Paul Usher's Blog

Webinar: Using a JavaScript library with Blazor

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 05:38:00 Z

A few weeks ago, Julian and I were discussing how it would be helpful to share different snippets of knowledge through a series of short webinars. This weeks presentation "Using a JavaScript library with Blazor" is the first of that series. We wanted to focus on common issues we had come across and the solutions discovered. The session will not be our typical 1 hour format, although we will definately still have a questions & answers segment.

So why a topic on Blazor?

Since Microsoft announced it's bold plan to allow C# developers the ability for building web UI's using the language syntax they are familiar with, we knew that our customers would be looking to us for quality commercial components. Back in April this year, we announced the DevExpress UI Blazor controls, which offered a chance to participate in the free Early Access Program (EAP) as well as a number of tutorials on our YouTube Channel - DevExpress Blazor video training course.

While putting together some sample projects we quickly determined that there are going to be use cases where an existing JavaScript library may be required. Julian is my go-to man for JavaScript questions and while asking his advise recently we thought it would be a great idea to look at how we handled a particular scenario.

Join us at 10am PDT Tuesday (July 16) as we take a look at implementing a 3rd party open-source JavaScript library in a simple server-side Blazor project. If you have not already registered for the webinar, you can click here and save your spot.

There are a number of prerequisites for creating your Blazor project, the main one being the use of Visual Studio 2019 Preview. For full instructions on how to set up your project please head over to our Blazor GitHub page.

As always, we would love to hear how you are adopting this new and exciting technology. Please leave a comment below or send us an email and share your thoughts.

What's new in v19.1 WinForms - Q&A

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 20:36:00 Z

In our recent "What's New for WinForms" webinar, we received a large number of questions. We were unable to answer some of these questions during the live Q&A. I answer these questions here as promised.

General

Q: How can I change "And" to "Or" filtering across two columns?

A: In the Filter Panel, click the Edit Filter button to invoke the Filter Editor. In the Filter Editor, modify logical operators as your needs dictate.

Q: Is v19.1 Per-Monitor DPI-Aware?

A: Our components support only System–DPI awareness. Review the High DPI Support help article to learn how to enable DPI-awareness for our controls. We are now researching possible ways to support Per-Monitor DPI-awareness in our controls and will do our best to support Per-Monitor mode in the future.

Q: The shown 'SearchBar' in the RibbonDemo to find commands... is this only available for Ribbons?

A: Yes, it is available in the RibbonControl only.

Q: Is there a way to do rounded corners easily? I know we can do it in skin editor but it is not easy and fast for all controls

A: Our components don’t support round corners. Would you please describe your scenario in greater detail? Please, provide images that demonstrate the expected result. This will help us understand where this feature can be used.

Q: On the grid animation, what datasoure is supported?

A: The animation doesn’t depend on a data source. GridView performs animation when a cell value changes. You can use any supported source including Server Mode. Review Traditional Data Binding Methods and Large Data Sources: Server and Instant Feedback Modes for the complete list.

Q: Can we convert normal Layout to Table Layout?

A: We don’t provide a tool that converts a regular layout to the table layout. You can convert the regular layout to a Layout Control in your project as described in Converting a Regular Layout of Controls to an XtraLayoutControl. Then invoke the Convert to Table Layout command as shown in the Table Layout documentation.

Q: Any benchmarking available on DirectX rendering performance?

A: There are no benchmarks available. However, you can see that DirectX already gives you noticeable performance improvements. We will continue working in this direction.

Q: Are you going to add an Office 2019 Black theme. I'm using the Office 2019 Colorful theme in my app but want to offer users a black theme. If I use the Office 2016 Black theme, it uses the older style ribbon with the visible tabs.

A: Yes, we have plans to introduce new Office 2019 skins in v19.2.

Q: Where can I see a list of the other demo's

A: All our demos are available in "Demo Center 19.1". You can launch it from Windows Start Menu. See this topic to learn more about demo applications.

Q: Any project templates for Microsoft teams in future?

A: Currently our components don’t provide such templates. We found this idea interesting and will consider adding such templates in the future.

