the ability to color the background of individual tabs in any skinned paint themes.   Where can this new feature be of use? When used, tabs can be visually grouped by color and you can provide the appropriate visual accent for a specific tab. Once you set colors for all or individual tabs, they will be automatically merged with the current skin.  Oh - and this feature is available for all controls providing a "tabbed" UI including the following: WinForms TabControl, TabbedMdiManager, DocumentManager and LayoutControl. Post comments update...For those who wanted to see how this will look with some of our skins...     Posted Sep 25 2011, 11:50 PM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with 13 comment(s) Filed under: WinForms, Tab Control, v2011.2, colored tabs

• WPF Font Picker - ICollectionView Support (coming in v2011 vol 2)

  If you've been using our WPF controls, you are already aware of the collection of individual controls that ship in the DXEditors Library...If you've not had a chance to evaluate our WPF Controls, the following webpage details the 25 WPF Controls that ship as part of our Editors Library. http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/Controls/WPF/Editors/ The upcoming release of DXperience WPF Edition will extend the capabilities of our shipping WPF Data Editors with the following new conrols/features: WPF Font Picker   ICollectionView Support The DevExpress WPF ComboBox, LookUp and ListBox Controls now include support for ICollectionViews. When used, you can manipulate the current record and define rules for filtering, sorting and grouping within lists. One other new feature of note is support for Custom Items - allowing you to create custom items for our WPF ComboBox and ListBox. Custom items are always displayed at the top of a data items list.   Posted Sep 25 2011, 11:22 PM by Ray Navasarkian (DevExpress) with no comments Filed under: WPF, v2011.2, search, editors, font, icollectionview, lookup