DevExpress WPF 19.1

.NET Core 3 Preview 5 Support

• In addition to DevExpress assemblies built against .NET Framework 4.5.2, there are new packages built against .NET Core 3. These packages contain the same set of DevExpress WPF controls and allow you to test your applications in the .NET Core 3 environment even before its official release.

Data Grid and Tree List

• Search Panel Enhancements - The Search Panel has been integrated into the Group Panel and made more compact and informative. The Search Panel can display total number of matches and the index of the current match.
• Filter Editor Enhancements
  • Band hierarchy within the Field selector.
  • New API allows you to customize the field and operator lists, operand template, and prohibit group/condition operations.
  • Improved appearance.
• Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter Customization - You can handle the 'ExcelStyleFilterElement.QueryOperators' event to change the operator list, add custom operators or specify an operand template.
• Excel-inspired Group Filters - Filter dropdowns can now group filter items from two or more columns, and present results as a hierarchical checked list.
• "No Records Found" Caption - The WPF Data Grid and Tree List can now display 'No Records Found' when a data source is empty or a filter/search query returns no results. Enable ShowEmptyText to display this caption.
• Miscellaneous Enhancements
  • Added a DataViewBase.ColumnHeaderStyle property.
  • You can format an object stored in a column's header using the 'StringFormat' property.

Charting

• Summary Functions - The WPF Chart control now offers built-in and custom summary functions. For faster rendering, the Chart Control applies a summary function before it generates and draws points. Built-in summary functions include:
  • MIN / MAX
  • SUM
  • AVERAGE
  • COUNT
• Improved Rendering - Optimized 2D Line Series and Financial Indicators render speed, which results in less stuttering and higher frame rates during interactive operations (zooming and scrolling). Previewed a new DirectX surface render mode that speeds up the Line and Spline Series (see the ChartControl.IsDirectXSurfaceRendering option).
• Drill-Down - The WPF Chart Control now supports the Hierarchical data adapter. You can implement drill-down enabled charts easily. You can also create endless drill-down levels and use integrated Breadcrumb navigation bar to move across data hierarchy.
• Segment Colorizers - You can now use the following segment colorizers to enhance data visualization.
  • Trend Segment Colorizer
  • Range Segment Colorizer
  • Point-based Segment Colorizer
• Axis Alignment - New alignment options include:
  • Zero - the axis passes through a zero level of another axis.
  • Center - axes are centered in the pane plot area and form four quadrants.
• Axis Label Position and Alignment - The chart control introduces the following options:
  • Display axis labels inside or outside of plot region.
  • Change label alignment relative to tick marks (Near, Far, Center).
• Histogram - DevExpress Chart control now allows you to generate Histograms. Features include:
  • Histogram aggregation function
  • Excel-inspired histogram calculation modes (automatic, bin width, bin number)
  • Interval information display within axis labels
  • Customizable label text for Overflow and Underflow bins
  • Ability to align grid lines and tick marks with bins and to center axis labels

Data Editors

• New AutoSuggest Editor - The new AutoSuggest editor provides suggestions based on entered values. The editor raises a 'QuerySubmitted' event when a user enters text and allows you to update the suggestion list on the fly.
• TimeSpan Mask Types - The following new mask types allow the TextEdit and ButtonEdit controls to display TimeSpan values.
  • TimeSpan
  • TimeSpanAdvancingCaret
• API Enhancements
  • ButtonEdit and its descendants now include a ShowNullValueOnFocusOnly property (only displays a Clear button for a focused editor).
  • Popup editors allow you to prevent a popup from being closed using the Cancel property in the PopupClosing event handler. New PopupRoot and PopupElement properties return the root popup element and the control hosted in the popup.
  • To simplify appearance customization, ToggleSwitch now ships with SwitchBorderTemplate and SwitchThumbTemplate properties.
  • Standalone editors now support a DateTimeMaskOptions.DateTimeKind attached property. This allows you to explicitly set System.DateTime.Kind (UTC, Local time, or neither) for the System.DateTime value returned by the editor.
  • ListBoxEdit and ComboBoxEdit with groups now support vertical virtualization and per-item scrolling when the VirtualizingPanel.IsVirtualizingWhenGrouping property is set to true.
  • In addition to the edit box, ColorEdit displays a slider for the alpha channel, and provides an option to hide the alpha channel when necessary.

Diagram

• Collapsible Containers - Users can now collapse and expand container content. To activate this feature, set the DiagramContainer.CanCollapse property to true.
• Export to PDF

Filtering UI

• Date Range Filter - This release includes a new filter element - Date Range. It allows users to specify a date interval.
• Filter Behavior - The new Filter Behavior class works with Filter Elements and the Filter Editor. It allows you to configure display fields and associated settings. It creates a CriteriaOperator object used by the data-bound controls. You can assign this CriteriaOperator object to data-bound controls (such as Charts and Data Editors) or use the CriteriaOperator object to filter data in code.

