Today we released DXv2 to the world and delivered the next generation of development tools from DevExpress. This marks a renewed commitment by DevExpress to help you bridge the gap from the technologies you are using today to the opportunities presented by the technologies of the future. The entire DevExpress team could not be more excited to bring these tools to you.
Below I will outline some of the big investment areas for DXv2, but wanted to take a moment to remind you of some things that will never change:
- DevExpress remains committed to unparalled customer service and support. We are here to help you today, tomorrow and always.
- DevExpress remains committed to releasing high quality products, when they’re ready. We don’t rush to deliver but instead work to release the technology when it’s perfect and not until.
- DevExpress remains committed to supporting a breadth of platforms. There is noise in the market today about the new technologies, and we’re excited about them too, but we also realize that many of you have made big investments in existing applications and technologies and you will continue to remain invested in them. We will be there as long as you are.
What’s New in DXv2
We identified three major shifts happening in the marketplace and focused our development efforts around them.
Touch. One key piece of feedback that we’ve heard from you is the critical need to support touch interfaces. We’ve seen a consistent shift in the way that end users experience technology. From touch-based Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) to touch-based airport-kiosks for checking into a flight, consumers are growing increasingly accustomed to touch. Microsoft’s focus on touch is significant with Windows 8 and its new Metro user interface. So in this release, we’ve enabled touch support across our platforms and enabled WinForms, WPF and Silverlight developers to build Metro-inspired applications with ease. At the same time, we recognize that many developers have to start considerinis isg iPads that are showing up in the workplace. So with our touch support in ASP.NET platform, we can help Visual Studio developers build solutions for iOS as well.
Stunning Applications. As end users enjoy rich, immersive applications at home, their expectation for the kinds of experiences they have at work has changed. It’s no longer good enough to build functional applications. And so we’ve focused on enabling the “wow” factor for your applications. Stunning applications require completeness and consistency of a platform. A beautiful grid control, for example, that is surrounded by other controls simply won’t be perceived as a stunning application. So we focused on ensuring that each platform (Silverlight, ASP.NET, Windows Forms, and WPF) had a complete and consistent set of controls. That is necessary but not sufficient. Applications rarely live in isolation. A Windows Form application needs to work in an integrated way with an ASP.NET or WPF application. These applications need to look consistent on the platforms they target and so we've worked hard to ensure that our controls are themed and styled appropriately. Additionally, we've scheduled webinars throughout December to unveil new design options so you can re-imagine your next application using the themes we're building today.
And with the new map controls shipping in WPF and Silverlight, you can now add a very rich location-based experience to your applications. As part of our relationship with Microsoft, we’ve decided to provide our WPF map control free-of-charge to all MSDN subscribers. So head on over to MSDN and “unwrap your map” for the holidays.
Your Productivity. Accelerated. This isn’t new but the productivity bar just keeps getting higher. Every day, we wake up trying to come up with ways to make you more successful in writing applications. It is our passion. First, we challenged ourselves to provide quicker ways to get to the point in the development lifecycle where you could focus on writing code. Visual Studio is incredible but it starts you off with a blank form. Getting the user interface pulled together can be a daunting first step. So we came up with the “Miracle Minute.” In about a minute, we believe you should be able to have your user interface wired up so that you can start getting down to the business of writing your code. You’ll see our Miracle Minute videos on our new website and we’ll be adding more videos in the future.
Our existing XAF customers know that it provides the critical building blocks that reduce the amount of “grunt” work required to get an app running. Why should you have to spend time worrying about security, workflow, reporting and other core functionality that is important but probably not differentiated in your application? And with this release XAF provides big performance improvements for AJAX apps and provides better support for n-tier application development.
Finally, we’re very excited about the work we have done with CodeRush. We’re introducing a technology in this release that is new in the industry: duplicate code detection and consolidation. Most applications are made up of lots of reused functionality that has been copied and pasted all over your source code. The problem here is that now you have the same logic that exists throughout. If there is a bug, it’s in lots of places. If there is a code change required, you need to do it in lots of places. And of course your code is now much bigger than it needs to be. And new developers trying to get up to speed on your code base have more code to read and understand. Duplicate code detection solves this problem by analyzing your source code in the background and then enabling you to consolidate that code to a central location, increasing the quality of your code base. It’s pretty amazing.
Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much to this release. I encourage you to see what’s new and then go and try it for yourself. I can’t wait to see what you do with DXv2.
Let’s see what develops.
Ray Navasarkian
President
DevExpress