Q: Can we use these controls in C++ managed code? or these are valid only for C# and VB?

A: Yes, you can. Our components should work flawlessly in this environment, though the application development process may differ.

Q: Besides Google, that other services I can connect to XtraScheduler

A: Along with Google Calendars, our SchedulerControl also supports Synchronization with Microsoft Outlook and iCalendar. Please refer to the Import and Export article for more information.

Q: Layout control, if I want to move my content in the center of the form, how to do it ?

A: You can use the new Table Panel for this purpose.

Q: Will the Image Edit control support the WEBP file format?

A: While we don't have immediate plans to support this format. You can convert a WEBP image to a regular image (for instance, to JPEG) using a third-party library and then display this image in the PictureEdit control.

Q: Is there any news on a scheduler annual view?

A: We will consider implementing this view in the future versions of our components.

Q: This function is only for the Control "Excel Style Filtering" ? its possible to use in ChartControl or GridControl?

A: Excel-style filter menus are part of our data-aware controls (GridControl, TreeList, etc). To use custom functions in your application, register them using the CriteriaOperator.RegisterCustomFunction method. Review Custom Function-Based Filters for more information.

To add a custom function to the GridControl’s filter menu, enable the GridView.OptionsFilter.ShowCustomFunctions property and handle the GridView.QueryCustomFunctions event.

As for the ChartControl, once the custom functions are registered, you can use them for filtering. For instance, you can build the required filter criterion and assign it to the SeriesBase.FilterCriteria property. Alternatively, you can attach the FilterControl to the ChartControl. Then, enable the FilterControl.ShowCustomFunctions option and handle the FilterControl.QueryCustomFunctions event.

Q: Will Borders and Shading API in RichEditControl be supported?

A: This is something we may look at in the future.

Q: When will you add a true PDF editor?

A: Our last survey for desktop platforms showed that this suggestion is not very popular. We have a non-visual PDF document API library that allows you to modify PDF documents.

Q: what about spell checker? for example: can I install it for Georgian language?

A: Customer can use any dictionaries for spell checking. See this article for more information.

Q: I thinks its a good idea the conditional formats in excel viewer in devexpress.

A: Our Spreadsheet control supports conditional formatting.

Q: It's possible to use functions in XtraSpreadSheet? but all functions like excel? for example, search, indirect, sum, and others?

A: Yes, it possible. See this article for more information. In version 19.1, we supported the following functions: CONCAT, TEXTJOIN, IFS, SWITCH, MAXIFS, and MINIFS. Most of Excel functions are currently supported.

Q: Spreadsheet: Is there a automatic internal Zoom-Object now included?

A: If you are referring to the zoom control in the status bar, it is not a part of the Spreadsheet control. However, we demonstrate how to implement this control in our ‘First Look’ demo (first demo for the Spreadsheet Control).

Diagram Control

Q: Good Job, but the Editor SVG Icon is not funcionally that all for custom Shapes in DiagramControl that planing best the editor in some version for support this funcionallity?

A: If you mean SVG Icon Builder, we don't have plans to extend it to a fully-functional SVG editor or incorporate it into DiagramControl. You can use an arbitrary SVG editor and import an SVG image to DiagramControl as described in the SVG Shapes article. Note that certain limitations should be considered when you import SVG images to DiagramControl.

Analytics

Q: In WinForms - does Chart Control have new updates?

A: Yes, ChartControl has a set of new features. They were also covered in the Analytics webinar (5/16).

Q: Looking forward to more speed improvements in map rendering of tiles and vector layers with large map items.

A: According to our tests, MapControl renders tiles and vector items at an appropriate speed in the most common scenarios. If rendering performance is too slow in your scenario, please submit a ticket in Support Center and describe your use case in greater detail. We will check if it can be improved.

Q: Hello, I would like to know if in this version you can already assign the colors to the graphics in the dashboard in runtime execution

A: The Dashboard Suite allows you to customize chart colors using the Coloring feature. If you need to customize default colors in the dashboard palette at runtime, handle the CustomPalette event.

