v17.1

WinForms Controls 17.1

Data Grid Control

Merged Column Grouping

With v17.1, you can now merge grouped columns for both our WinForms and WPF Data Grid by dragging the appropriate column header(s) to the group panel and arrange them across a line while pressing the CTRL key. Drag column headers below or above this line to break merged grouping.

Blog Post   Documentation

 

Office CompactView

With this release, we've extended our Grid's TileView with numerous customization options - allowing you to create a UX inspired by Office 365.

Blog Post

Our new Designer allows you to create a Tile Layout using a standard table design. You divide a tile template into rows and columns and place tile elements onto table cells using drag-and-drop. You can also merge table cells and create complex layouts.

Tile elements can be placed into table cells that resize proportionally. This allows you to create tiles that are adaptable to multiple resize operations.

You are not limited to using just one template for all tiles. You can create multiple tile templates and dynamically assign templates for individual tiles by handling corresponding event handlers.

 

Auto-Fill Empty Space

With this release, you can allow one column to automatically change its width in order to occupy any empty space within a view (GridView).

Documentation

 

Excel Inspired Filtering Enhancements

In v17.1, we have extended Excel inspired filtering, first introduced last year. New features include:

• Excel-inspired filtering is now the default filtering mode.
• Filter by null or DBNull.
• Predefined custom filters.
• A new event handler allows you to change or remove filter items from the dropdown.
• New global static properties allow you to customize all excel-inspired dropdowns at once.

Blog Post

 

Selectable Filter Operators in Auto-Filter Row

With this release, end-users can specify WinForms Grid filter conditions for individual cells within the auto-filter row.

Documentation

 

Intellisense Editor for Unbound Column Expressions

Our WinForms Data Grid, TreeList and Vertical Grid controls utilize a new Expression Editor for editing unbound column expressions. The DevExpress Expression Editor supports auto completion and syntax highlighting.

Documentation   Blog Post

 

Column Best Fit Enhancements

In previous versions, the Best Fit operation iterated through every row and every cell editor to ensure that cells have enough space for their content. With this release, you can now set the BestFitMode property to 'Fast' to accelerate column Best Fit calculations. When used, Best Fit will calculate the approximate width for a column based on a cell's display text.

 

Performance Improvements

We've improved our WinForms Data Grid's performance when scrolling through rows and during cell update.

 

Code First - New Demo Module

We have added a new module to the Grid's main demo - 'Code First'. This module displays snippets used to perform basic and advanced operations on our WinForms Data Grid control. You can run the snippets directly from the module and immediately view its output. You can also modify the code prior to execution to test various use case scenarios.

 

Chart Control

Financial Charting Enhancements

v17.1 introduces the following financial charting enhancements:

• Work Time - ability to exclude non working time from a chart (Documentation).
• Ability to specify the manner in which financial points are colorized.

• New scrolling and zooming behaviors:

  • The visual range of the value axis can be calculated by the values of points contained in the visual range of the axis of arguments.
  • If the visual range is at the end of the whole range and the end of the whole range has changed, the visual range can move to the new end of the whole range.
  • Zooming a chart via the mouse wheel scales the chart to the mouse position.

 

Performance Improvements

With this release, we have improved our .NET Chart control to ensure faster execution in bound mode. Enhancements include optimized series data binding and multi-pane chart rendering. Chart performance in bound mode can now be compared to that available when using Charts in unbound mode. Our WinForms and WPF Chart controls now execute flawlessly with real-time data.

Blog Post

 

Legend Enhancements

DevExpress Chart legend items can now display a marker and check box simultaneously.

 

Diagram Control

Show/Hide Subordinate Shapes

Documentation

 

New Pan Tool

DevExpress Diagram ships with a new Pan tool, allowing you to move or pan a diagram in any direction.

 

Drag and Drop Enhancements

You can now drag and drop items between DevExpress Diagram Controls. New events allow you to process drag and drop operations manually.

 

Automatic Layout Enhancements

To help improve its presentation, our Diagram Control's automatic layout option recalculates connection point locations. Features include configurable page alignment for Tree, Tip-Over and Layered (Sugiyama) layouts. The Tree or Tip-Over layout can be applied to any portion of a Diagram.

Documentation

 

Diagram Designer - Flat UI

With this release, we have updated all Ribbon icons . Each icon is carefully crafted with vector in mind.

 

Background Customization

You can now specify the background image and color used for Diagram pages and canvas.

Documentation

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

Additional updates include:

• Ability to move diagram items together with their subordinates.
• Ability to change the type of multiple connectors in code.
• End-users can now change the type of all diagram connectors at once.
• With this release, we have improved connector routing performance. Now it works much faster.

 

Editors

New Side Panel

v17.1 ships with our new WinForms Side Panel - a resizable pane with a one-pixel border which supports border snapping and overlay resizing.

Documentation

 

BarCode API Enhancements

Our WinForms BarCode includes a new 'ExportToImage(ImageFormat, float dpi)' method allowing you to export the BarCodeControl to various image formats and resolutions. In addition, you now have the ability to obtain the BarCodeControl's validity state.

 

Map Control

Large Vector Data Rendering Improvements

Both the performance and memory usage of our DevExpress WinForms Map control has been improved. Additionally, multiple MapPath items are now rendered with a single rendering passage. We've optimized scrolling and zoom operations and can now load large shapefiles faster.

 

Design-Time Enhancements

The following WinForms Map design-time features are now available:

• Ability to bind the WinForms Map Control to any type of a data source using our Data Source Configuration Wizard.

  
• Ability to populate the Map Control with unbound MapItems with a few mouse clicks.
• Ability to reorder map layers via drag and drop.

 

PDF Viewer

Highlighted Text Display

With this release, our PDF Viewer can display highlighted text.

 

Pivot Grid Control

Performance Improvements

We have improved the in-memory data processing capabilities of the DevExpress Pivot Grid Control. It is now up to 3-7 times faster than previous versions.

KB Article   Documentation

 

Property Grid

Intellisense Editor for Unbound Column Expressions

Our WinForms Data Grid, TreeList and Vertical Grid controls utilize a new Expression Editor for editing unbound column expressions. The DevExpress Expression Editor supports auto completion and syntax highlighting.

Blog Post

 

Scheduler Control

MS Outlook Inspired UI

With this release, we have updated the following WinForms Scheduler UI elements to better reflect the UX of MS Outlook.

• Time Cell;
• Cell Selection;
• Appointment Rectangle and its Inner Layout;
• Navigation Buttons;
• Day Headers;
• Date Navigation Bar;
• Cell Editors;
• Appointment Flyout/Tooltip;
• Appointment Status Colors.

Documentation

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

• Smooth animated scrolling in Day, Work-Week, Full Week, Week, and Month views.
• Animated drag-and-drop.
• Redesigned resource color palette.
• Improved graphics performance.

 

Skins

New Skin-Theme Editor

This release ships with a redesigned WinForms Skin Editor - designed to simplify skin-theme modifications.

Blog Post   Documentation

 

Spreadsheet Control

New Conditional Formatting Rules Manager

DevExpress Spreadsheet v17.1 ships with a new Conditional Formatting Rules Manager. With it, you can allow end-users to add new formatting rules, modify or delete existing rules applied to a selected cell range or the entire worksheet.

