DevExpress WinForms 19.2

New Gantt (CTP) - The new DevExpress WinForms Gantt Control is a powerful project management tool that allows you to schedule tasks and monitor the progress of projects.

• The WinForms Gantt control ships with a variety of high-impact features including:
  • Data binding support
  • Multiple task types
  • Working days and holiday tracking
  • Configurable task appearance options
  • Time scale customization
  • Data filtering, sorting, etc.
  • Scroll and zoom options
  • Printing support
  • DirectX Hardware Acceleration for the fastest possible performance

New SvgImageBox

• The new WinForms SvgImageBox control displays an SVG image and allows users to interact with individual image elements via selection and hot-track. The control's API allows you to access and customize image elements (for instance, hide or change their appearance) and respond to user actions.

.Net Core 3 Support

• The WinForms product line supports .NET Core 3.0. However, since the new WinForms designer is not yet available within Visual Studio, you can only use the UI controls in code or use a workaround with linked files. The WinForms .NET Core 3 components remain as a CTP (Community Technical Preview) until Microsoft ships its WinForms designer.

Data Grid

• Search and Group Panel Integration - Both the Search Panel and Group Panel have been combined into a single element. The Group Panel displays a 'Search' button on its right. When clicked, it reveals a search text box. This new layout maximizes uses of screen real-estate and prevents the control from moving records up or down when users invoke and hide the Search Panel. This layout is enabled by default. If you wish to revert to two separate panels, set the OptionsFind.FindPanelLocation property to 'GroupPanel'.
• Miscellaneous Enhancements
  • Group Row Context Menu - The WinForms Data Grid now includes a context menu for group rows. You can handle the PopupMenuShowing event to add custom menu commands as needed.
  • CheckBox Selection for Banded and Advanced Banded Grid Views - You can now set the GridOptionsSelection.GridMultiSelectMode property to 'CheckBoxRowSelect' for Banded and AdvancedBanded Views.
  • Display Selection Checkboxes in Group Rows in Data Bound Mode - Group rows can now display a selection check box when checkbox selection state is bound to a data source field. Documentation
  • Copy to Clipboard - You can handle a new event (ClipboardRowCopying) to modify Clipboard data or prevent certain rows from being copied to the Clipboard.
  • Drag-and-Drop - The WinForms Data Grid now supports drag & drop between its TileView and GridView. Use DragAndDrop Behavior (Behavior Manager component) to enable this option. Documentation
  • Edit Form - The new EditFormHidden event allows you to execute custom actions after the Edit Form has been closed in both the GridView and TileView. Documentation
  • Excel Style Filtering Menu - The FilterPopupExcelParseFilterCriteria event allows you to convert filter criteria to filter values for Excel-style filter menus. Documentation

Charting

• Waterfall - This release includes a new Waterfall chart type. Waterfall charts can help visualize positive and negative changes to values across a given time period.
• Box Plot - This release includes a new Box Plot chart type. Box Plot charts help you visualize data distribution across a six number summary (minimum, first quartile, median, third quartile, maximum and mean). Any data not included between minimum and maximum values are plotted as an outlier with a small circle.
• Chart Toolbar Enhancements - The new Chart Toolbar allows you to:
  • Switch a series view
  • Draw Fibonacci indicators with use of built-in drawing tools
  • Plot any technical indicator on a separate pane
  • Change a measurement unit for the axis of arguments
  • Adjust a visible data range
• Resize Panes at Runtime - Enable the XYDiagram2D.RuntimePaneResize option to allow end-users to change pane size.
• Scrollbar Annotations - With scrollbar annotations, you can direct users to important information within the XY diagram. We offer annotations for the following chart elements:
  • Strips
  • Constant Lines
  • Pane Annotations
  • Series Point Annotations
  • Custom Axis Labels
• TimeSpan Axis Scale Support - v19.2 introduces full support for TimeSpan scales. You can plot your TimeSpan data as-is or specify a custom aggregation mode. TimeSpan data can be mapped to an X-Axis, Y-Axis or both.
• New Default Appearance Schema (Basic Skin) - In v19.2, we've updated the default appearance schema for the WinForms Chart control to match the new Basic skin.