Q: I think is a good idea use this skin in Graphis with chart control

A: While the ChartControl appearance depends on the current application theme, ChartControl also uses a set of its own appearance schemas.

Microsoft Ignite - The Tour : Sydney Recap

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:20:00 Z

A little over a week ago, the Microsoft Ignite Tour hit the picturesque city of Sydney, Australia. With a great mix of DevOps, Developers and other IT-Related people the conversations ranged from BI, Reporting and developer frameworks. I was joined by my esteemed colleagues John Martin and Don Wibier to help share information on the wide range of DevExpress products. It is always a great time talking with the existing and potential customers about their needs, what cool technologies they are involved in or just IT in general. A big thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth to say G'day and congratulations to the raffle winners. Be sure to look for us at the other Microsoft Ignite Tour destinations.

Here are some images we managed to snap over the two days:

Microsoft Ignite - The Tour : Sydney

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 20:52:00 Z

As one of the premier venues on the Microsoft Ignite tour, Sydney Australia is set to be an amazing experience and DevExpress are proud to be a sponsor. Sydney has already laid on it's best weather for the start of the week with perfect blue skies and warm 37°C days!

Come along and say a big G'Day to some of my European colleagues, DevExpress Technical Evangelist Don Wibier and John Martin. We will have fantastic swag to give away, as well as some live coding demos on the latest versions of all the DevExpress components and tools. It's set to be a fun filled two days, if you're going to be at the event, make sure you swing by our booth.

We look forward to seeing you there!

What's New for Dashboards and Reporting : FAQ

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 14:03:00 Z

Following our recent “What’s New” webinar for Dashboards and Reporting, we promised to post the Q&A details. Well here it is…

DASHBOARDS

Q: How can I change the chart/graph Title font size and style in Web Dashboard?

A: You can access dxChart widget, if you subscribe to ItemWidgetCreated /ItemWidgetUpdated , and use ASPxClientDashboardItemWidgetEventArgs.GetWidget . Then you can change its Title font settings or Axis Title font options.

Q: Does the dashboard integrate with workspaces?

A: If we are talking about Amazon WorkSpaces, ASP.NET Core Web Dashboard should work in AWS. They declare that they support .NET Core 2.0

Q: Is there an out-of-the box connectivity for MS Project Server Data to dashboard?

A: No, but you can use an ObjectDataSource to get data from MS Project Server and load it into Dashboard.

Q: A missing feature on Dashboard, except tabs is "scrolling". Is it in your plans?
A: We don’t have plans for a scrolling feature right now.

Q: Will the dashboard range control functionality also soon be available for OLAP (as it currently seems to be unavailable/disabled for such data source connection?)

A: After discussion with R&D team, we decided to research additional ways to support Range Filter functionality for OLAP DataSource.

Q: Any direct support to Hadoop? or no sql?

A: We do not support NoSql data sources directly. You can use ObjectDataSource to query any data base in C# code and then load retrieved data into Dashboard

Q: Another question here: Is it possible to use a icon set to show in one of grid column?

A: You can use the Conditional Formatting feature in Grid and Pivot Grid, and show predefined set of icons bound to your data.

Q: Is it planned for Dashboard to have support for SSAS in tabular mode?

A: SSAS in tabular mode is already partially supported.

Q: Do you have a plan for Oracle OLAP support?

A: We don’t have any immediate plans yet. We will take your interest in this scenario into account for future planning.

Q: Any new themes?

A: We didn’t add any new themes in WinForms or Web Dashboard for v18.1. If you are interested in WPF Dashboard Viewer – it comes with a full set of WPF themes.

Q: Performance enhancements in dashboard?

A: In v18.1, we improved multi-core data processing in some scenarios. Please find more info in our What’s New, section Data Processing

Q: Will Winforms dashboards eventually support all the chart types in the chart control suite?

A: We don’t have immediate plans to introduce new chart types. If you have a need for a specific chart type, please contact us in Support Center and describe your requirements and use case. We will take it into account when planning next versions.

Q: Drag and drop option in pivot grid of dashboard?

