Checking if an object is new or not within a criterion string

Typical usage scenarios

I remember registering a corresponding feature request in order to make it easier for XAF developers to accomplish the following types of tasks:
a) Validating data fields for new records only; e.g., the scenario from Q440548
b) Implementing different data field appearance for new and saved records; e.g., the color or enabled state as in Q475272
c) Managing Action controls' state for new records via TargetObjectsCriteria

During these years these three scenarios stayed popular among our users (we had several dozens of trackers), so it was a natural decision for us, as framework creators, to make accomplishing this common and proven stuff easier for developers and probably end users.

How to customize the underlying database provider options and data access behavior in XAF

I just wanted to repost my recent update to the corresponding article, because this information can interest some advanced XAF users.

IMPORTANT NOTE

This article describes some advanced customization techniques and low-level entities of the framework with regard to data access, which may be required in complex scenarios only.
So, if you just want to change the connection string, e.g. to use the Oracle instead of the Microsoft SQL Server database, then you would better refer to the Connect an XAF Application to a Database Provider article and documentation on your database provider instead. The XAF integration of supported ORM libraries is also described in the Business Model Design section of the framework's documentation.

Introducing IObjectSpaceProvider and IObjectSpace

XAF accesses data from a data store through special abstractions called - IObjectSpaceProvider and IObjectSpace.
The IObjectSpace is an abstraction above the ORM-specific database context (e.g., the DBContext used in Entity Framework or the Session in XPO) allowing you to query or modify data.
The IObjectSpaceProvider is a provider/creator of IObjectSpace entities, which also manages which business types these IObjectSpace are supposed to work with, how to set up the underlying connection to the database, create and update it and other low level data access options.

An XafApplication can use one or several IObjectSpaceProvider objects at the same time, and you can access this information through the XafApplication.ObjectSpaceProvder or XafApplication.ObjectSpaceProviders properties. Check out these help links to learn more on how to plug in custom IObjectSpaceProvider objects a well.

There are several built-in implementations of the IObjectSpaceProvider and IObjectSpace interfaces in our framework, which are usually specific to a target ORM (Entity Framework or XPO). I suggest you check out the source code of the default framework classes to better understand the role of the IObjectSpaceProvider:

...\DevExpress.ExpressApp.Xpo\XPObjectSpaceProvider.cs
...\DevExpress.ExpressApp.EF\EFObjectSpaceProvider.cs 

Display issue with the WinForms layout customization form in v14.1.5

Please beware of the 

T130813: Layout.Win - The content of the layout customization form is incorrectly docked to the left  bug when upgrading to v14.1.5:

I recommend you download the hot fix build that corrects this behavior. 

We sincerely apologize for all the inconvenience here.