Released: Oct 25, 2019

Updates in 19.2

Features

Data Grid and TreesList

• Conditional Formatting Filters - You can now easily filter data based on the Conditional Formatting rules defined for a column. Both the Filter Editor and the Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter can display available rules and indicate the number of records that meet rule conditions. You can also create a dedicated Filter Element for Conditional Formatting filters.
• Data Analysis Filters - The Data Grid and TreeList allow you to apply the following data analysis filters:
  • Top N
  • Bottom N
  • Below Average
  • Above Average
  • Unique
  • Duplicate
• The Filter Editor and the Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter display the corresponding operators in their operator lists.
• Search Panel - New Parse Modes
  • Exact - the search engine does not split the query into individual words and thereby searches for exact matches.
  • Or - words in the search query are combined with the OR operator.
  • And - words in the search query are combined with the AND operator.
• Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter Enhancements - The new Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter is now used in the Data Grid and TreeList by default. It includes various performance and stability enhancements and can now work with server-side data provided by Server Mode, Instant Feedback, or Virtual sources.
• Summary for Selection - The WPF Data Grid and TreeList can now calculate summary values for selected rows or cells. You can enable this functionality for all group and total summaries or create individual summary items for selected rows/cells (in addition to standard totals).
• Edit Entire Row - The WPF Data Grid and TreeList introduce a new edit mode that displays Update and Cancel buttons for an edited row. In this mode, your changes are not posted to the data source and you cannot navigate away from an edited row unless you press the Update or Cancel button.
• Filtering UI Server Sources Support - The new Filter Editor, the Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter, and Filter Elements can work with server-side data provided by Server Mode, Instant Feedback, or Virtual sources.

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.
• Scrollbar Annotations - With scrollbar annotations, you can direct users to important information within the XY diagram. Provides annotations for the following chart elements:
  • Strips
  • Constant Lines
  • Pane Annotations
  • Series Point Annotations
  • Custom Axis Labels
• You can enable/disable scrollbar annotations for specific chart elements.
• 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.
• 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.
• XY-Diagram Performance Improvements - Real-Time Data Updates - v19.2 optimizes the XY-Diagram layout calculation engine, which results in high refresh rates and smooth visualization when handling very fast-changing datasets. See the following chart for performance measurements compared to v19.1.

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
• Printing - Fit to Page - You can now scale a diagram and fit it onto a single page or a fixed number of pages when printing. To scale a diagram in code, use the new overloads of the Print, QuickPrint, and PrintToPdf methods. These allow you to specify the orientation and number of pages used to fit the diagram. End-users can set these options within the Print Preview window.

New Badges

• The new Badge API allows you to display badges over any control or UI element, be it a data grid column or Toolbar/Ribbon item. You can specify badge position, content, and appearance.

Data Editors

• Time Picker - This release includes a new Time Picker control. This control can be used as a standalone time picker, or you can seamlessly embed it within the DevExpress DateEdit control.
• Read-Only State - With this release, data editors in a read-only state are visually distinguished from those that can be edited. This feature is available when using Office 2016 SE, Office 2019, and VS 2017 themes.
• Miscellaneous Enhancements
  • You can substitute the selected value in the AutoSuggestEdit control using the new SuggestionChoosing event.
  • ButtonEdit descendants can now display a loading indicator within their text box when a time consuming operation is performed.
  • Editors can display null text when they are focused.
  • The new CheckEdit.Toggle method allows you to change the CheckEdit control's checked state.

Docking

• MVVM Enhancements
  • Layout Groups now offer ItemTemplate and ItemTemplateSelector properties. This allows you to build complex layouts with nested groups and panels based on source objects from your ViewModel without defining groups in the UI.
  • Groups and panels generated from the LayoutGroup's ItemsSource now support all Docking operations. They can be reordered, removed, made to float or docked into other groups.
  • The DockLayoutManager no longer removes Layout Groups with the specified ItemsSource from its group collection. When a user closes all panels in such a group, the group remains hidden and appears again if its ItemSource collection is updated.

Gantt

• Strip Lines - The DevExpress WPF Gantt control supports 3 strip line types:
  • StripLine - a single strip line that marks a particular date and time range.
  • StripLineRule - allows you to mark multiple date and time ranges based upon a specific rule.
  • CurrentDateTimeStripLine - displays a strip line that points to the current date and time and updates it on-screen in real time.
  • You can add strip lines manually or retrieve them from a data source (or View Model).
• Critical Path - The Gantt Control can now automatically calculate and highlight critical paths in the Gantt area. A critical path will automatically update whenever you move tasks or change the task's duration.
• Edit Events - This release adds a set of events designed to improve control over end-user actions made within the Gantt area. These events allow you to do the following:
  • Snap edited date-time values (task start date, finish date, and duration) with any step.
  • Provide visual feedback: highlight tasks that can be linked by an edited connector.
  • Cancel any end user edit action.