A: We don’t have immediate plans to introduce drag & drop fields in Viewer mode. You are still able to configure your Pivot in designer mode in any way.

Q: Can u point to the documentation?

A: Beta version of our updated help site is https://docs.devexpress.com

REPORTS

Q: Any plans for Simple Report Designer with drag and drop fields?

A: We have not planned the implementation of any lightweight Report Designer components, but we’d be more than happy to hear and research your requirements. Please contact our support team either by creating a ticket in the Support Center or drop an email to support@devexpress.com.

Q: Formatting rules organization missing in Xtrareports when switching to Expression mode. Has a new organization method been introduced?

A: The key point here is that once you enable the expression bindings mode, the formatting rules are hidden since the same task can be now achieved using the expressions. See the Shaping Data using Expression Bindings help topic for additional information.

Q: Reporting on DevExteme framework, is it going to happen? Soon?

A: We have no plans to implement a JavaScript-based rendering engine. However, you can integrate our .NET-based reporting tools into a client-side application as follows: Using Reporting Controls in JS.

Q: Any plan to support CachedReportSource in XAF?

A: Yes, CachedReportSource can be used in XAF -- you can see we discussed this in this support ticket thread T629463

Getting Started with DevExtreme, Angular & Ionic

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Wed, 16 May 2018 21:44:00 Z

I recently presented a webinar on getting started with DevExtreme, Angular and the Ionic framework. During the talk I mentioned that the source code, database and links would be made available via a blog post… well here it is!

VSCode - https://code.visualstudio.com/

NodeJS (includes NPM) - https://nodejs.org/en/

Ionic Framework:

To install the Ionic Framework:

OS X (terminal) : sudo npm install -g ionic

Windows (command line) : npm install -g ionic

DevExtreme:

To install DevExtreme Angular integration

npm install --save devextreme devextreme-angular

Source Code & Database

The database used was an example provided by Microsoft – World Wide Imports – and can be downloaded from here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/samples/wide-world-importers-what-is?view=sql-server-2017

Source code for the projects can be downloaded from here (note: I’ve included all library files)

DevExtreme Project : https://www.devexpress.com.au/files/DevExtreme_Angular_Ionic/Project.zip

Sample WebAPI : https://www.devexpress.com.au/files/DevExtreme_Angular_Ionic/SampleWebApi.zip

My Database ( I updated some dates ) : https://www.devexpress.com.au/files/DevExtreme_Angular_Ionic/webinar_db.zip

This article helped in setting up the Chrome debugger for Ionic apps - http://www.damirscorner.com/blog/posts/20161122-DebuggingIonic2AppsInChromeFromVisualStudioCode.html

The whole webinar can be watched via our YouTube channel, direct link to video: https://youtu.be/JseTvAObEmA

Webinar Q&A

During the presentation there were a lot of questions asked, I’m including the script of these here for easy reference:

Q: why ionic and not xamarin? xamarin is more native and easier for .net developers

A: That's the main point, Xamarin is good for .NET. But, DevExtreme is for JavaScript. So, Ionic + Cordova is a platform for cross-platform development for JavaScript and web in general.

Q: I ask because you only have one compoment for xamarin, other suites have more components for xamarin, why does Devexpress in general focus on web?

A: To be honest, we are not quite satisfied with Xamarin. So, we only have the grid for it. At the moment, we are looking in another direction. So, we provided a native chart (https://www.devexpress.com/Products/Native/Chart/). You can use our native chart with any developing tool you have.

Q: Is there a way in Visual Studio 2017, to your knowledge, that will give build errors on JavaScript if the Javascript interpunction/syntax is incorrect? Like missing ; or missing } or mistyped variable names?

A: AFAIK, Visual Studio 2017 has a built-in capability for static analyzing your JS code. But, I think it's better to switch to TypeScript for this task. Visual Studio Code is also a good IDE for such tasks.

Q: Why do you think for example nativescript is web and uses angular too?

A: Please don't mix NativeScript and Ionic :) NativeScript is an Angular way to map HTML markup to native elements. Ionic is about creating a web site that will locally work and look like a native application. Both these approaches have their pros and cons. It's up to you which one to use. But, at the moment we don’t have anything for NativeScript.