Blog Post   Documentation

 

Rotated Text

With this release, DevExpress Spreadsheet gives you the ability to rotate text within individual spreadsheet cells. Rotated text can be printed and exported to PDF format.

Blog Post   Documentation

 

Updated GUI with Support for Vector Icons

We have replaced all bitmap icons with SVG images to improve the look and feel of apps powered by DevExpress Spreadsheet for WinForms and WPF across high resolution monitors. Our previous GUI (bitmap images) has been retained for backward compatibility.

 

File Type Detection

With this release, you don't need to specify the document format when loading it from a stream or Byte array using the Spreadsheet's 'LoadDocument' methods. The file type is now identified automatically by the integrated file format detector.

 

TreeList Control

Excel Inspired Filtering

Much like its WinForms Grid counterpart, our WinForms TreeList control supports MS Excel-inspired column filter popups.

New filter popups consist of two tabs:

• The first tab allows you to select from among all available values.
• The second tab allows you to create a filter expression using a set of filter operators (Equals, Between, Contains, etc.).

Blog Post

 

Selectable Filter Operators in Auto-Filter Row

With this release, end-users can specify WinForms TreeList filter conditions for individual cells within the auto-filter row.

Blog Post   Documentation

 

Intellisense Editor for Unbound Column Expressions

Our WinForms Data Grid, TreeList and Vertical Grid controls utilize a new Expression Editor for editing unbound column expressions. The DevExpress Expression Editor supports auto completion and syntax highlighting.

Blog Post

 

Performance Improvements

With this release, we have almost improved our WinForms TreeList to such a degree that it's on par with our WinForms Grid from a performance perspective. You will be pleasantly surprised as to how fast our WinForms TreeList executes the functions listed below.

Blog Post

 

API Enhancements

In this release, we have updated the Tree List's API so that it is more consistent and in-line with our WinForms Grid. These changes address common data operations and include:

• Obtaining and Setting Cell Values;
• Data Sorting and Filtering;
• Node and Cell Selection;
• Value Formatting;
• Hit Testing.

Our new WinForms TreeList API also includes a LINQ-friendly node iterator with lambda expressions support.

Blog Post

 

Code First - New Demo Module

We have added a new module to the TreeList's main demo - 'Code First'. This module displays snippets used to perform basic and advanced operations on our WinForms TreeList control. You can run the snippets directly from the module and immediately view its output. You can also modify the code prior to execution to test various use case scenarios.

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

Design-Time Enhancements

With this release, all DevExpress WinForms controls can be customized using a fully integrated Designer. To invoke a control's Designer, use the 'All Properties' smart tag.

We have also added an 'Options' page to these Designers. The 'Options' page lists all control properties allowing you to customize a control without using the Visual Studio Properties window.

 

Improved Versioning and Support for Legacy Behaviors

As new features are introduced in our WinForms product line, default behavior may change over time. If you decide to migrate to the latest version of our WinForms controls and wish to retain control settings from a previous version, simply use the new DefaultSettingsCompatibilityMode property.

For example, setting the DefaultSettingsCompatibilityMode property to 'v16' enables the default behavior that was available in v16.x for all controls whose behavior has been modified in v17.1.

Documentation

 

Accordion Control Enhancements

We've extended the capabilities of our WinForms Accordion control with the following new features:

• Built-in separator to delimit navigation items.
• Ability to select an element on MouseDown.
• Smooth scrolling.
• Ability to customize an element's position during expansion.

 

OData v4 Support (Data Source Wizard)

With this release, our Data Source Wizard supports OData v4 data sources. OData is an open protocol initiated by Microsoft, allowing you to publish, read and edit resources defined in a data model using simple HTTP messages.

Documentation

 

Entity Framework Core Support (Data Source Wizard)

Our Data Source Wizard supports Entity Framework (EF) Core - a lightweight, extensible and cross-platform version of standard EF data access technology.

Documentation

 

Printing and WYSIWYG Export to Excel - Enhancements

Our WinForms Data Grid's group footer summaries are now displayed in group rows under corresponding column headers. Additionally, you can apply password protection for the XLS(X) file and export RTF data.

 

Data Aware Excel Export Enhancements

The following export enhancements ship as part of our v17.1 release:

• Ability to export node summaries (WinForms and WPF Tree List controls).
• WinForms Data Grid group footer summaries are now aligned in group rows under corresponding column headers.
• Password protection of an exported XLS(X) file.
• Ability to filter column values in the exported document in code.
• Ability to export RTF data.

 

ASP.NET Controls 17.1

New Hint Control

This release ships with our new Hint Control for both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC. As you might expect, the DevExpress ASP.NET Hint Control generates its content on demand and displays it within a box along with an arrow targeting the specified UI element on a web page.

Features include:

• A trigger action to display the hint (hover, click, focus, programmatic).
• Customizable delay before the display of the hint.
• Animation effects.
• Callout element availability.
• Position over the target element (bottom, top, left, right).
• Title text/markup (static or retrieved from the target element's attribute).
• Content text/markup (static or retrieved from the target element's attribute).
• Customizable size (height/width).
• Absolute positioning (x/y).

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Blog Post    Documentation

 

GridView Control

Command Toolbar

With this release, our ASP.NET Grid, Card View, Vertical Grid and TreeList Control ship with customizable Toolbars - allowing you to group the most frequently used grid commands for quick access. You can add or remove toolbars, change their position and contents as necessary. Toolbar items can trigger standard grid commands (e.g. data item editing, deleting, creating, etc) and any custom actions.

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Documentation

 

Touch-Enabled Customization Dialog

Our new mobile-friendly ASP.NET Web Forms Grid Customization Dialog allows you to apply column level data shaping operations with absolute ease when using touch-enabled devices. The new dialog is optimized for tablets, smartphones and desktops/laptops with touch screen displays. The following sections are available:

• Column Chooser
• Sorting
• Filtering
• Grouping

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Documentation

 

Chart Control

Client-Side Chart Designer Enhancements

The DevExpress Client-Side Chart Designer has been enhanced and now ships with the following features:

• Ability to configure secondary axes and additional chart panes.
• Ability to specify a summary function for a series and aggregate function for an axis.

Documentation

 

Legend Enhancements

DevExpress Chart legend items can now display a marker and check box simultaneously.

 

Persist Legend Check Box State for Auto-Generated Series on Callbacks.

With this release, you can optionally save legend checkbox state for auto generated series on callbacks. To activate this feature, enable the SaveStateOnCallback option.

 

Editors

Display Null Text in a Focused Editor

To help web application usability, DevExpress Data Editors for ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC can now display null text in a focused editor.

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Documentation

 

Html Editor

Improved MVC API

With this release, you no longer need to specify validation settings in multiple locations (in the view and the binder). A new model data attribute allows you to specify validation settings for the HTML markup entered into the HTML View directly in the editor's model.

Demo    Documentation

 

Client-Side API Enhancements

With this release, the DevExpress ASP.NET HTML Editor's client-side API ships with a set of new client methods, events and extended command arguments to help you process and customize standard dialogs as needed.

Demo

 

RTF Server-Side Processing

With this new property, you can force the DevExpress ASP.NET HTML Editor to process pasted RTF content on the server. This engine preserves images and retains original the formatting that was copied from a desktop word processing application, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Pages, Apple Mail, etc.

