Another new ASP.NET inclusion is a Filter Editor Control or Criteria Builder for retrieving data using complex conditions. It doesn’t require any SQL syntax, doesn’t have any limitations regarding filter condition complexity and, to make filtering even easier for end-users, it automatically suggests conditions and possible filter values for each individual field. This release also has ASPxBinaryImage, a data-bound image control for ASPxLoadingPanel which makes it easy to notify end-users that a time-consuming operation is in progress. For WinForms developers there’s a new control for creating alert windows plus two new visual styles for application skinning.
The enhancements to XtraCharts Suite are a new 2D Bubble chart, a logarithmic scale facility and options to display three types of Fibonacci Indicators (Arcs, Fans and Retracement) within financial charts while XtraReports Suite now supports Excel-style conditional formatting.
With this release DevExpress also expands support for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) with three new visual components for these platforms. As well as a charting control, there’s a Navbar that supports multiple layout styles – Explorer Bar, Navigation Pane and Side Bar – and a Carousel Control that provides animated carousel rotation with multiple built-in effects and supports path-dependant item orientation. All the WPF controls, including the new WPF Grid control, will remain in beta throughout the DXperience v2008 vol 3 release cycle, but will include a “go live” licence and can therefore be incorporated into solutions and distributed to end-users. DevExpress also continues to enhance its free-of-charge AgDataGrid, for developing Silverlight applications.
The other new release from DevExpress, CodeRush Xpress, is a free Visual Studio .NET add-in IDE productivity toolset designed to help C# developers simplify and shape code, with the aim of making it easier to read and less costly to maintain. It ships with 25 code refactorings and offers several code navigation features including: Duplicate Line, Highlight All References, Increase or Reduce Selection, Smart Clipboard Operations and, Generate from Using (TDD).
Comments