ASP.NET WebForms and MVC – 2019 Roadmap

We wanted to thank everyone who voted in our 2019 Roadmap Survey. We value your feedback and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. The following is a summary of our official 2019 roadmap for ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC UI Libraries.

Important Note: In nearly every instance, we selected features/products that received the highest vote count. In many instances, total votes for features that appear on this roadmap failed to break the 50% mark. This does not mean that the feature/product did not win the vote - it simply means that it received a plurality - not a majority.

WebForms and MVC

New Controls

New Gantt control (v19.1)

This feature received 45% of the vote in our survey.

A stand-alone Filter Panel (v19.2)

This feature received 63% of the vote in our survey.

The panel can be directly bound to GridView, CardView, TreeList, or VerticalGrid.

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GridView

Batch Edit Mode improvements (v19.1 and v19.2)

This feature received 30% of the vote in our survey.

We want to provide a way to customize the default navigation order according to your business rules.

Currently, the endless paging is not compatible with Batch edit mode (it is one of the limitations). We plan to resolve this issue.

Many of our customers asked us about multiple cell selection that allows selecting cells like in Spreadsheet/Excel, copy and paste their values and edit several cells simultaneously. This feature is one of our goals this year.

At present, GridView summaries values are read-only even in Batch Edit mode. They are not changed after an end-user changes grid values on the client until data is saved on the server side. 

We want to support automatically update summaries on the client side when the end-user edits cells.

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Improve Adaptivity (v19.1 and v19.2)

This feature received 27% of the votes in our survey.
GridView collapses column cells to the adaptive data cell below a data row if the control is too narrow. We want to give you a capability to style the adaptive cell and implement templates for it.

The GridView pager in adaptive mode collapses all page number elements. We want to make the pager hide page elements one by one instead.

We plan to introduce new adaptive breakpoints to enhance layout customization for adaptive GridView.

We want to support format conditions in the adaptive cell.

Support row swipe to see additional actions like edit, insert, delete, etc., on mobile devices.

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New client-side only operations (v19.1 and v19.2)

This feature received 26% of the votes in our survey.

Implement showing and hiding columns on the client-side (without using callbacks) and getting grid data.

Currently, you have to write custom code to transfer grid values on the client side using JSProperties if you wanted to get data without callbacks. We wish to implement a simple way to pass required column data to the client without additional coding.

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Pivot Grid

Intermediate Level Aggregates and Window Calculations (v19.1 or v19.2)

This feature was planned for 2018, but we were unable to complete it in time last year.

The ASP.NET Pivot Grid’s new data processing engine will allow us to incorporate Intermediate Aggregates and Window Calculations out of the box. You will be able to configure both using a simple API and exploit the data processing engine’s built-in performance optimizations.

With Intermediate Aggregation, you will be able to use a new "Aggr" function. This function temporarily groups raw data by a set of dimensions and calculates a summary expression. This helps to answer questions such as: “What are the best and worst selling products in a given year?”, “How many days per month are profitable?”, etc.

Window Calculations allow you to display values calculated from existing data based on a defined rule. The following rules will be available by default: Percent of Total, Running Totals, Ranks, Moving Averages, Difference, Percentage Difference. As you might expect, you will be able to create custom rules with your own calculation logic as needed.

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Scheduler

Performance enhancement (v19.1)

This feature received 33% of the votes in our survey.
We want to decrease page load time to load the ASP.NET Scheduler on a page faster.

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RichEdit

Browser printing (v19.1)

Document comments (v19.2)

This feature received 20% of the votes in our survey.

Implement editable comments in a RichEdit document.

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Spreadsheet

PivotTable row expand/collapse (v19.1)

This feature received 41% of the votes in our survey.

Implement data grouping and expand/collapse in ASP.NET Spreadsheet Pivot Tables rows.

Support multi-user collaboration. (v19.2)

Multi-user collaboration allows end-users to edit the same document simultaneously.

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Charting

Histogram Series (v19.1)

This feature received 45% of the vote in our survey.

This Series view is useful when representing the distribution of numeric data via bars of equal width. Each bar displays the number of values that fall into consecutive, non-overlapping intervals of a variable.

Series Segment Colorizer (v19.1)

Waterfall Series (v19.2)

This feature received 45% of the vote in our survey.

Based on a start value, a Waterfall сhart displays the cumulative effect of sequentially added positive and negative values.

BoxPlot (v19.2)

Box plots are used to display the distribution of data through quartiles.

TimeSpan Axis Scale Type (v19.2)

The TimeSpan scale type will represent the values or arguments of series points as TimeSpan values on an axis.

Advanced Text Formatter for Crosshair Panel (v19.2)

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Common Enhancements

Replace PNG to SVG icons in modern DevExpress ASP.NET themes (v19.1)

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New Controls

Floating Action Button (v19.1)

This feature received 23% of the votes in our survey.
A new control we shipped in our v18.2 release cycle for Web Forms and MVC UI components. The Floating Action button encapsulates the most popular end-user actions (e.g., CRUD operations, data sorting, filtering, etc.). Buttons are based upon current context, the control is fully customizable and it supports custom actions.