Documentation

 

Pivot Grid Control

Performance Improvements

We have improved the in-memory data processing capabilities of the DevExpress Pivot Grid Control. It is now up to 3-7 times faster than previous versions.

KB Article    Documentation

 

Rich Editor Control

Floating Objects

With this release, the DevExpress ASP.NET Rich Text Editor offers support for floating objects. End-users can now insert pictures and text boxes into a document as needed.

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Blog Post    Documentation

A new Layout dialog allows you to specify the size, position, rotation and text wrapping of floating objects.

 

Mail-Merge UI Enhancements

• The Create Field command exposes a sub-menu with multiple options allowing end-users to choose a new field's type.
• The Insert Merge Field dialog has now a search box providing end-users with an easy and straightforward way to locate data fields by typing the filter criterion.

 

Scheduler Control

New Agenda View

The DevExpress ASP.NET Scheduler now ships with an Agenda View - a compact representation of a daily schedule.

Demo: Web Forms    Documentation    Blog Post

 

Timeline View Improvements

We've made our Timeline more readable when it has too many intervals. The new 'DisplayIntevalCount' option allows you to restrict the number of visible intervals and let the appointment text fit in the para. We've also added horizontal scrolling to view the rest of the intervals.

Demo    Blog Post

 

Keyboard Support

The DevExpress ASP.NET Scheduler Control now offers keyboard shortcut support for a variety of end-user actions including time cell and appointment navigation and selection, appointment editing and view switching. You can also create additional shortcuts and associate them with your custom client-side logic.

Demo    Blog Post

 

Spreadsheet Control

Excel-Inspired Comments

You can now annotate worksheets by using comments. Comments are displayed in a floating box anchored to a cell. End-users can add new comments, edit, hide or delete existing comments, move and resize the comment box.

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Documentation

 

Context Menu Customization

With this release, you can handle a new client-side event and customize our ASP.NET Spreadsheet's context menu (insert new menu items, remove or disable existing items). Event parameters allow you to identify the worksheet element (a cell, row or column header, chart or picture) for which the context menu is invoked and prevent the menu from being displayed.

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Documentation

 

Max Row and Column Count

You can now specify the maximum number of rows and columns to be displayed in a worksheet.

Demo: Web Forms    Demo: MVC    Documentation

 

Miscellaneous

Compact Version of Material Theme

v17.1 includes a new Material Compact Theme. As you can see, we've reduced paddings so that the appearance of web apps powered by this new theme appear more compact.

 

ASP.NET Bootstrap Controls 17.1

GridView Control

The Bootstrap Grid View control is a powerful and versatile data-aware grid with extensive data shaping functionality. Its features include:

• Data Binding (supports multiple data source types);
• Data Sorting and Grouping;
• Data Filtering;
• Data Editing;
• Summaries;
• Paging;
• Templates;
• Master-Detail Data Presentation.

Demo    Blog Post    Documentation

 

Accordion Control

The DevExpress Bootstrap Accordion allows you to incorporate intuitive navigation elements in your next web app. As you can see, the Accordion displays navigation items within groups.

Demo    Documentation

 

CallbackPanel

The Callback Panel is a lightweight para control that dynamically updates its contents using callbacks to the server - without reloading the entire page.

 

Charts

DevExpress Bootstrap Charts are a set of server-side wrappers for our JavaScript-based DevExtreme Chart widgets - allowing you to leverage your knowledge of ASP.NET to integrate DevExtreme Charts into your next web application. Bootstrap Charts ship with the following features:

• 30 chart series types.
• End-user interactivity.
• Rich server-side and client-side API.
• Wide range of customization options.
• Flexible data binding engine.

Demo

 

Editors

Button

The Bootstrap Button control extends standard button functionality with an extended API that includes the ability to modify button properties and respond to button events using client code.

Demo    Documentation

 

Button Edit

The Bootstrap Button Edit control displays a text editor with one or more buttons displayed in its client region.

Demo    Documentation

 

Calendar

The Bootstrap Calendar control allows end-users to select dates and navigate through individual months-years.

Demo    Documentation

 

Check Box

The Bootstrap Check Box can be used to visualize Yes/No or True/False conditions.

Demo    Documentation

 

Check Box List

The Bootstrap Check Box List editor represents a check box group and allows an end-user to select multiple items. Its contents can be generated dynamically by binding the editor to a data source.

Demo    Documentation

 

Combo Box

The Combo Box control is dropdown list editor allowing end-users to select from a list of specified values.

Demo    Documentation

 

Date Edit

The Bootstrap Date Edit control is a date editor control that combines the functionality of a single-line text editor, button editor and dropdown calendar.

Demo    Documentation

 

List Box

The Bootstrap List Box control displays a list of selectable items.

Demo    Documentation

 

Memo

The Bootstrap Memo control allows end-users to edit data across multiple lines.

Demo    Documentation

 

Progress Bar

The Progress Bar control visually indicates the state of a given operation.

Demo    Documentation

 

Radio Button

The Bootstrap Radio Button editor allows users to select a specific item.

Demo    Documentation

 

Radio Button List

The Bootstrap Radio Button List represents a collection of radio buttons and gives users the ability to select a single item from the radio button group.

Demo    Documentation

 

Spin Editor

The Bootstrap Spin Edit control gives users the ability to modify numeric values by incrementing/decrementing data via spin buttons, mouse wheel, or the keyboard.

Demo    Documentation

 

Text Box

The Bootstrap Text Box control is a single-line text editor.

Demo    Documentation

 

Upload Control

The Bootstrap Upload Control allows end-users to upload files to the server via the browser. End-users can select the appropriate file by invoking the standard Open File dialog or by dragging the file to the control.

Demo

 

Form Layout

The Form Layout control simplifies the manner in which you create form layouts within Visual Studio. It allows you to construct complex layouts by manipulating the order and hierarchy of layout elements.

Demo    Documentation

 

Menu

The Bootstrap Menu gives you an easy way to incorporate navigation elements within your web application. It is a multi-level menu control that can be populated with static data or bound to a site map data source.

Demo    Documentation

 

Pager

The Pager control provides a visual interface for custom paging solutions within your web application.

Demo    Documentation

 

Popup Control

The Bootstrap Popup Control allows you to display overlapping popup windows within web application.

Demo    Documentation

 

Popup Menu

The Bootstrap Popup Menu is a context sensitive menu that can be associated with a specific control on a webpage.

Demo

 

Tab and Page Controls

The Page Control and Tab Control allow you to present content as a set of tabbed pages. The Page Control allows you to associate specific content with each page, while the Tab Control displays tabs and requires you to update displayed content manually.

Demo    Documentation

 

TreeView Control

Our Bootstrap Tree View is a data-aware record navigation control designed to display hierarchical data within a tree-like UI metaphor.

Demo    Documentation

 

WPF Controls 17.1

Accordion Control

Our new WPF Accordion Control is a feature-rich navigation control designed to extend the capabilities found in our existing Navigation Bar. The Accordion Control allows you to create a full-featured NavBar with multiple items (actions). Items can be combined into groups. Groups can contain nested groups so you can create an advanced hierarchical navigation menu.

The DevExpress Accordion Control ships with the following features:

• Unlimited number of hierarchy levels.
• Data binding support.
• Expand/collapse animation.
• Glyph support.
• Custom item content.
• Built-in search.
• Virtual mode.
• Ability to specify which items can be selected by an end-user.