Gantt

• Connector and Task Editing - The Gantt control now fully supports connector and task editing. You can drag and resize tasks in the Gantt area to change both date and duration, modify progress and attach/detach connectors to define predecessor links.
• Automatic Task Scheduling - After editing, the Gantt control automatically recalculates positions for related tasks and updates the position, duration, and progress of summary tasks. If a user changes a task so that it conflicts with defined dependencies, the Gantt control will display these dependencies as invalid. New API allows you to automatically calculate optimal start dates based on task dependencies and duration.
• Worktime Duration - The WPF Gantt control now takes non-working hours and holidays into account when it calculates task duration. For example, with a default 8-hour workday, a 16 hour task will span two days on the timeline and will display '2d' in the tree list area.
• Dependency Lag - Every dependency now stores an optional Lag value (positive or negative) that indicates the amount of time that should pass before the dependency affects a connected task.

Map Control

• Map Enhancements - The DevExpress Map Control ships with the following new features:
  • Item attributes can be exported to KML.
  • Map items can be exported to WKT.
• The Map Editor includes:
  • A new notification event (MapEditor.MapItemEditing): Allows you to track actions executed during map shape edit operations.
  • Ability to cancel item creation (see the MapItemCreatingEventArgs.Cancel option).
• Geometric Measurements - This new API allows you to compute various geometric values based on geo coordinates:
  • Areas
  • Distance between two points
  • The center of two points
  • Perimeter
  • Angles
• Simplify Map Shapes - You can now simplify high detailed vector shapes before displaying them on a map. This makes the Map Control load and visualize shapes faster, and helps users to get a better experience by reducing CPU and memory consumption without losing map quality on low zoom levels.

MVVM Framework

• Windows 10 Notification Support - The Notification Service now supports native Windows 10 notifications. These notifications can be displayed within the Notification Center.
• Async Command Enhancements - The POCO ViewModels and ViewModelBase descendants can now automatically generate Async Commands for methods marked with the async keyword. You can also reference your async method when invalidating an auto-generated Async Command:
• Dynamic Binding Converters - New API - The new 'DelegateConverterFactory' class provides a set of functions to create IValueConverter and IMutliValueConverter instances based on passed delegates.

PDF Viewer

• Touch Support - The WPF PDF Viewer now supports all standard touch gestures (pinch, rotate, hold) and inertia scrolling (pages continue to scroll after a swipe).
• Predefined CMaps for CID Fonts Support - The DevExpress PDF Viewer supports CID fonts with predefined CMaps (used for CJK characters). The PDF Viewer displays these fonts when DirectX rendering is enabled.

Pivot Grid

• Excel-inspired Field Filter Popup - The DevExpress WPF Pivot Grid now supports the Excel-inspired Field Filter popup. This popup simplifies filter criteria generation. The filter popup consists of two tabs:
  • The 'Filter Rules' tab allows you to create a filter expression using a set of filter operators (Equals, Between, Contains, etc.).
  • The 'Filter Values' tab allows you to select from among all available values.
• End-users can search for filter values, select multiple values simultaneously and display values from multiple columns in a hierarchy.
• New Filter Editor - The new WPF Filter Editor ships with a redesigned UX designed to simplify usage and engineered to simplify field and operator selection.
• Filtering UI - The WPF Pivot Grid can now use the Filtering UI that was first introduced in v18.2 for the DevExpress WPF Data Grid. Filtering UI is represented by separate controls (filter elements) allowing you to filter data within a control. You can create an external filter UI using a wide range of predefined filter elements (a check box, radio group, range, calendar and many more). The filter element automatically retrieves available values, formatting options, and other information from the control to which it is connected.
• Performance Enhancements - The DevExpress in-memory data processing engine is now used by default.

Property Grid

• ExpandoObject Support - The WPF Property Grid can now display and edit dynamic properties defined in ExpandoObject.

Ribbon and Navigation

• Office 2019 Style and Simplified Ribbon - The DevExpress WPF Ribbon ships with a new Office 2019-inspired display style. This release also adds a new option - Simplified Ribbon. When this option is enabled, Ribbon items are displayed across a single line.
• New Breadcrumb Control - The new Breadcrumb control allows you to reproduce the Windows File Explorer UX with ease. Its features include:
  • Select and Edit modes
  • Binding options
  • Configurable UI
• Hamburger Menu Events
  • PreviewItemClick - Allows you to cancel item clicks.
  • Navigating - Allows you to prevent item navigation.

