WinForms Workspace Manager (Save/Restore Runtime App Settings)

v14.2 ships with a number of usability/productivity features we hope you can leverage going forward. Last week I wrote about our Image Collection and Gallery for WinForms...today, I'd like to share with you some specifics as it relates to our new Workspace Manager.

What's a Workspace Manager and Why Should You Care

To help describe the value of our Workspace Manager, let's first consider an app that uses multiple DevExpress controls - everything from our WinForms Data Grid and Ribbon Control, to our Navigation Bar and Document Manager. As you know, in in order to deliver an intuitive user experience, all of these controls need to interact with one another. Included in this interaction is the ability to save/restore layout (configuration) modifications made by the end-user at runtime.

Though each individual control we ship provides the ability to save/restore layouts to a file, XML, Registry or stream, managing this can be cumbersome when using more than a couple of controls on a form. With the release of v14.2, a better way exists to manage all end-user runtime layout modifications - that better way is called the DevExpress Workspace Manager.

This small but incredibly useful tool detects the DevExpress Controls you are using and captures their current configuration as a single global application layout called a workspace. Your end-users will be able to save these workspaces to local files and apply them whenever desired. And before you ask the next logical question, yes, the good news is that this functionality will not require you to manually create UI elements to manage individual workspaces. If you're using the DevExpress Bar Manager (or Ribbon Control), you can easily display an auto-generated bar item that integrates with your Workspace Manager.

Saving and restoring workspaces captured at runtime is not the only feature included with the Workspace Manager. Before you ship your app, you can create any number of pre-defined workspaces and give your end-users the ability to select the one most appropriate to their business needs.

See the Workspace Manager in action

The last feature I'd like to mention is the Workspace Manager's built-in animation effects whenever a workspace is applied. You can see this in action in the animation above.

Hopefully you'll agree that the Workspace Manager is a big step forward the way you and your users save/restore layouts and configurations within a WinForms project.

We'd love to get your feedback. Feel free to let us know what you think.

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