Documentation    Blog Post

 

Data Grid Control

Merged Column Grouping

With v17.1, you can now merge grouped columns for both our WinForms and WPF Data Grid by dragging the appropriate column header(s) to the group panel and arrange them across a line while pressing the CTRL key. Drag column headers below or above this line to break merged grouping.

Blog Post

 

Live Data Update Indicator

The DevExpress WPF Data Grid can now indicate data change state when using Conditional Formatting. Features include:

• New Trigger condition.
• Animation effects for all format conditions. Animation executes each time a cell value changes.

Blog Post

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

This release includes a number of enhancements for our WPF Data Grid including:

• Support for multi-cell selection in master-detail mode.
• Availability of a SortFieldName property for individuals columns, allowing you to specify a different field for sort operations.
• Ability to save/restore a layout with autogenerated bands.
• Ability to load a Grid without a focused row.
• Simplified method to display custom Grid Cell Tooltips.

Additionally, WPF Data Grid Footer Summaries are now aligned in group rows under corresponding column headers when exported in data-aware mode.

 

Chart Control

Financial Charting Enhancements

v17.1 introduces the following financial charting enhancements:

• Work Time - ability to exclude non working time from a chart (Documentation).
• Ability to specify the manner in which financial points are colorized.

• New scrolling and zooming behaviors:

  • The visual range of the value axis can be calculated by the values of points contained in the visual range of the axis of arguments.
  • If the visual range is at the end of the whole range and the end of the whole range has changed, the visual range can move to the new end of the whole range.
  • Zooming a chart via the mouse wheel scales the chart to the mouse position.

 

Performance Improvements

With this release, we have improved our .NET Chart control to ensure faster execution in bound mode. Enhancements include optimized series data binding and multi-pane chart rendering. Chart performance in bound mode can now be compared to that available when using Charts in unbound mode. Our WinForms and WPF Chart controls now execute flawlessly with real-time data.

We've also improved 2D series rendering with the default points model, allowing you to use all standard series types for apps that require real-time analytics.

Blog Post

 

MVVM Support

With this release, our WPF Chart Control ships with MVVM pattern support and incorporates the following new features:

• Multiple series types are now generated from the series source in a View Model.
• Custom axis labels and secondary axes are now generated from sources in a View Model.

 

Diagram Control

New Pan Tool

DevExpress Diagram ships with a new Pan tool, allowing you to move or pan a diagram in any direction.

 

Show/Hide Subordinate Shapes

Documentation

 

Automatic Layout Enhancements

To help improve its presentation, our Diagram Control's automatic layout option recalculates connection point locations. Features include configurable page alignment for Tree, Tip-Over and Layered (Sugiyama) layouts. The Tree or Tip-Over layout can be applied to any portion of a Diagram.

Documentation

 

Background Customization

You can now specify the background image and color used for Diagram pages and canvas.

Documentation

 

Drag and Drop Enhancements

You can now drag and drop items between DevExpress Diagram Controls. New events allow you to process drag and drop operations manually.

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

DevExpress Diagram v17.1 ships with the following minor enhancements:

• Ability to move diagram items together with their subordinates.
• Ability to change multiple connector types in code.
• End-users can now modify all diagram connectors types simultaneously.
• Improved font quality and large shapes when a diagram is printed.
• Ability to create custom toolbars with the Diagram's Ribbon items.

 

PDF Viewer

Highlighted Text Display

With this release, our PDF Viewer can display highlighted text.

 

Pivot Grid Control

Performance Improvements

In v17.1, we have improved in-memory data processing of the Pivot Grid Control to work up to 3-7 times faster.

KB Article    Documentation

 

API Enhancements

The DevExpress WPF Pivot Grid v17.1 ships with the following enhancements:

• New PivotGridField.FieldFilterValues and PivotGridGroup.GroupFilterValues properties allow you to filter a Pivot Grid's data in XAML.
• Ability to define Pivot Grid fields and groups using MVVM via the FieldsSource and GroupsSource properties.
• New converter classes (EventArgsToCellInfoConverter, EventArgsToFieldValueInfoConverter) to help you obtain cell and field value information (data field, row and column values, drill-down data, etc.).
• Ability to obtain information about the currently focused cell (SelectedCellInfo).
• The PivotGridField.HeaderImage and TreeViewHeaderImage properties allow you to display an Image to the left of a field header.
• New PivotGridControl.CellStyle and FieldValueStyle properties allow you to set the cell's background and border colors.

 

Rich Text Editor

Integrated Ribbon UI

With v17.1, our WPF Rich Text Editor ships with an integrated Ribbon-based UI. Use the Rich Editor's properties and Ribbon actions to display, hide or customize the Ribbon UI as needed. Our previous Ribbon UI generation technique has been retained for backward compatibility.

Documentation    Blog Post

 

Document Source Binding in XAML

With this release, you can bind the DevExpress WPF Rich Editor to a document source from XAML using the DocumentSource property. We offer support for the following:

• Stream;
• String (document content or document path);
• Uri;
• FileInfo;
• Byte array;
• RichEditDocumentSource (allows you to set the bound document's format).

Documentation

 

Specify Options in XAML

With this release, you can now specify Rich Text Editor options in XAML or by using the Properties window. All options are now bindable.

 

Spreadsheet Control

New Conditional Formatting Rules Manager

DevExpress Spreadsheet v17.1 ships with a new Conditional Formatting Rules Manager. With it, you can allow end-users to add new formatting rules, modify or delete existing rules applied to a selected cell range or the entire worksheet.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Integrated Ribbon and Formula Bar

The Ribbon UI and Formula Bar are now integrated into the Spreadsheet Control so that XAML markup is more compact and readable. You can display, hide or customize the Ribbon by setting the Spreadsheet control's properties or using Ribbon actions. Our previous Ribbon UI generation technique has been retained for backward compatibility.

Documentation

 

Rotated Text

With this release, DevExpress Spreadsheet gives you the ability to rotate text within individual spreadsheet cells. Rotated text can be printed and exported to PDF format.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Updated GUI with Support for Vector Icons

We have replaced all bitmap icons with SVG images to improve the look and feel of apps powered by DevExpress Spreadsheet for WinForms and WPF across high resolution monitors. Our previous GUI (bitmap images) has been retained for backward compatibility.

 

Document Source Enhancements

In v17.1, the Spreadsheet Control's DocumentSource integrates the file format detector allowing you to load a document omitting its type. Documents can be loaded from a stream, Byte array or any other location specified by the full file path or Uri.

Documentation

 

Themes

New Office 2016 Themes (Special Edition)

In this release, we have re-worked our Office 2016 (White, DarkGray, Colorful) Themes and optimized their visual tree so that WPF applications powered by DevExpress Controls can execute significantly faster. These new 'Special Edition' Themes ship with a color palette so you can modify theme colors via our new Theme Designer.

 

New Theme Designer (CTP)

Our new WPF Theme Designer allows you to create new themes by changing the color schemes of existing DevExpress Themes. Features include:

• Color palette and color scheme editing.
• Import existing schemes for editing.
• Quick preview.
• Automatic upgrade to new versions.
• Ability to build an assembly with a new theme.

Download WPF Theme Designer

 

TreeList Control

Node Summaries

With this release, our WPF TreeList control supports node summaries. End-users can display node totals for a column via the control's context menu.

