What is New in Help in XAF v16.1

As you probably know, in addition to the new great features the version 16.1 introduced, there are also various improvements to the learning materials that will allow you get the most of DevExpress products and become a better developer. The XAF documentation changes we are the most interested in are listed below. I highlighted the topics I personally like or value the most in yellow. 

The good news is that there are even more documentation updates currently in the works, and hopefully, I will be able to announce them to you soon. To give you a hint, improved window resizing mechanism for both Windows and the Web, improved concepts for showing Views, registering property editors are among the things you will be able to learn more about in the future.

Concepts and task-based help

• Non-Persistent Objects
• Grid Based Reporting in WinForms Applications
• How to: Access the Office Navigation Bar
• How to: Access the Transition Manager
• How to: Edit a Reference Property in the Batch Edit Mode
• How to: Show Persistent Objects in a Non-Persistent Object's View
• Permission Policies
• Permissions for Associated Objects
• Ways to Display Properties of a Referenced Object Together with the Current Object's Properties
• XAF Mobile (CTP) Tutorial

Usability improvements to the Model Editor layout designer and more in XAF v16.1.5

The recently released minor update brings several small, but useful features I hope you and your end-users will appreciate.

1. The layout designer available in the Model Editor at design time and runtime now generates a layout very close to what you can see in the end app. In particular, being invoked for the WinForms modules or apps, it now generates real Property Editors (in the disabled state and with fake data) instead of equivalent text boxes or bricks. It also tries to take into account and visualize the most popular layout and other options like ToolTip, ShowCaption, etc. IMHO, the most useful thing here is that you can now customize embedded ListView elements or List Property Editors corresponding to collection properties much easier via the grid control, like you can already do under the Views | ListView | Columns node. Even though the layout designer invoked for Web modules will not display real Web controls, but rather their corresponding WinForms analogs, the overall development experience will be better than before.