Accordion

• Handle the new CustomDrawHamburgerButton event to draw the hamburger button manually.
• Popup form auto-height mode
• Use the new ClosePopupForm method to close the popup form in code.

Diagram

• Org Chart Layout - The new Org Chart automatic layout algorithm visualizes roles and relationships within an entity such as a company department. Shapes at the upper levels of the hierarchy are arranged using the "tree graph" algorithm. The number of levels in the tree section is specified by the OrgChartLayoutTreeLevelCount property. The lower levels of the hierarchy are arranged using the "tip-over" tree layout algorithm.
• Connector Labels - With this release, you can add up to four text labels to connectors. You can add two labels at the start point and two labels at the end point. New API includes:
  • BeginLeftLabel / BeginRightLabel
  • EndLeftLabel / EndRightLabel
  • BeginLabelArrowOffset / BeginLabelConnectorOffset
  • EndLabelArrowOffset / EndLabelConnectorOffset

Editors

• LookUp Editors - AutoSuggest Mode (Virtual Search) - The WinForms LookUpEdit and GridLookUpEdits controls support a new user-friendly search option. In AutoSuggest mode, the WinForms Lookup editor fires an AutoSuggest event whenever a user enters text within it. You can handle this event and assign an asynchronous Task to the QuerySuggestions parameter to populate your lookup list. This asynchronous Task should check the text entered within the lookup and return an item collection for the editor's drop-down window.
• Lookup Editors - AutoSearch Mode - AutoSearch mode was designed for bound LookUpEdit and GridLookUpEdit controls. AutoSearch "unlocks" the editor's text box and allows users to enter "search" criteria within it. The editor hides data source records that do not match the text entered within the text field and displays matching entries within its drop-down window. To enable AutoSearch mode, set the SearchMode property to 'AutoSearch'. You can handle the AutoSearch event to fine-tune search results and\or customize text highlight logic.
• TimeSpan Edit Mask - New TimeSpan and TimeSpanAdvancingCaret masks allow end-users to enter time intervals. Both masks support negative intervals.

Map

• Heatmap Data Provider - v19.2 includes a new cartographic visualization option – a heat map. To create a heat map, use the new data provider (HeatmapProvider) linked to geographical point data (latitude and longitude) and define the heat map color schema using ChoroplethColorizer. You can also change the following heatmap options: color gradient, opacity and data point radius.
• In-Memory Image Tile Provider - The ImageTileDataProvider allows you to display custom tile images without saving them locally. You can load image tiles created at runtime from almost any source. To do this, create a bitmap for each tile based on its indices.
• Gradient Mode for ColorScaleLegend - This release includes a new EnableGradientScale property. Set this property to true and create a gradual blend between legend color items.

Pivot Grid

• Aggregation at Any Level - This release includes an optimized Pivot Grid calculation engine for WinForms, WPF and ASP.NET. This new engine provides a more versatile summary expression function. The scope of the function is unbound fields. The Aggr function aggregates data with a specific summary function against a specific set of dimensions. Aggr functions can be nested as needed (you can easily create the desired aggregation level within the Pivot Grid control). The Aggr function has the following syntax: Aggr(summaryExpression, dimension1, dimension2, ...) The first argument is a summary expression calculated against a data source field. It is followed by a set of dimensions whose values are grouped to calculate summaries for the first argument.
• Window Calculations - You can now specify the following window calculation options:
  • Running Totals
  • Moving Calculation
  • Rank
  • Difference
  • Percent Of Total
  • Custom Window Expression
• The new object model includes the following classes:
  • RunningTotalBinding
  • MovingCalculationBinding
  • RankBinding
  • DifferenceBinding
  • PercentOfTotalBinding
  • WindowExpressionBinding
• These enhancements are available when the new Optimized calculation engine is activated.
• Direct Data Access in Client Mode - The data engine loads data to local in-memory storage. This local storage is optimized for frequent calculations with typed data sets and guarantees data integrity. Some large data sets, however, may require too large a memory footprint (which can, in turn, slow down an application). With this release, we've added a DirectDataAccessInClientMode option. When the DirectDataAccessInClientMode option is enabled, the calculation engine does not upload source data to temporary storage. This avoids performance degradation in Client mode when working with large volumes of data (and when frequent re-calculations are unnecessary). This option cannot be used if using the PivotGrid in Legacy mode.
• MRU Filter List - The WinForms Pivot Grid's Filter Panel includes a drop-down list that displays recent filters applied to pivot data. To display the most recently used filters, click the MRU Filter Button or click the filter criteria.

