A new OfficeNavigationBar-based ribbon template for Windows desktop SDI - YOUR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED!

We are considering the addition of the new WinForms SDI ribbon template with the OfficeNavigationBar component on it in v16.1, so I wanted to share our initial thoughts on it and also ask a few questions. First, this is approximately what it would look like in action: 

Expectedly, there will also be animated transitions while switching the screens (like in our WinForms Outlook Inspired App demo). Pixel-hunters might also notice there are less borders between the navigation panel and the view site. The latter is possible because the navigation control is no longer hosted inside a dock panel (so no floating is available as well), which confused application end-users in the past and caused other difficulties. As a result, we hope the whole UI is more clean and easy to read than it was before.

Improving usability with regard to the ImmediatePostData functionality in GridListEditor (WinForms)

As you perfectly know from my recent posts:-), one of our team OKRs was and still is "improving developer experience when accomplishing common tasks". In this blog post, I am going to cover one more small, but important improvement in XAF v15.2.10+ that adds to this larger goal:

GridListEditor - Updating values of dependent columns immediately after changing data in columns whose ImmediatePostData attribute is set to True in an editable ListView

In short, the previous custom-tailored solution is no longer required, as the corresponding code has been moved to the standard delivery. You can see the result in this short video.

Not to cause breaking changes a minor 15.2 version, you can activate this behavior in an editable GridListEditor via the static ImmediatePostDataSupportEnabled option. 

...
namespace MainDemo.Win {
    public class Program {
        [STAThread]
        public static void Main(string[] arguments) {
 DevExpress.ExpressApp.Win.Editors.GridListEditor.ImmediatePostDataSupportEnabled = true;
...

The ImmediatePostDataSupportEnabled option has its default value set to True by default in v16.1.

Experimental support of DataView mode in Pivot Grid List Editors in v15.2.9 - YOUR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED

There is other performance related news today. This time it is for users who need to analyze and visualize large amounts of data using the pivot table. 

Starting with v15.2.9, we have made improvements to our Pivot Grid List Editors and are ready to share a preview of our work. So far, things are pretty stable, and we have not found any issues in scenarios with DataView (a few XAF customers tested this functionality earlier did not experience problems either). We still wanted to collect more feedback and hear from you about how this works in your real projects. The more scenarios we cover at this stage, the better for the product. If all goes according to plan, this functionality will be officially released in the upcoming 16.1 build, which should be out around early June.

3 simple steps to improve the overall performance in a middle-tier application server scenario

UPDATED
The contents of this article were merged into the new document at Security - How to reduce the number of permission requests and improve overall performance.
=============

Preamble

Here I will be talking about the configuration described in the eXpressApp Framework > Concepts > Security System > New Security System > Middle Tier Security - WCF Service article, assuming that the application server (YourSolutionName.ApplicationServer) is used with a desktop client app (YourSolutionName.Win). I am not talking about the web client, because I anticipate that in this configuration the Client-Side Security (2-Tier Architecture) with the integrated mode (SecuredObjectSpaceProvider) is a more typical choice as long as the database is located on the same web server where the ASP.NET app is deployed.

1. Server or DataView data access mode for ListView

While this is not specific to the 'application server' scenario, it is still worth mentioning these options explicitly when you need to work with large lists in grids in an XAF app. You can learn more on how to select an appropriate mode for your particular case from the online XAF documentation: eXpressApp Framework > Concepts > UI Construction > Views > List View Data Access Modes.

Disabling/enabling the Linked Nodes feature in the Model Editor (UPDATE for v15.2.9)

A while ago we conducted a survey on this feature and I want to share what we have done since then. Based on the user comments we received from the blog and other sources we decided to disable this feature by default, because it affected the Model Editor performance while being rarely used. Since there were also users who used from time to time, we also provided the capability to enable it via the button in the toolbar (available at both design and run time).

We hope that this behavior will meet the needs of the majority of our users and look forward to hearing from you in comments.