FilterControl (v19.2)

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GridView

Support Callbacks in GridView BatchEdit (v19.1)

Drop-down Editors Adaptivity (v19.1)

This feature received 34% of the votes in our survey.

When an end-user opens a drop-down window on a mobile phone, the drop-down window automatically becomes a modal; it is aligned by the screen size. If you are using data editors with drop-down windows (ComboBox, DateEdit, etc.) in your project, this feature will help to make your application mobile friendly.

Implement a GridView adaptive toolbar (v19.1)

This feature allows using the GridView on a mobile device when the toolbar is shown.

GridView client-side render (v19.2)

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Miscellaneous enhancements

Responsive Project template (v19.1)

Bootstrap control performance enhancement (v19.2)

While Bootstrap controls become more and more powerful, we also want to make sure that they are still as fast as usual. Therefore, we focus a part of our efforts on control optimization to improve their performance

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New Web Report Designer Features (v19.1)

• Combine Multiple Reports into One
  We will give you the ability to combine multiple reports within the Report Designer, allow you to define print order and print all as a single document. This will address limitations associated with report merging (which is only available at runtime).
• Create Hierarchical Data Reports
  We will give you the ability to create hierarchical data reports (tree structures) and define the offset of a given band’s content based on nesting level.
• Create and Store Band Templates using the Report Gallery
  This will allow your customers to share gallery content and to generate reports with unified headers or footers.
• Bind a Report to JSON Data using the Data Source Wizard
  You’ll be able to use JsonDataSource and provide basic authentication settings, custom header values and custom query parameters.
• Create a Vertical Report using the Report Wizard
  We will add vertical reports to the Report Wizard.

XRPivotGrid: Advanced Cross-Tab Reports (v19.1)

JsonDataSource: Authentication Support (v19.1)

XRControl Enhancements (v19.1)

XRLabel: HTML-Inspired Text Formatting
We will allow you to format content in XRLabel using a subset of pseudo-HTML tags currently supported by our WinForms controls.

XRCheckBox: SVG Glyphs
We will allow you to change the default glyph associated with XRCheckBox using a pre-defined SVG glyph list.

New Web Report Designer Features (v19.1 and v19.2)

PDF Export: Visual Signatures (v19.2)

Printing Markdown Content (v19.2)

Rounded Corners (v19.2)

New Web Report Designer Features (v19.2)

• Re-order Detail Reports in Report Explorer
  This feature received 31% of the vote in our survey. 
  You’ll be able to move an entire detail report if it was created at the wrong report hierarchy level.
• Embed PDF Documents into a Report Document
  This feature received 44% of the vote in our survey. 
  You’ll be able to insert a PDF file into a report and define its content boundaries within a document.
• Move Bands to a "Background” Layer
  This feature received 31% of the vote in our survey. 
  You’ll be able to combine multiple bands so that content is rendered in a more compact manner.

• Display Empty Table Rows after Existing Data
  This feature received 21% of the vote in our survey. 
  You’ll be able to repeat empty rows until the bottom of the page is reached (to conform to a report’s structure).
• Edit XRRichText Content
  This feature received 50% of the votes in our survey.
  You’ll be able to use an in-place editor to edit RTF content.
  
  

Report Parameter Enhancements (v19.2)

• Date Range Parameter
  This feature received 26% of the vote in our survey. 
  You’ll be able to create a date range parameter and select its value at runtime using a single editor in the parameter panel.
• Date and Time Parameters
  This feature received 21% of the vote in our survey.
  You’ll be able to create a date or time parameter.
• Parameter Editor Grouping
  This feature received 20% of the vote in our survey.
  You’ll be able to logically group multiple report parameters in the parameter panel (display editors in a Group Box).
• Visibility of Parameter Editors
  This feature received 19% of the vote in our survey.
  You’ll be able to hide a parameter editor based on the value of a different parameter.

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Word Processing Document API

PDF Export (v19.1)

Embedded OpenType Font Support

Theme Fonts (v19.1)

For existing documents only. We expect to add theme font support to our Word Processing Document API.

Change Tracking (v19.2)

This feature received 21% of the votes in our survey.

Spreadsheet Document API (available in Universal subscription only)

PDF Export (v19.1)

Embedded OpenType Font Support

Optimized Printing and Layout Calculation Engine (v19.1)

This feature received 21% of the votes in our survey and will help us improve printing and layout accuracy and increase rendering speed.

PDF Document API (available in Universal subscription only)

Non-Embedded CID fonts with Predefined Encoding (v19.1)

PDF documents containing non-embedded CID fonts with predefined encoding will be supported in our PDF document API

Multiple Signatures – PDF (v19.2)

We hope to introduce multiple signature support for PDF documents.

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The information contained within this blog post details our current/projected development plans. Please note that this information is being shared for INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY and does not represent a binding commitment on the part of Developer Express Inc. This roadmap and the features/products listed within it are subject to change. You should not rely on or use this information to help make a purchase decision about Developer Express Inc products.

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