Q: Is there a similar plug-in for Firefox, or just Chrome?

A: I suggest you search on VSCode Market. For example: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=hbenl.vscode-firefox-debug

Q: Is there also a debugger extnesion for FireFox?

A: I suggest you search on VSCode Market. For example: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=hbenl.vscode-firefox-debug

Q: So what is the trigger for hitting your breakpoints? Installing Ionic, adding the Chrome extension, or putting that json file in the .vscode folder?

A: Please take a look at https://forum.ionicframework.com/t/how-to-debug-typescript-in-ionic-apps-using-vs-code-and-app-scripts-0-0-46/70023

Also, you can debug any site in VS Code as described in https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/nodejs/debugging-recipes

Q: Is there a way to use auto-completion/Intellisense of devextreme component properties in the .JS-files inside Visual Studio 2017 and/or VSCode? At the moment it doesn't and I have to search every single property on the website documentation of the DevExtreme suite.

A: If you are talking about Angular... Angular has its own language service (https://angular.io/guide/language-service). It works fine with our Angular components. If you are talking about JavaScript and TypeScript in general, you need to add TypeScript definitions to your file as described in https://js.devexpress.com/Documentation/Guide/Getting_Started/TypeScript_Support/Reference_TypeScript_Definitions/

Q: I am a windows developer, but let me see if I can get this straight....

A: I believe your thoughts make sense. Would you please re-ask your doubt?

Q: Is it possible to use an ORM like EntityFramework to get Data ? //Complete new here :)

A: Yes, you can load data from any data service that supports HTTP requests. This service may use any ORM you like including Entity Framework.

Q: Hi, what is the advantage of converting observable to promise in getProducts http call? Thanks

A: DevExtreme UI components support native Promises, that is why they are used. Please refer to https://medium.com/@mpodlasin/promises-vs-observables-4c123c51fe13 to learn more about Promises and Observables.

Q: It is a little overwhelming. the learning curve seems incredibly steep. npm, nodejs, angular, devextreme, vsCode, couple dozen configurations and Im sure I am missing things. Where does one start? Will there be a devextremecourse/university?

A: I understand you, Bill. At the moment, we don’t have courses on all of this stack. Perhaps, we will have it in the future. For now, I can say that we will have this webinar recording available on our YouTube channel. So, you can follow it when you wish. Also, it’s good to follow Angular documentation on Angular.io, check out Ionic documentation and check out documentation to learn how our widgets work.

Q: Hi, what is the advantage of converting observable to promise in getProducts http call? Thanks

A: In general, if you do not implement a custom data source that is bound to DevExtreme UI component, it is not necessary to use Promises. You can use Observables to load data.

Q: I installed the ionic package locally, but the command ionic was not recognized in the terminal. What could be the problem ?

A: Please make sure that you installed it with th -g flag (https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/install)

Q: what makes ionic creator for creating UI components different from devextreme components ?

A: Our DevExtreme components provide you with a Rich UI for your application. They have nothing to do with Ionic Creator. Ionic lacks such UI elements.

Q: How well does Ionic work with IE? I have seen issues with Material UI

A: I suggest you check https://ionicframework.com/docs/intro/browser-support/. I don't think that Ionic supports IE well. In any case, it's better to address this issue with the Ionic team.

Q: what about security configurations for mobile os. for example taking and saving a photo.

A: This is handled by the Cordova libraries, please refer to their documentation for the specific version of iOS / Andriod.

Q: after installing devextreme, do we need to enter a license key somewhere?

A: Just make sure that your DevExtreme account has an appropriate license assigned.

Q: Why use a promise instead of an observale ? what is the difference ?

A: If you are creating a custom data source for DevExtreme UI components use a native Promise object because we support it instead of observables. Please take a look at https://medium.com/@mpodlasin/promises-vs-observables-4c123c51fe13 to learn more about differences.