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

New Themed Window

Our new ThemedWindow control supports all DevExpress WPF Themes and automatically adjusts its appearance when you add a Ribbon or Tab Control to it.

 

PRISM Support

Our WPF product line now offers built-in support for Prism 5 and Prism 6. Our DevExpress.Xpf.PrismAdapters.v17.1 assembly provides adapters for the following controls:

• LayoutGroup;
• DocumentGroup;
• TabbedGroup;
• LayoutPanel;
• DXTabControl;
• NavigationFrame;
• NavBarGroup.

 

Windows 10 Controls v17.1

Grid Control

Input Validation and Error Indication

With this release, our Windows 10 Grid Control allows you to validate end-user data input and display error messages as necessary.

Documentation

 

Context Menu

With this release, our Windows 10 Data Grid control can display customizable context menus within its para.

Documentation

 

Text Trimming in Column Headers

 

Editors

Performance Improvements

Our Windows 10 TextEdit, SpinEdit and DateEdit controls load faster as a result of template optimizations and internal performance improvements.

 

Hamburger Menu

Context Menu

Our Hamburger Menu can now display customizable context menus.

Documentation

 

Miscellaneous

Enhanced Theme Engine

v17.1 ships with an improved Windows 10 Theme Engine and simplified color scheme customization options.

Documentation

 

New SVG Icon Control

Our new Windows 10 SVG Icon control allows you to display vector images with fill color that is automatically updated based on the current theme.

Documentation

 

Context Menu

Our new context menu can be attached to any visual control.

 

DX Template Gallery - New Hamburger Menu Template for MVVM

We've extended our DX Template Gallery with a new MVVM Hamburger Menu application template.

 

DevExtreme & HTML5/JS v17.1

New DevExtreme React Grid (CTP)

DevExtreme v17.1 ships with our new React Grid. This new widget is not a wrapper over an existing jQuery widget but a native React component, rendered using Bootstrap 3. It has a composable and extensible architecture, supports both controlled and uncontrolled modes, and can be easily integrated with Redux.

Features include:

• Data Sorting and Grouping;
• Data Editing (Edit Row, Edit Column, New Item Row);
• Filter Row;
• Detail Row;
• Paging;
• Multiple Row Selection;
• Virtual Scrolling.

Demos    Documentation

 

MVC Controls (RTM)

We are proud to announce the official release of our controls for ASP.NET MVC (v3 and higher) and .NET Core (v1.0 and v1.1). v17.1 also includes:

• Our Technical Demos cover over 200 use-case scenarios.
• Integrated Project Tools allow you to add DevExtreme controls to existing ASP.NET MVC and .NET Core projects.
• Visual Studio® 2017 Support.
• C# and Visual Basic Support.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Strongly-Typed 'EditorFor' Helpers for DevExtreme Editors

'EditorFor' helpers simplify the data binding of DevExtreme editors to model properties. 'EditorFor' helpers auto populate widget properties (e.g. name, value, placeholder, validation settings, etc.).

 

New TreeList

v17.1 introduces our new feature-complete, data-aware TreeView-ListView hybrid that can display information as a TREE, a GRID, or a combination of both with full data editing support. Its features include:

• Data Editing and Input Validation;
• Data Filtering and Search;
• Data Sorting
• Fixed and Band Columns;
• Keyboard Navigation;
• Virtual Mode;
• Virtual Scrolling and more.

Blog Post    Documentation    Video

 

Data Grid

Advanced Column Sizing

With this release, you can set a column's minimum width and specify how columns are resized when users modify column width. You can specify whether to modify the width of the widget itself or whether to apply changes only to the column positioned after the resized column.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Popup Edit Form

This release includes a new HTML5 data editing mode. Our Data Grid's edit form can now be displayed within a popup window.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Scheduler

Performance Enhancements

Our HTML 5 Scheduler is now able to render only new appointments, or those appointments whose size has been modified.

 

UI Widgets

DropDownBox Widget

Our new DropDownBox widget is an HTML 5 Editor that consists of a text field and linked drop-down content.

Documentation    Video

 

SelectBox and TagBox Enhancements

With this release, our Drop-Down List (in SelectBox and TagBox widgets) supports grouping.

TagBox Documentation    SelectBox Documentation

Our Select Box can now customize the drop-down button's appearance.

Documentation

 

.NET Reporting v17.1

All Platforms

End-User Sorting in Print Preview

End-users can now sort detail data and report groups. We have implemented several options allowing you to enable end-user sorting without writing code.

Documentation

 

Chart Filtering by Report Groups

With this release, you no longer need to write any code to visualize data in report groups when using charts.

Documentation

 

PDF Export Enhancements

With this release, we've extended the character set for non-embedded fonts supported by our PDF export engine from ISO Latin-1 to Adobe Glyph List. Additionally, you can now export Charts and Sparklines to PDF (in vector format) on Azure and Medium Trust environments.

Documentation

 

PDF Encryption

With this release, you can specify one of the following encryption algorithms for your PDF files:

• 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) - used by default;
• 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard);
• 128-bit ARC4 (Alleged Rivest Cipher 4).

Documentation

 

Export to DOCX

Documentation

 

BarCode Validation

With our new BarCode runtime validation, you can ensure that a correct barcode is specified and that it is properly drawn on a document. If validation fails, a corresponding error message is displayed.

Documentation

 

Import from Crystal Reports (v13.0+)

Our new data import engine allows you to migrate existing reports from the latest version of Crystal Reports. The import engine supports SQL and Oracle data sources, summaries, parameters, and numerous other report features.

Documentation

 

Report Server

Dashboard Support

This release integrates DevExpress Dashboard with our Report Server. You can now create dashboards using our integrated Web Dashboard Designer, bind to SQL data sources, schedule and send dashboard documents via e-mail, etc. Dashboards support all Report Server features including Data Model binding, revision storage and permission management.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Working with Queries

We've supported SQL data sources provided by our Data Access Library, and improved a number of query related features, including:

• Support for parameters in filter expressions of a data model query.
• The ability to create queries within a specific report or dashboard.
• The ability to create relationships between tables that share no common key.

In some instances, you might need to update your scripts.

Documentation

 

Filter by User-Related Functions

You can now filter data using account-related information (e.g. User Name, User Groups, Domain Name, etc.). This allows you to restrict data displayed within a report or dashboard for specific users.

Documentation

 

Web

Chart Enhancements

v17.1 ships with a new Web Chart Designer with summary and data aggregation support. Additional features include the ability to customize the chart diagram, secondary axes, legends, constant lines and panes, scale breaks and strips.

Documentation

 

Web Report Designer for DevExtreme

The DevExpress Web Report Designer can now be seamlessly integrated into a DevExtreme HTML 5 web application.

Documentation

 

Web Report Designer - Report Explorer Enhancements

With this release, the Report Explorer ships with the following customization enhancements:

• Ability to reorder report bands and controls.
• Ability to move report controls between bands.

Documentation

 

Web Report Designer - Report Wizard Enhancements

Our Report Wizard now offers a SQL Data Source Wizard - allowing you to bind reports to a variety of SQL data sources.

Documentation

 

Web Report Designer - Field List Enhancements

You can now select multiple data fields and drag them onto a report. We've also introduced the ability to drag a data source onto a report and to drag data fields onto existing report controls (in order to bind these controls to corresponding fields).