Rich Text Editor

• Track Changes Support - You can now load and export documents with revisions made via the Track Changes feature.
• RTL Enhancements
  • Paragraph alignment for Arabic languages (Justify Low, Justify Medium, Justify Height)
  • Line numbering
  • New UI elements (alignment, indents, bulleted and numbered lists).
• Distributed Paragraph Justification for East-Asian Languages - The WPF Rich Text Editor now supports 'Distributed' and 'Thai Distributed' paragraph alignment, which can be specified in code or via Command UI.
• DOCX and DOC File Encryption - The WPF Rich Text Editor supports DOCX and DOC file encryption. You can encrypt documents with standard or agile encryption.
• HR Tag Support - You can now load, print and export documents with HTML 'HR' tags (a horizontal rule).

Scheduler

• Office 2019 Style - The new Outlook 2019 style is now used by default. Visual enhancements include:
  • Resource colors are used to paint resource headers, appointments that don't have an assigned label, navigation buttons, and date headers.
  • Updated appearance of Scheduler UI elements.
  • You can specify a palette for labels and resources for all themes or a specific theme only.
  • The label palette now supports the Transparent color. Appointments with the transparent label assigned are colorized with the resource color.
• Date Navigation Panel - The Scheduler now includes a Date Navigation Panel that displays navigation buttons as well as the current time interval, formatted depending on the interval length and the current UI culture.
• Clipboard Operations - Users can now copy appointments to the Clipboard, paste within the Scheduler and any other control or application that supports text input. New options and events allow you customize or restrict certain Copy/Paste operations.
• Print Enhancements - The WPF Scheduler control now ships with an enhanced Print Preview window. New printing options include:
  • Printing interval
  • Ability to specify the number of resources per page
  • Optional calendar display (show/hide)
• Also added the following predefined print templates:
  • Daily
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Timeline
  • Trifold
• Drag and Drop API Enhancements - New events allow you to control the drag-and-drop process, provide visual feedback, and accept objects dragged from external applications. New events include:
  • StartAppointmentDrag
  • QueryContinueAppointmentDrag
  • DragAppointmentOver
  • GiveAppointmentDragFeedback
  • DropAppointment
  • CompleteAppointmentDragDrop
  • StartAppointmentDragFromOutside

Spreadsheet

• Simplified Formula Creation - You can use cell ranges from other worksheets and select cells with the keyboard when you create or edit formulas.
• Multi-Threaded Calculations - The WPF Spreadsheet now supports multi-threaded calculations. You can specify the number of calculation threads via the 'CalculationOptions.ThreadCount' property. To disable multi-threaded calculations, disable the 'CalculationOptions.EnableMultiThreading' option.
• Excel 2016 Functions - The WPF Spreadsheet control now supports the following Excel 2016 functions:
  • CONCAT
  • TEXTJOIN
  • IFS
  • SWITCH
  • MAXIFS
  • MINIFS
• Black and White Print Mode - The WPF Spreadsheet control allows you to print documents in black and white.
• Performance Improvements - The formula calculation engine is now nearly five times faster. Insert/delete operations within documents with numerous merged cells are almost six times faster.
• API Enhancements - New events allow you to control the drag-and-drop and fill operations for a cell range. New events include:
  • BeforeDragRange
  • BeforeDropRange
  • AfterDropRange
  • BeforeFillRange
  • AfterFillRange

Themes and Icons

• Theme Palettes - v19.1 ships with predefined color palettes for the Office2019, Office2016, and VS2017 themes. Palettes are displayed in the theme gallery. You can also create custom palettes in code or via the Theme Designer and re-paint the theme at runtime. You can easily create a custom pallete to apply a corporate style to your application.
• New Office 2019 themes include:
  • White
  • Colorful
  • Dark Gray
  • Black
• These new themes ship with lightweight templates for the most popular UI controls and include dynamic palette support.
• Visual Studio Image Picker - This release integrates the Image Picker dialog into Visual Studio. Available via the DevExpress menu, the Image Picker displays the full collection of DevExpress SVG and PNG icons grouped by categories and styles. The Image Picker is also available for Image properties in the Smart Tags. Also updated the DXImage extension. It can display both SVG and PNG icons using the same syntax:

Tree List

• New Item Row - The New Item Row allows end-users to add new TeeList nodes. It can be displayed above or below data rows.
• Node Check Boxes - Configurable Enabled State - The WPF TreeList control can display node check boxes. With this release, you can disable node check boxes individually via the following properties:
  • IsCheckBoxEnabledFieldName
  • IsCheckBoxEnabledBinding
• New Filter Mode - The new Entire Branch filter mode allows you to display both parents and children of a node that meets the filter criteria.

Windows and Dialogs

• Themed Window Enhancements
  • The Themed Window can now display a toolbar in a straight line with the application icon. This allows you to design UIs inspired by Visual Studio 2019.
  • Save and restore the window size, position and state. You can enable the ThemedWindow's DXSerializer.Enabled option and serialize window settings using WorkspaceManager or LayoutSerializationService.
  • The ControlBoxButtonSet property allows you to explicitly specify which control box buttons are displayed regardless of the window state.