Q: If I'm using an Angular 4-project in Visual Studio with TypeScript, the load time of a one page application takes about 1 minute to open in the browser. Even though the page doesn't connect to external sources or do anything time consuming (just showing static text) and reloading the page takes another minute. Is this some configuration issue that you know of?

A: If our components cause this, please create a Support Center ticket for this issue along with your project. If this is reproducible with any Ionic application, I'd suggest you address this issue to Ionic.

If you would like to see more on the integration of DevExtreme and Ionic or you have ideas for a webinar topic please leave a comment below or send me an email.

Getting Started with DevExpress Dashboards – Q&A

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 20:54:00 Z

We had almost 500 people live on the "Getting Started with Dashboards" presentation on Tuesday raising over 100 questions and unfortunately we ran out of time to answer them all. Here are some that we didn’t get to during the webinar – which is now available on our YouTube channel, please feel free to share it or to watch it again.

If you’re new to our Dashboard products, we have a dedicated playlist here to help you get started.

Q: So basically can I add a dashboard to a Winforms page and interact with other data on that page?

A: Yes, DashboardDesigner/DashboardViewer is simply a WinForms control.

Q: We need datasource json (webservices) When will it be available?

A: We can not provide an exact time estimation, unfortunately, but in the meantime, we advise you to try using the ObjectDataSource – get data from json service with HttpClient and then pass it to dashboard.

Q: Can I filter outside of the dashboard…i.e. based on user accessing, I want to filter for their data.

A: Yes, you can subscribe to DataLoading events and filter data that way.

Q: Hi, it it possible to adjust column width and font size in Pivots mainly, and other modules as well, especially from the web designer for web view?

A: Yes, you may access the internal dxPivotGrid (which we use in the Web Dashboard) and configure it via code. This link should help: https://js.devexpress.com/Documentation/ApiReference/UI_Widgets/dxPivotGrid/

Q: Can all dashboard elements be exported into excel? If not, which ones can

A: Yes! Every Dashboard Item can be exported into Excel. Filter Elements (List Box, Combo Box, TreeView) do not have Export UI, but can be exported using API.

Q: Is it possible to use the viewer somehow with a datastore on the server which is then securely accessed over something like WCF or CSLA. So without giving the database as datasource on the server open to the world.

A: Yes, the Web Dashboard works exactly in this way.

Q: Is the SQL Query builder you have been using available as a standalone control outside of the dashboard designer?

A: Yes, you can create using the following helper:

https://documentation.devexpress.com/WindowsForms/DevExpress.DataAccess.UI.Sql.SqlDataSourceUIHelper.EditQueryWithQueryBuilder.overloads

Q: Does the Web Dashboard display live data? So counts change on screen when data changes in the database…

A: The Web Dashboard displays historical data, but you can use API to refresh it.

Q: Can data displays on dashboard be based on a persons’ rights? If I have 20 customers, I only want them to see the data for their location, but I only want to design one dashboard.

A: Yes, you can handle the DataLoading event and customize your queries. Implementation details depend on your requirements, how you organize authentication and store your data.

Q: What about localizing the dashboard in the designer (set descriptions for multiple languages)? I assume for now it can only done from code.

A: Yes, localization of designed dashboard can be done via code only. And of course, DashboardViewer/Designer controls can be localized – buttons, tooltips etc.

Q: Is the dashboard available in angular?

A2: While we don’t have native angular support, you are still able to write your own Angular wrappers for our Web Dashboard Client Approach https://documentation.devexpress.com/Dashboard/119109/Getting-Started/Build-End-User-Dashboard-Designer-Applications/Create-an-HTML5-JavaScript-Designer

Q: Hi! Is this available for Visual Studio for Mac?

A2: You will be able to develop the Dashboard app in Visual Studio for Mac using ASP.NET Core (it was a CTP in v17.2, and will officially release in v18.1).

Q: When will dashboards be supported for DevExtreme?

A2: We don’t have a native DevExtreme control, but you are still able to use it in your own client-side app https://documentation.devexpress.com/Dashboard/119109/Getting-Started/Build-End-User-Dashboard-Designer-Applications/Create-an-HTML5-JavaScript-Designer

We are currently planning a follow on presentation for Dashboards, please leave a comment below if there is something specific you would like to see covered.