Documentation

 

New Client-Side API

With this release, our client-side Web Report Designer and Document Viewer can be customized in code. A new API allows you to:

• Customize controls and their properties;
• Customize Report Designer and Document Viewer UI elements and actions;
• Localize the Report Designer and Document Viewer;
• Manage the Document Preview;
• Print and Export Reports
• and much more

Documentation

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

• Our Query Builder now offers support for the SELECT DISTINCT statement.
• Our HTML5 Document Viewer can zoom a document page to fill all available space. Finally, we've improved the editors used to specify numeric parameter values.

 

WinForms

New Expression Editor

v17.1 ships with a new expression editor for calculated fields and formatting rules. The expression editor provides syntax highlighting and intelligent code completion options.

Documentation

 

Create Master-Detail Reports in Report Wizard

Our Report Wizard allows you to create master-detail reports and specify associated group and summary options.

Documentation

 

New Report Gallery

With our new Report Gallery, reports are created easier and faster. The Report Gallery lets you store report controls, data sources, layouts and styles, and keep them for later use.

Documentation

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

You can now specify the XRRichText control's HTML and RTF data bindings via a smart tag. In addition, you now have the ability to specify group field names at design-time without having a report data source (e.g. runtime data binding).

 

WPF

New Expression Editor

v17.1 ships with a new expression editor for calculated fields and formatting rules. The expression editor provides syntax highlighting and intelligent code completion options.

 

Create Master-Detail Reports in Report Wizard

Our Report Wizard allows you to create master-detail reports and specify associated group and summary options.

Documentation

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

• Report Designer - Alignment and Layout actions have been added to the Ribbon.
• You can now export components to separate Excel sheets using CompositeLink.

 

eXpressApp Framework v17.1

Core Enhancements

Optimized Controller Creation in Detail Collections

With this release, XAF powered applications with numerous Controllers associated with detail collections load faster. We no longer instantiate non-activated View Controllers due to TargetViewType, TargetViewNesting, TargetObjectType or TargetViewId restrictions.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Immediate Synchronization of the Application Model and its UI

Keeping your Application Model synchronized with the UI no longer requires UI recreation. Call the new Frame.SetView(View, Boolean, Frame, Boolean) method instead.

Documentation

 

FIPS compliance improvements

With this release, we've added new options for those who need to deploy apps to production environments with the FIPS policy enforcement (government desktop computers or highly secured web servers). XAF's APIs now support FIPS compliant algorithms for more secure user passwords encryption and images hashing.

Documentation

 

Predefined Modes for Populating a New Action's Item List

With this release, you can specify the manner in which a new action's item list is populated. The following options are available:

• Default: The current business object type and all of its descendant types are added.
• ExcludeBaseType: All descendants of the current type are added. The current type itself is excluded.
• LastDescendantsOnly: Only the last types in the inheritance hierarchy of the current type are added.

Documentation

 

Mobile Platform Enhancements

New Mobile Map Module

With our new Maps module for XAF Mobile applications you can incorporate interactive maps and customize their providers and data source.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

UX Improvements

New Color Editor for Web XAF Applications

Our new Color Editor allows you to set color properties. You can type the value directly into the editor's text box, select a color from the color palette in the editor's dropdown window, or use the optional color picker to select a custom color. End-users can specify colors by entering a value directly within the edit box using longhand or shorthand hexadecimal notation (HEX) for RGB color values (#f0f, #D8D8D8, etc.), or by using standard HTML color names ('red', 'green', etc.), which are then automatically converted to color codes.

 

New Parameter Types for Parametrized Actions

With the v17.1 release, Parametrized Actions support the following parameter types;

• decimal;
• float;
• double.

 

Platform-Agnostic API for Text Notifications

Text notification display (e.g. confirmation messages, warnings, errors) has been simplified for desktop and Web XAF applications.

Documentation

 

High DPI Support

With this release, desktop apps powered by XAF will offer a consistent appearance across a wide variety of high-DPI display settings.Your WinForms XAF applications will now be scaled correctly when setting the scaling factor ('Change the size of text, apps and other items' option) to a value greater than 100%.

To enable the High DPI support, add the 'app.manifest' file to your project and enable the 'dpiAware' option.

The DPI-aware scaling is also enabled in XAF design-time tools.

 

Navigation Items are Rendered as Hyperlinks

In previous versions, XAF offered support for Multiple Browser Tabs . With this release, navigation items are rendered as hyperlinks giving you the ability to open independent XAF views within different browser tabs.

 

Analytics Dashboard v17.1

Web Dashboard

Our Web Dashboard continues to evolve and with this release, completely replaces the previously available Dashboard Viewer. The DevExpress Web Dashboard is now significantly faster, provides a rich client-side API for comprehensive dashboard customization, and supports Designer/Viewer or Viewer Only modes.

Demo    Online Video    Documentation

 

Custom Dashboard Items

DevExpress Dashboard v17.1 allows you to use JavaScript extensions to create custom Web Dashboard items. You can render desired HTML content inside your custom Dashboard item as needed. Features include the ability to describe item data binding, specify custom properties, apply interactivity, provide a Toolbox icon, configure export behaviors, etc.

Demo    Documentation

 

Custom JS Extensions

With our v17.1 release, DevExpress Dashboard ships with full support for web extensions (independent JavaScript modules/classes). By leveraging the flexibility of our extension engine, you can control feature availability within the Toolbox and Dashboard menu, modify element order and even create your own dashboard items.

Documentation

 

Saving and Restoring Client State

DevExpress Dashboard can now track the client state of web dashboard items and save or restore them as necessary. As you'd expect, this new feature has been designed so that end-users can customize a dashboard based on personal preferences and give you the means to load these changes on subsequent site visits.

You can save or load the following changes:

• Master Filtering
• Parameters
• Drill-down
• Selected index of a dashboard item

Documentation

 

Visualization

New Card Design and Customization Options

DevExpress Dashboard v17.1 ships with enhanced rendering algorithms for individual Cards items. Dashboard Cards are now rendered faster and offer additional layout options. You can now modify a card's layout and design its content using predefined templates.

Win: Documentation    Web: Documentation

 

Pivot Table - New Layout Options

DevExpress Dasbhoard's Pivot Table includes additional options to control its layout and configuration (visibility of totals and grand totals, etc). With v17.1, you can now specify the following settings:

• Layout Type: Compact or Tabular
• Values Position and its Visibility
• Totals Position and its Visibility

Win: Documentation    Web: Documentation

 

Treemap - Drill-Down Support

With our Dashboard's new TreeMap Drill-Down feature, your end-users can quickly analyze the underlying data of a TreeMap by changing the control's detail level. As you'd expect, users can drill down for details or drill up for summarized information.

Win: Documentation    Web: Documentation

 

Exporting

Server-Side Dashboard Export

With our v17.1 release, DevExpress Dashboard ships with a new server-side export API, designed to execute export operations on the server. In previous versions, Dashboards could only be exported by end-users via the Web Dashboard viewer.

Documentation

 

Data Export Enhancements

DevExpress Dashboard ships with the following new export options:

• Export an entire dashboard to Excel.
• Ability to display parameter values in exported documents.
• Locating and setting print and export options for specific file formats (PDF, Image or Excel) has become much easier. We've categorized all our print and export options, and introduced an individual options class for each supported file format (e.g. DashboardPdfExportOptions).

