DevExpress Drawing Library Goes RTM (v23.1)

As you may already know, our new DevExpress Drawing graphics library was released to manufacturing (RTM) in our v23.1 release cycle. In this blog post, I'll summarize what we’ve addressed in our most recent update.

v23.1 Recap

We released a series of enhancements in our new graphics library in our v23.1 release cycle. Here's a brief recap of what we've shipped. 

Expanded System.Drawing Replacements

First, we replaced all System.Drawing members in our public API with their cross-platform counterparts. Please refer to the following breaking change document for a complete API list: Office-Inspired Products, Barcode Generation API, Reporting, and Printing - Members changed their types and signatures

The changes we made allowed us to address issues with the System.Drawing.Common package. Simply said, our new approach allows our cross-platform products to work as expected across all supported platforms/target frameworks. And this change has opened up numerous opportunities in other areas...in particular, given us the opportunity to deploy applications on new platforms, such as .NET MAUI and Blazor WebAssembly. Refer to the following articles for more information on how to intergate Office File API and Reporting products in .NET MAUI and Blazor WebAssembly apps:

• Use Office File API in .NET MAUI Applications (macOS, iOS, Android)
• Use Reporting Tools in .NET MAUI Applications (macOS, iOS, Android)
• Report Viewer for WebAssembly (Native)

Overcoming Limitations

To officially release, we needed to address limitations in the following products:

• DevExpress Reporting
• Office File API
  • Barcode Generation API
  • Spreadsheet Document API
  • Word Document API
  • PDF Document API
• Charts and Sparkline (since they’re used in the above-mentioned products)
• DevExpress BI Dashboard (export to image/pdf)

We've successfully addressed known issues and taken a few additional steps forward. Here's a short list of drawing library-related capabilities/features now available in non-Windows environments:

• Respect source image resolution (dpi) within XRPictureBox
• Embed PDFs into report documents using the XRPdfContent report control
• Display and print gauges within report documents using the XRGauge report control
• Export all report pages to a single TIFF image (SingleFile export mode)
• Support Shape API in Word Processing and Spreadsheet Document API (including shapes with semi-transparent images and shapes that contain metafiles)
• The PDF Graphics API subset of PDF Document API
• Export PDF files to Bitmap and extract images in PDF Document API
• and many more

Please refer to the following blog post for detailed information on each enhancement: DevExpress.Drawing Graphics Library — Early Access Preview (v23.1) — Office File API, Reporting, and Dashboard-related Enhancements

Future Plans

As of now, the DevExpress.Drawing graphics library has reached its planned level. If you encounter issues while using our drawing library, please submit a ticket via the DevExpress Support Center. Before we let you go...please take a moment to respond to the following questions. Your comments will help us fine-tune future development plans/strategies:

Free DevExpress Products - Get Your Copy Today