Reporting: New Binding Expressions (v.17.2)

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 22:35:00 Z

In the v17.2 release, DevExpress Reporting has taken a big step to simplify the report creation process for end-users and introduced a new way for providing data to report controls and shaping data. Instead of using data bindings as in earlier versions, reports now use binding expressions by default.

Previously, end-users need to handle script events to implement any custom logic in reports, which has certain security implications and requires familiarity with programming languages. Newly introduced binding expressions cover most scenarios of using scripts and make it much simpler to evaluate summary results and conditionally format report data. You can now assign values to not only a limited number of bindable properties, but virtually to any other property of a target report control.

It’s considerably easier for end-users to internalize expressions’ criteria syntax instead of writing code in script event handlers.

With expressions mode enabled, the Properties grid contains the special Expressions tab providing properties for which you can specify custom expressions. Clicking the property’s ellipsis button invokes the Expression Editor, which has been improved to provide access to report bands and controls as well as to special property values.

A new approach brings almost no changes to traditional ways of binding report controls to data. As before, you can drag and drop the required item form the Field List, or click the control’s smart tag and select the data field from the drop-down list.

Starting with v17.2, you can invoke the Expression Editor and specify a complex binding expression involving two or more data fields (as you did for calculated fields in earlier versions).

Expressions also enable end-users to evaluate custom summary results without handling script events. Select the range for which to calculate the summary and click the Expression’s property ellipsis button. In the invoked Summary Expression Editor, a new Summary category appears where you can find summary functions whose names start with the "sum" prefix that is added to make it easy to differentiate aggregate functions from report summary ones.

With binding expressions, you are no longer required to create formatting rules and assign them to controls. You can provide conditions for the control’s individual appearance settings or for the style name (in case of multiple appearance changes).

You can specify which binding mode your reports use by setting the static UserDesignerOptions.DataBindingMode property. This property is available in the Report Designer Options dialog in Visual Studio at design time.

Currently, the following binding modes are available:
- Standard Data Bindings – the legacy binding mode available in all previous versions.
- Expressions (simplified) - the default mode used in newer report versions. With this mode, you can solve tasks that previously required you to handle the BeforePrint script event.
- Expressions (advanced) – this mode enables you to provide expressions in both the BeforePrint and PrintOnPage events.

To help you migrate your existing reports to use the new binding mechanism, we’ve provided an automatic report conversion tool. When the static UserDesignerOptions.ConvertBindingsToExpressions option is enabled for your end-user reporting application, when opening a legacy report, an end-user is prompted to convert this report to use a new binding mode. The Report Designer Options dialog in Visual Studio contains this option as well.

Consider the following cases in which a report cannot be converted:
- A report contains one or more controls bound to a data source, which is not assigned as the report’s data source.
- A report contains a formatting rule, whose data source differs from the report’s data source.

Note that backward conversion of reports (from using expressions back to legacy bindings) is not available.

As always, we would love to hear your thoughts on this new feature.

Sydney Meetup: December 1 - Powerhouse Museum

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 09:59:00 Z

Can you believe it is November already! Where did 2017 go?

The best thing about this time of year, aside from the up coming holiday season, is RELEASE TIME! and v17.2 will be launching in the coming weeks.

In appreciation of your continued support, we want to show you personally through some of the new features in v17.2 and provide a forum to hear your feedback and ideas as we start planning 2018, that and shout you a glass of wine or a beer and some nibblies.

This year we've chosen the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney to kick things off. All you need to do is register here to reserve your spot, then turn up on the day.

If you’re looking for an event closer to you, please email me and we will look into organising something.

DevExpress Diagram Control - code / links from the webinar

Paul Usher (DevExpress) — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 15:24:00 Z

In our presentation today (available on YouTube), I promised to include the source code and links, here they all are :)

Click the link for more information on:

DevExpress Diagram Control documentation:

WinForms

Support Centre articles:

Source code from demos:

As always we would love to hear your feedback.