Range Control

• Date-Time Range Client for the Range Control - The new Date-Time Range client allows you to visualize and select date-time intervals within the WinForms Range Control. The new client supports multiple rulers, appearance customization options and provides custom draw events. To use the Date-Time client at design time, invoke the Add Date-Time Client smart tag command. Use the RangeControl.Client property to specify the client at runtime.

Ribbon, Bars and Dock UI

• DockManager - Dock to the Center - The DockManager allows you to dock its panels to a parent container's center region. Modern docking guides (hints) are also available and do not require a separate DocumentManager component.
• Miscellaneous Enhancements
  • You can now hide/display the BackstageView at design time via a smart tag. Documentation
  • You can now adjust the offset between a BarEditItem's caption and its editor. Documentation
  • You can now apply a foreground color to custom Ribbon categories.
  • A Ribbon Group's caption button is now hidden by default (unless you subscribe to the CaptionButtonClick event, or enable the ShowCaptionButton option).
  • You can now activate the Ribbon's Search Menu via a shortcut. Use the RibbonControl.SearchItemShortcut property to specify the shortcut. Documentation
  • The CustomizationFormShowing event allows you to modify the Customization Form, or replace it with a custom form. Documentation

Rich Text Editor

• Hyphenation - The WinForms Rich Text Editor now supports soft hyphens and automatic hyphenation. You can load, print and export documents with soft hyphens. End users can insert hyphens via the Ribbon UI or the Ctrl+- shortcut. You can also enable automatic hyphenation. To do so, link a dictionary that specifies hyphenation rules.
• Track Changes - The Rich Text Editor allows you to use Track Changes to make revisions in a document. You can access, accept or reject changes in code. New UI elements allow you to enable change tracking and display revisions. Documents with revisions can be printed and exported to PDF.
• Theme Font Support - The Word Processing Document API and WinForms / WPF Rich Text Editors support theme fonts. A document theme contains two sets of fonts (Headings and Body) for the entire document. Each set includes font names for different languages.
• Scheduler
• Resource Categories and Office-inspired Resource Tabs - The WinForms Scheduler can now arrange resources into categories. For example, you can create business-related and personal categories.
• Recurrence Form Enhancements - Redesigned the Recurrence Form and added a year recurrence option. You can now schedule events that repeat once every N years.
• HTML Formatting - You can now use HTML-inspired tags within Scheduler appointments/events (subject, description and location). Set the view's AppointmentDisplayOptions.AllowHtmlText property to true to enable HTML formatting. You can also handle the InitAppointmentDisplayText event to provide custom text and a description formatted with HTML tags.

Skins and Vector Icons

• New Office 2019 Skins - v19.2 introduces three new Office 2019 vector skins - White, Black, and Dark Gray.
• New Basic Skin - This release includes the brand-new vector skin (Basic) with six color variations (palettes). The Basic skin is now applied to all the WinForms controls by default.

Spreadsheet

• Excel Binary Workbook (XLSB) Support - The DevExpress Spreadsheet Document API and WinForms / WPF Spreadsheet controls now support the XLSB (BIFF12) format. You can load and save documents using this format.
• Excel 5.0/95 Workbook (BIFF5) Support - With this release, the WinForms and WPF Spreadsheet controls and Spreadsheet Document API can import documents using the Excel 5.0/95 Binary file format (BIFF5).
• Status Bar - v19.2 introduces a Status Bar for the WinForms and WPF Spreadsheet controls. The status bar allows you to zoom (in or out) the current worksheet and displays the following summary information:
  • Number of selected cells (Count)
  • Number of selected cells with numerical values (Numerical Count)
  • Average
  • Minimum value (MIN)
  • Maximum value (MAX)
  • Sum
• Enhanced Column Width Calculation for Printed Workbooks - Now calculate column widths more accurately for printed/exported (to PDF) workbooks. The resulting printout closely mirrors the print output of Microsoft Excel.

