Let's Build Some Great Outlook-Inspired User Experiences

Next week, we'll be taking you through a tour of new demos we plan on shipping with v14.1. If you've been following my blog posts leading up to our launch, you'll know I hinted to something we've introduced across our WinForms product line - something we've wanted to do for quite some time...getting rid of scroll bars - modelling the UI in next-gen operating systems for use on the WinForms platform.

We have webinars scheduled for the week of launch - including 24 hours with DevExpress - where we'll go into details as to why we think this is important but for now, I thought I'd share a couple of screenshots from our new demos.

First, a list view that mirrors the UI of Outlook - displaying a list of employees along with detail information within the view pane (in this case, tasks and evals)

If you look closely, you'll note that there are no scrollbars in this app. Now, if you hover the container in question, the scrollbar will appear as follows (yes, this is an option, if you prefer standard scrollbars, then you can use those instead):

Another UX I want to show you is the type of print preview you can build with DevExpress WinForms Controls and our WinForms Reporting Platform.

Notice that there are no scrollbars in the report's print preview - until you move your mouse or use touch to scroll the print preview region...

This is not WPF folks - this is good ol' WinForms. So next time someone says you can't build amazing user experiences with WinForms - I hope you tell them, you absolutely can!

P.S. I realize that not everyone is going to want to replace a traditional scrollbar with our new WinForms scrollbar, but for those who want focus to be on the information that is visible and do not want to pollute the UI with unnecessary elements, then you might want to use this new feature in your next project.

I look forward to your feedback.

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