In this post, I'll summarize what's inside our most recent .NET MAUI release (v22.2).
Before I describe what's new, a quick reminder for those who have yet to take advantage of our offer. Our .NET MAUI product line remains available free-of-charge. To register your free license, please visit the following webpage: Get the DevExpress .NET MAUI Controls.
The Successor to Xamarin
This year, Microsoft officially passed the torch from Xamarin to .NET MAUI — its successor. Microsoft also announced that Xamarin-related support services would end on May 1, 2024.
Based on Microsoft's decision, we recommend those using Xamarin.Forms to consider our .NET MAUI Component Suite for existing/new mobile projects.
We will continue addressing severe issues in our Xamarin suite for two major release cycles. New functionality/capabilities will only be added to our .NET MAUI product line.
If you are ready to migrate your DevExpress Xamarin.Forms-based application to .NET MAUI, please point your browser to our the following help topic for more information: Migrate from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI.
Get Started with DevExpress .NET MAUI Mobile Controls
If you are new to .NET MAUI and our .NET MAUI UI component suite, please review the following learning materials to acquaint yourself with the DevExpress .NET MAUI product line: Get Started with DevExpress Controls for .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) | YouTube videos.
Material Design 3
As you may already know, Material Design is an adaptable system of guidelines, components, and tools that adhere to user interface design best practices. In our most recent release (v22.2), we updated our .NET MAUI product line to better match Material 3 Design guidelines.
All of our controls were redesigned with Material 3 in mind, but the most significant changes were applied to our .NET MAUI Data Editors, Scheduler/DXCalendar, and Data Grid controls.
To review design-related changes, please explore our .NET MAUI demo apps: Demo App source code, Get in on Google Play.
New Token Edit & Auto-Complete Token Edit
Our new Token and AutoComplete Editors allow you to select multiple items from a dropdown. These UI controls can display items from local storage or a remote server (such as Firebase, Azure, etc).
Refer to our Token Editors GitHub example to explore the capabilities of these .NET MAUI UI controls.
Help Topics: TokenEdit class remarks, AutoCompleteTokenEdit class remarks.
Localization
With v22.2, you can localize .NET MAUI apps as needs dictate. DevExpress .NET MAUI Controls ship with a set of resource files that include UI strings translated into English (default language), German, and French.
Localized strings are applied to an application when device language matches a resource included in a project. For example, DevExpress.Maui.de.resx is applied when device language is set to German.
You can translate our localization strings into any language and use it within your app... or even share your localization with the community! Feel free to create a pull request from our Localization Resources repository.
Refer to the following GitHub example to review the capabilities of our localization engine: Localize .NET MAUI Controls.
Localization Help Topic
Related breaking API changes: T1125921 - Localization Mechanism Changes.
XAML Hot Reload
As you may already know, Hot Reload is a Visual Studio feature that allows you to view the result of XAML changes in a running app (without having to rebuild your project). This capability can significantly reduce the time it takes to modify a view (to meet specific requirements). DevExpress .NET MAUI UI controls now ship with Hot Reload support.
Hot Reload Support Help Topic
Themes - Performance & Usability Enhancements
We optimized and enhanced the way our controls are represented internally (XAML code). This change will help cold start performance. The most significant performance improvements can be seen in our Data Grid, Scheduler, and Data Editors controls on Android devices.
You can also use implicit styles to customize the appearance of our controls in one location.
To deliver these enhancements, we refactored the core of our theming engine and renamed theme-related classes and types. To simplify the upgrade process, we've compiled a list of v22.2 breaking API changes (and how to address them) in the following support ticket: T1124204 - Appearance API Changes.
Cross-Platform DevExpress.Data Library
We migrated our mobile-specific fork/clone to the full-featured version of the DevExpress.Data library (currently used by all DevExpress customers on other .NET UI platforms). This migration helps us:
- Deliver a seamless user experience (API-wise) for DevExpress customers who have used our WinForms, WPF and ASP.NET components in the past.
- Simplify code sharing across multiple platforms.
Example: In previous versions, .NET MAUI customers used CriteriaOperator from the DevExpress.XamarinForms.Core.Filtering namespace. With v22.2, customers can use the DevExpress.Data.Filtering namespace instead.
- Automatically add new features to our .NET MAUI Data Grid, Collection View, etc.
Example: advanced mask input and performance enhancements powered by the DataController from our WinForms/WPF data grids or the new CriteriaOperator.FromLambda API.
Review the following breaking API change topic for more infromation: T1120574 - DataGridView and DXCollectionView - API Changes.
Data Grid - Custom Filtering, Grouping, and Sorting
You can now define custom rules to filter, sort, and group data in our Data Grid component. New API includes:
We also added a new AllowLiveDataShaping option. Once enabled, this option activates on-demand data recalculation when users filter, group, and sort data. This features is also available in our CollectionView.
Related breaking API change: T1120574 - DataGridView and DXCollectionView - API Changes.
Free DevExpress Products - Get Your Copy Today
The following free DevExpress product offers remain available. Should you have any questions about the free offers below, please submit a ticket via the
DevExpress Support Center at your convenience. We'll be happy to follow-up.