TreeList

• Popup Edit Form - The Popup Edit Form allows end-users to edit column values within a modal window. To activate Popup Edit Form mode, set the OptionsBehavior.EditingMode property to TreeListEditingMode.EditForm.
• EntireBranch Filter Mode - In "EntireBranch" filter mode, the WinForms Tree List displays matching nodes along with associated parent and child nodes.
• Node Expand/Collapse Menu - A new context menu allows you to expand and collapse nodes. The node menu is enabled by default. New API includes:
  • TreeList.OptionsMenu.EnableNodeMenu - enables/disables the node menu
  • TreeList.OptionsMenu.ShowExpandCollapseItems - toggles the visibility of individual menu items

High DPI Support

• PerMonitorV2 Support (CTP) - Implemented PerMonitorV2 support for a number of DevExpress controls. This option allows controls to scale differently based upon the DPI factor applied to the display/monitor. This DPI-aware mode requires .NET Framework 4.7 and Windows 10 (build 1703 or newer).
• ImageOptions.ImageUri - SVG Support - When using the ImageOptions.ImageUri option, the WinForms controls use SVG images instead of raster images. To roll back to raster images, set the WindowsFormsSettings.DefaultSettingsCompatibilityMode property to "v19_1".
• HTML Formatting Enhancements - With this release, you can use  and  HTML-inspired tags to display super/sub script text within individual controls.

Miscellaneous

• Data Editors
  • CheckedListBoxControl includes a new ReadOnly property. Documentation
  • SearchLookUpEdit can now select the first lookup record when you press ENTER. Documentation
• New Server Mode Components - eXpress Persistent Objects includes new components designed for those working with large data sets. XPServerModeView and XPInstantFeedbackView are efficient read-only sources for all data-aware controls. These components feature low memory consumption and improved performance. You can find these components in the Toolbox and bind to them with the Data Source Configuration Wizard. The new JsonDataSource component allows you to bind DevExpress data-aware controls to REST data in the JSON format. You can utilize the updated Data Source Configuration Wizard, or add the JsonDataSource component from the Visual Studio Toolbox and manually configure connection settings. The JsonDataSource, SqlDataSource and ExcelDataSource components now offer FillAsync methods. These methods populate the data sources in another thread eliminating UI freeze. The Data Source Configuration Wizard automatically generates the FillAsync method call for these data sources, instead of the standard Fill method call.
• Work with Images at Design Time
  • You can now load vector icons from referenced project assemblies to SvgImageCollections at design time and in code.
  • The design-time Image Picker can now export images to project resources.
• Flyout Hints - You can now display a FlyoutPanel as a tooltip. FlyoutPanel is a container that can display any control. To show a FlyoutPanel as a tooltip, handle the ToolTipController.GetActiveObjectInfo event, set the e.Info.ToolTipType property to Flyout and assign a required control to e.Info.FlyoutControl.
• Camera Control - DirectX Hardware Acceleration Support - The WinForms Camera Control can now use DirectX hardware acceleration, allowing you to deliver outstanding performance on High-DPI devices (4K+).
• Layout Item - Align Content API - This release hids the ContentAlignment, TrimClientAreaToControl and FillControlToClientArea properties. We've introduced new ContentVertAlignment and ContentHorzAlignment properties designed to align controls embedded into LayoutItems.
• XtraForm - Icon Options - XtraForm and its descendants now support raster and vector images. Use the IconOptions property to configure image settings.
• Disable Cells Conditionally - The BehaviorManager component allows you to disable individual data cells or entire rows (when they meet a condition). Disabled cells are grayed-out according to the skin settings you've specified. End-users are not allowed to edit disabled cells. Supported controls: Data Grid, TreeList, Vertical Grid