How to drag & drop file attachments from Outlook messages into ListView or DetailView with FileData objects

I would like to promote a KB article, which may be interesting for users of our File Attachments module and Microsoft Outlook, because we introduced a few changes to XAF codebase (v17.2.5+) to make their integration simpler for the following customer's scenario (attaching files directly from Outlook messages):

>>I am using the FileAttachmentBase to add files to a class in my project. Drag/Drop works great if I want to add a file from Windows Explorer. I want to be able to drag an attachment from Outlook and drop it into my application in the same way.

https://www.devexpress.com/kb=S19805

SQL Server-related methods of ModuleUpdater and pooled database connections

Before the end of this year, I wanted to inform you of some "home work" done by us to improve your XAF development experience with the ModuleUpdater API:

ModuleUpdater - CreateCommand and other SQL Server-related methods may throw NullReferenceException with pooled database connections

How to diagnose effective access rights for a specific user or get full information about inner security permissions calculations

Security permissions calculation is quite a complex process, and sometimes it is difficult to diagnose why access to a certain object and its members is allowed or denied. It is more common for application administrators or regular XAF developers who may not want to study documentation guides or be able to debug the XAF source code as per How can I debug DevExpress .NET source code using PDB files or using other approaches. So, in addition to documenting security rules, we are researching the usefulness of a tool that would show how effective permissions are calculated for each user in the UI, very similar to our Diagnostic Action. This may be helpful even to us, to reduce support time spent on diagnosing related client problems.

Learn more about a possible solution (a diagnostic tool) from the KB article below and let us know what you think:

https://www.devexpress.com/kb=T589182

As for other wish list and scenarios, you can help us by filling out the following survey, if you haven’t done so already:

https://www.devexpress.com/go/XAF_Future_Survey_2017_Dec.aspx

XAF Customer Satisfaction and Product Usage Survey - YOUR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED!!!

https://www.devexpress.com/go/XAF_Future_Survey_2017_Dec.aspx (~5 min)

Your feedback will help us ensure that the tools we deliver to market meet your expectations better. Thanks for your help in advance!

(special thanks to a small group of users who has already helped to test and refine these questions)

What's New in XAF Help 17.2

In this post, I would like to provide an overview of the most important additions to XAF documentation introduced in the 17.2 release.

Accessing real persistent objects through the SelectedObjects and CurrentObject properties of View and Action's event arguments when DataAccessMode = DataView or InstantFeedback

The View.CurrentObject and View.SelectedObjects properties return XafDataViewRecord objects instead of original business objects when the View operates in DataView mode (and XafInstantFeedbackRecord - in InstantFeedback mode). To get a real object, you can use the View.ObjectSpace.GetObject(obj) method.

I just wanted to remind you of this specificity and detail currently recommended solution strategies:

https://www.devexpress.com/kb=T584572

According to our current figures for support traffic in this regard (for one year of the InstantFeedback mode existence and more than two years of the DataView mode existence), this is not a big deal for our users - I located less than seven support requests in total. Probably, this is due to the fact that our learning materials already describe this or due to the fact that the DataView and InstantFeedback modes are used rarely, only when ListView contains a lot of records. Here I must also emphasize that this behavior exists in the first place because returning real objects by default may prevent you from getting all the benefits of these data access modes... So, we implemented the current design on purpose.

Should you have difficulties with these features and aforementioned solutions or can foresee better options, my team and I are happy to listen. For instance, one of the alternative solutions I saw in a couple places was the implementation of the auxiliary GetRealSelectedObjects/GetRealCurrentObject methods.

How to use the ASPxSpreadsheet control as a property editor in an XAF ASP.NET WebForms application

If you want to display a business object that has a byte array property as an Excel document allowing users to modify the content and save it to the database, ASPxSpreadsheet is an appropriate component for this task. Our new example shows how to implement an XAF Web Property Editor based on this control:

https://www.devexpress.com/Support/Center/Example/Details/T575086/

If this is something you have already implemented or planned, we would greatly appreciate it if you describe your use-case scenarios or exactly how and for what your end-users are supposed to use spreadsheet control in your app. If possible, attach screenshots, test samples and database to clarify expected results and user steps within the application UI as well as already implemented solutions for this task. With that, we will be able to better understand your requirements and provide more specific solutions or consider improvements to our products for the future. Thanks in advance.

An overview of approaches to implementing a user-friendly sequential number for use with an XPO business class

Orders, Invoices, Articles or other similar business entities often require an auto-filled Number or Code field that end-users can memorize.

We have prepared a KB article listing possible approaches to implementing an identifier field with sequential values: An overview of approaches to implementing a user-friendly sequential number for use with an XPO business class. In addition to the known E4904 and E2829 approaches, the article suggests a new database-level solution.

Your feedback is needed!
We would greatly appreciate it if you share your feedback here in comments or rather participate in the short survey (~3 min) below (or in a separate window):

Capturing a user's signature in an XAF mobile application - YOUR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED!

We are in the process of creating learning materials for this task, but polishing and publishing them online for everyone will require additional time. If you are ready to test our solution for your own app, I can provide you with draft instructions and test sample in return. 

It will show how to show a custom control where a user can draw his signature and save the result into an image property within your business class. 

Here is what it looks like in action:

For testing you will need XAF v17.2.3+, because there we supported mobile custom modules: Task-Based Help > How to: Add an XAF Mobile Custom Module

If you are interested in this testing, email me at dennis@devexpress.com.