  Example: How to update a project with WinForms Dashboard to use a new printing/exporting API

 

Report Server

Dashboard Support

This release integrates DevExpress Dashboard with our Report Server. You can now create dashboards using our integrated Web Dashboard Designer, bind to SQL data sources, schedule and send dashboard documents via e-mail, etc. Dashboards support all Report Server features including Data Model binding, revision storage and permission management.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Document Server v17.1

PDF Document Processor

Create/Delete Interactive Form

With this release, you can programmatically add new form fields to a PDF document, remove existing form fields or the entire interactive form from the PDF document.

Documentation

 

Extended Set of Supported Characters for Non-Embedded Fonts

v17.1 extends the characters set for non-embedded fonts for both PDF Graphics and the AcroForm API from ISO Latin-1 to Adobe Glyph List.

 

Highlighted Text

With this release, our PDF Document Processor can render highlighted text.

 

Document Password Protection Enhancements

You can now use one of the following encryption algorithms to protect your PDF documents:

• 128-bit AES (used by default);
• 256-bit AES;
• 128-bit ARC4.

Our PDF Password Protection API can also work in partial trust environments.

Documentation

 

Spreadsheet Automation

Rotated Text

With this release, we give you the ability to rotate text within individual spreadsheet cells. Rotated text can be printed and exported to PDF format.

Documentation

 

File Type Detection

With this release, you don't need to specify the document format when loading it from a stream or Byte array using 'LoadDocument' methods. The file type is now identified automatically by the integrated file format detector.

 

CodeRush for Roslyn v17.1

New Naming Assistant

This release introduces the CodeRush Naming Assistant. It makes naming new members, variables, and parameters easier.

The Naming Assistant window automatically opens as you start typing a new symbol name. The suggestion list is filtered as you type. Suggestions are based on:

• Identifier names used in the solution and in the current code block;
• The type of the identifier;
• The identifier role (member, variable, or parameter).

To select a suggestion use the up/down arrow keys. Press Enter to accept the selected suggestion.

Documentation

 

New Declare Menu

This release introduces the Declare menu, a quick and easy way to add frequently-needed code to your types. The following declarations are now available:

• Automatic Constructor generation (which also automatically initializes selected members and optionally generates encapsulating properties).
• Delegate Members is useful when you want to surface a field’s or property’s members to this parenting type. This provider creates members that wrap around the contained field’s or property’s members. For example, if your type contains a generic List of strings (as a field or property), you can wrap that List’s Count property in its own property, easily surfacing it in your type.
• IDisposable Implementation generates the Dispose pattern, disposing the specified fields and properties.
• Equality Members generates two Equals methods and a GetHashCode override, and optionally generates equality comparison operator overloads.
• Override Members overrides virtual and abstract methods (e.g. GetHashCode).
• Properties and Read-only Properties generate properties for the selected fields.
• Comparison Members generates a CompareTo implementation, individually comparing the specified fields, and optionally implements the IComparable<T> and IComparable interfaces.
• Missing Members adds any missing members (e.g., from an unimplemented interface or an inherited abstract class with abstract members) to the active class.
• Partial Methods implements any partial methods missing from the active class.
• ToString Override.

You can access the Declare menu using the Alt+Insert shortcut.

Documentation

 

New Code Metrics

Improve code quality and measure code complexity with Code Metrics. Appearing in the editor (to the left of member declarations), code metric values allow you to immediately spot code that is difficult to read or maintain due to its complexity.

Three metrics are currently available: Maintenance Complexity, Cyclomatic Complexity and Line Count. We expect to extend this list in future releases.

Documentation

 

New Clipboard History

This release introduces the Clipboard History list, providing complete visual access to your ten most-recent clipboard operations. Instantly paste with the Ctrl+number shortcut. Filter through the list just by entering the text you’re looking for. Ctrl+Shift+V brings up the Clipboard History list.

Documentation

 

Refactorings and Code Providers

Convert to Function/Procedure

This code provider allows you to easily convert a method that returns void into a function that returns the appropriate type (matching the type of the expression returned) and vice versa. This refactoring is available when the caret is on a return statement that returns a value inside a void proc (or sub in VB).

Convert to Function Documentation    Convert to Procedure Documentation

 

Extract Interface

This refactoring creates an interface based on the public members of the active class, and modifies the active class so it implements the extracted interface.

Documentation

 

Widen Scope (promote to field)

Use this to move a local variable declaration from inside a method body out to become a private field of the active class.

Documentation

 

Move Type to Namespace

This refactoring changes the active type’s namespace and updates all references.

Documentation

 

Introduce Using Statement

This refactoring replaces object creation and dispose code blocks with a using statement. This improves code readability and ensures that locally-used objects are properly disposed.

Documentation

 

INotifyPropertyChanged Code Providers

We've added Introduce Change Notification and Convert to Property with Change Notification. These code providers help implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface for the property at the caret.

 

Implement IDisposable

This code provider makes it easy to implement the dispose pattern in your types.

Documentation

 

Encapsulate Property

This refactoring wraps specified field properties (declared by the field’s type) in new properties declared in the active class/struct. It's an easy way to surface properties from an owned field up to the containing class.

Documentation

 

Smart Duplicate Line Improvements

We have extended the Smart Duplicate Line functionality with the following improvements:

• Smart Duplicate Line features are now available in XAML.

  

• The hex, octal, float, double, and decimal literals are now automatically incremented.

  

• Smart Duplicate Line recognizes camel case parts of an identifier name and create links between similar parts of different identifiers.

  

• Smart Duplicate Line recognizes enum element references and automatically cycles through those elements (if a pattern of enum element cycling is detected in the surrounding code).

  
• If Smart Duplicate Line cannot recognize any pattern, it creates a text field around each identifier and literal in duplicated line.
• When duplicating items in collection initializers and in parameter lists, a comma is added automatically.
• You can now disable the 'smart' part of the Smart Duplicate Line feature so that it simply duplicates the line of code as is.

Smart Duplicate Line is available by pressing Shift+Enter.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

XAML Support

Convert Nested Element to Attribute/Attribute to Nested Element

We have added two new refactorings: Convert Nested Element to Attribute and Convert Attribute to Nested Element. Using them, you can extract an attribute from a XAML tag and make it a child element. You can also perform the reversed operation — inline a child element as an attribute of the parent tag. This refactoring may increase readability if you have too many attributes or a too deep nesting level.

Blog Post    Documentation

 

Miscellaneous XAML Improvements

• Navigation features now support XAML bindings.
• Duplicate Line features are now available in XAML.

Blog Post

 

Visualization Tools

Region Painting

In v17.1, we have added the Region Painting feature, which adds low-contrast visual representation of #region directives, reducing visual noise where regions are used.

Documentation

 

Output Highlighting

You can now highlight errors and warnings in the Output Window, making it easier to recognize important messages faster.

Documentation

 

C# 7 and VB 15 Syntax Support

We have made several improvements to support the new C# 7 language:

• The Expand\Compress Ternary refactorings now support C# 7 syntax.
• Smart Return ('r' template) now supports C# 7 syntax.
• Declare menu providers support C# 7 syntax.
• The Use Expression Body refactoring now works on constructors, destructors, getters and setters.
• We have added support for the new language features to the Debug Visualizer, including support for the new switch capabilities.
  