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.

Navigation

• Navigation Frame - API Enhancements
  • The new Navigation.SaveToNavigationJournal attached property allows you to save information about specific navigation steps to the navigation journal.
  • The new NavigationFrame.NavigationCanceled event fires when navigation is canceled in the NavigationFrame.Navigating event handler.
  • Ribbon and Toolbar items now support attached properties.
• Breadcrumb History - Like the Windows File Explorer, the Breadcrumb control can now log navigation history and display recently accessed nodes in its drop-down window.
• Accordion Control Enhancements
  • Bind to ICollectionView Sources - allows you to manipulate the current record and define rules for filtering, sorting, and grouping.
  • Unregister any key gesture within the Accordion control using the ClearHotKeys method.

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 require too large a memory footprint (which can, in turn, slow down an application). This release adds 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.
• Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter Enhancements - The new Excel-Style Drop-Down Filter is now used in the Pivot Grid by default. It includes various performance and stability enhancements and can now work with server-side data provided by Server Mode.

Rich Text Editor

• Hyphenation - The WPF 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 Ribbon UI or the Ctrl+- shortcut. You can also enable automatic hyphenation. To do that, 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

• Time Regions - Time Regions allow you to selectively highlight certain timeframes (time cells). Time Regions have the same recurrence settings as appointments and can be Resource-specific.
• Appointment Edit Events - New events offer extended control over appointment editing. These events include:
  • AppointmentAdding
  • AppointmentAdded
  • AppointmentRemoving
  • AppointmentRemoved
  • AppointmentEditing
  • AppointmentEdited
  • AppointmentRestoring
  • AppointmentRestored
• Appointment Resize Events - New events include:
  • StartAppointmentResize
  • QueryContinueAppointmentResize
  • ResizeAppointmentOver
  • CommitAppointmentResize
  • CompleteAppointmentResize
• API Enhancements
  • The new RecurrenceBuilder class allows you to create recurrence patterns in code-behind using a Fluent API style. It comes with a set of markup extensions to create the same recurrence patterns in XAML.
  • The new SchedulerControl.ToolTipMode property allows you to display a tooltip instead of the default appointment flyout.
  • The new brush-based colorization mechanism provides simpler and more flexible customization of labels, status, and resource data. (Learn More)
  • Scheduler View properties can now disable the highlighting of non-working hours and even/odd months. These properties are: DayViewBase.HighlightNonworkingHours, MonthView.HighlightEvenMonths, TimelineView.HighlightNonworkingHours.

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
  • The integrated Customize Status Bar context menu allows users to display or hide status bar entries. This can also be done in code using the new API.

Themes

• Office 2019 High-Contrast Theme - This release includes a new Microsoft Outlook-inspired High-Contrast theme.
• Palette Theme Cache - With v19.2, you can cache the current palette theme's assembly to load the theme faster in future application runs. The Theme class API allows you to specify the location of cached files and clear the cache when necessary.
• Theme Designer - Visual Tree and Properties Windows - In v19.2, the WPF Theme Designer introduces Visual Tree and Properties Windows. These new windows allow you to locate a UI element and its properties within XAML more quickly.

Windows UI

• Hamburger Menu - UI Enhancements - Hamburger Menu UI elements now support the Reveal Highlight effect - an appearance option designed to mimic the look and feel of Windows UI applications. To activate Reveal Highlighting, enable the HamburgerMenu.ShowRevealHighlightEffect option. Once enabled, the selected Hamburger Menu item displays a vertical bar on its left side to stand out from other items.
• Fluent Design - Reveal Highlight (CTP) - You can now add the Reveal Highlight effect to templates used by any WPF control. The RevealHighlightOptions class automatically implements 'Reveal hover' and 'Reveal border' effects based on 'Background' and 'BorderBrush' property values.
• Fluent Design - Acrylic Window (CTP) - The Themed Window now supports the Acrylic effect (inspired by Fluent Design's Acrylic material). Acrylic turns the entire window (including the title bar) translucent, adding depth between application windows. The AcrylicColor and AcrylicOpacity properties allow you to specify the Acrylic effect's color and opacity.