eXpressApp Framework - Tips & Tricks (January 2020)

Interesting Support Tickets

Reports & Office Modules

• Use different ReportV2 data sources in different environments (T834068)
• Invoke a pop-up window to choose a report parameter after closing a report (T844818)
• Track changes in Rich Text Property Editors (T827416)
• Control print preview when you export detail views with WinForms Spreadsheet and Rich Text Property Editors (T837492)
• Control how Ribbon changes the selected tab when WinForms Rich Text Property Editors get focus (T834333)

XPO

• How to address "Requested objects cannot be loaded, because they are absent in the data store" errors (T832739)
• Obtain XPO query logs in .NET Core apps (T845476)
• Load XPCollection asynchronously and then assign it to a data-bound control with the Task-based XPBaseCollection.LoadAsyc method (T844377)

ASP.NET WebForms

• Show non-persistent objects based on data loaded from REST services (T832620)
• Add styles to ASP.NET pages dynamically (T829845)
• Focus a Detail View's item in a pop-up window (T688173)
• Avoid duplicate new item rows in ASPxGridListEditor's Batch edit mode with validation rules (T848268)

Miscellaneous

• Specify visible object properties in CriteriaPropertyEditor (T188284)
• Implement JSON Web Token authentication in non-XAF apps with the Security System (T833845)
• Change the Application Model inside functional tests (T838622)
• Ways to create end-user documentation for XAF apps (T845788)

Usability & Performance Enhancements

• The Model Editor's image picker now remembers filters, window size and position between app execution (T817983).
• EasyTest for WinForms apps no longer requires administrative privileges (T836194).
• Security apps with Active Directory authentication no longer display a confusing ChangePasswordOnFirstLogon checkbox (T848218).
• To help improve performance, WinForms apps no longer check database schema every 5 minutes (T848947).
• XPO v20.1 supports Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.dll.
• XPO v20.1 now deletes objects with aggregated collections much more quickly. For instance, for 500K nested objects it's ~5x faster than in v19.2 (10.2 sec vs 46.8 sec).

Documentation Updates

Unit & Functional Testing

How to write unit tests for XAF Actions, Controllers and other custom UI logic (10 new articles!!!)

How to integrate XAF functional testing with Continuous Integration systems like Azure DevOps

XAF Tools for .NET Core 3 Apps

• Application Update
• EasyTest Basics
• Log Files
• Ways to Invoke the Model Editor

Office Modules

Simplified Access to List View's Objects

How to: Access Objects Selected in the Current View: This article now demonstrates a way to access business object wrappers via the IObjectRecord interface for different List View data access modes.

User-Friendly URLs

How to: Print a Report Without Displaying a Preview: This approach now supports the user-friendly URLs mechanism.

Need Faster Support Replies?

Once you create a new XAF ticket in the DevExpress Support Center and select XAF under the Platform/Product field, please review the following help links displayed above the Submit button. These links describe how you can collect callstacks, logs and other important diagnostic information for any .NET error. Once you collect/compile this information, forward it to us along with your support ticket. This information will ensure faster and more accurate replies from support.