  
• Smart Duplicate Line now understands the new language features, including binary literals and digit separators.
  
  
• Expand Method, Expand Property, Expand Getter and Expand Setter refactorings all now support the new language features.

 

Unit Testing

Jasmine Test Runner

In this release, we're introducing the beta version of the Jasmine Test Runner for JavaScript and TypeScript. This feature, in its current state, should be considered a technical preview, but you can already run Jasmine tests with it using the CodeRush Test Runner window.

This beta works with the following restrictions:

• Test discovery is not implemented yet. Every file with unit tests should reference the Jasmine framework (e.g., contain the following string at the beginning: "/// <reference path="'path"/to/jasmine.js' />").
• Currently all of the project's JS files will appear in the Test Runner. You can Ctrl+click to multi-select the test files you want to run, or you can right-click a file and add it to a new or existing Test Runner session, allowing you to easily run all tests in all files held by that session at once.
• Test Debugging and Code Coverage are not yet implemented.
  

This technical preview feature is disabled by default, however you can enable it using the Unit Testing | Test Runner options page.

 

Code Style

Namespace References Declaration Style

We have added a new Code Style rule for placing new Namespace reference imports/using declarations. You can now choose one of three styles: use fully qualified type names, place new imports/using references at the top of the file, or place new imports/using statements inside the active namespace.

 

Stop on Build Error

You can now tell CodeRush for Roslyn to stop building a solution if project building fails and an attempt to build a dependent project is made.

Documentation

 

VCL Controls v17.1

To get started with our newest release, download a free 30-day trial or renew your expired subscription online. If you'd like to get preferential pricing, be sure to contact us via email - we'll be happy to get you the best possible price so you can enjoy all the new features we're shipping in this release.

Start Download 

Grid Control

Row Selection Improvements

v17.1 introduces the following row selection improvements:

• Optional web-style row selection using check boxes;
• Customizable check box position:
• Data rows;
• Group rows;
• The column header;
• The indicator or the first column.
• A new mode that assists end-users with persisting the current selection during row navigation;
• Optional synchronization of selected state between group rows and their child rows to help users make their selection with fewer mouse clicks.

 

Ribbon & Toolbars

This release adds the following enhancements:

• Ability to use custom panels (TdxStatusBarPanel descendants) in status bars;
• Ribbon GalleryItem - Ability to hide gallery item hints;
• Ribbon ColorGalleryItem - Optional borders for color palette items;
• Ribbon ColorGalleryItem - Ability to customize the Auto menu item's color.

 

Map Control

New Projections

• Braun stereographic;
• EPSG:4326 (also known as WGS 84 or WGS 1984);
• Kavrayskiy VII;
• Lambert cylindrical equal-area;
• Sinusoidal.

 

Asynchronous Zooming

End-user zoom functionality is now always asynchronous, helping you maintain your application's responsiveness. A new method allows you to asynchronously zoom in/out in code.

 

Customizable Display Formats for Navigation Panel Coordinates

With v17.1, you can specify display format masks for the X and Y coordinates. Each mask combines any custom text with one or more macros specifying a placeholder for a cardinal point, degree, minute, or second value, as well as the number of decimal places to display.

 

Miscellaneous Enhancements

• Ability to zoom the map to fit specific items;
• A new event allowing you to restrict end-user scrolling and keep the map centered on a specific point or area;
• Customizable font, color, and text color settings for navigation panel elements;
• Ability to customize the map control's background color.

 

PDF Viewer

Text Search and Highlighting

With this release, we've extended the capabilities of our VCL PDF Viewer with the following new features:

• Ability to search text and adjust search settings. End-users can accomplish this using a built-in Find panel.
• Ability to display highlighted text. The text search functionality utilizes this ability to emphasize matches in a document.

 

JPX Image Format Support

The PDF Viewer can now display JPX (also known as JPEG 2000 or JP2) images.

 

Spreadsheet Control

Rich Text Content

v17.1 introduces the ability to display and edit rich text formatted content in worksheet cells, and supports the following rich text attributes:

• Font face, size, style, and color;
• Subscript and superscript characters.

This feature, powered by our VCL Rich Edit Control, is enabled by default. Should you prefer not to use the feature, just unload the corresponding design-time package and remove the dxSpreadSheetFormattedTextUtils unit it adds to your project.

 

In addition, the Spreadsheet Control and Report Designer now provide an event allowing you to track and limit scrolling the worksheet content.

 

Layout Control

The DevExpress VCL Layout Control v17.1 ships with the following enhancements:

• Wrapped items now revert to a single-line layout on disabling the corresponding option of a layout control/group.
• Simplified localization due to an optimized layout persistence that saves only the element captions modified at runtime, and the ability to provide default captions.
• Ability to provide hints for group/item captions with additional information on UI elements.
• Rearranging layout elements on a form produces fewer changes to its DFM file. This functionality is especially useful if you are using a version control system (VCS), allowing you to decrease the number of changes included in your revisions.
• The layout control's background can be transparent regardless of the Windows theme setting.

 

Rich Edit Control

Support for DOC (Microsoft Word 97-2003) Binary Format Files

With this release, we've extended the list of supported document file formats with the DOC binary format.

 

Printing-Exporting Library

Rich Text Content

We've added support for exporting content in rich text format from our Grid, TreeList, or Vertical Grid control to XLS, XLSX, or HTML files. This functionality is powered by our VCL Rich Edit Control and, as with the Spreadsheet Control, you can enable it by adding the dxSpreadSheetFormattedTextUtils unit to your project.

 

New Report Link Components

This release adds two report link components for unbound and data-aware Barcode Controls.

 

Data Editors and Controls

Color Editor and Gallery Control Enhancements

The following enhancements ship as part of our v17.1 release:

• Ability to show hints for color palette items;
• Optional borders for color palette items;
• Support for background transparency in the Gallery Control and its descendants, including the Color Gallery and Ribbon BackstageView Gallery Controls.

 

Incremental Filtering Options for Lookup Editors

The Lookup and Extended Lookup editors now include the following options for incremental filtering:

• Display only the values that start with or include a given search string;
• Highlight the search string in the results.

 

Installation

Quiet Mode

In this mode, no user interaction is required to configure and install our products. All you need is to run the VCL installer (Setup.exe) with the /Q command-line option. You can adjust default configuration settings, including the product list, target IDEs and memory platforms, by creating a specific XML file and referring to it using the /CONFIG command-line option.

 

Optional 64-bit Compilation

The installer now allows you to opt out of compiling 64-bit product libraries.

 

Miscellaneous

High-DPI Scaling Improvements

With this release, we've added support for per-monitor DPI awareness v1 to the following DevExpress VCL products:

• All editors (except for the Extended Lookup Editor);
• Ribbon and Toolbars;
• Layout Control;
• Docking Library;
• Gauge Control;
• Spell Checker;
• Skins Library;
• Page and Tab Controls.

We plan to extend this list in future releases.

 

Support for SVG Images

With this release, you can load and display SVG images using TdxSmartGlyph and TdxSmartImage containers and the TcxImageList control. In addition, we've replaced published TBitmap and TdxSmartImage properties in our controls with TdxSmartGlyph equivalents to enable built-in support for these vector graphics.