Quick questions on our change log

Q1: How often do you check the "Resolved Issues", "Known Issues", "Breaking Changes" pages in our What's New documentation? For instance: "never, did not know about this page"; "every minor"; "every major"; "rarely, only when I encounter an issue"; "once 1-2 year when we upgrade"; your option.
Q2: What would you like to improve about these pages to make your work more comfortable?
Q3: Are you missing anything important from the "New Major Features" section like this for v18.1?

This post idea came after looking at the fixed XAF issues for the upcoming v17.2.8:

As you can see, titles have different formatting and it is not easy to find all issues for a certain platform or module, e.g. Mobile.

This is how a bit better formatted list looks now:

This needs a little bit more discipline from our team, but may be more helpful for our customers. I am  still hesitating because this problem may not exist for many, because Google Analytics reports low visits for these pages.

I hope you can help us see whether to focus on more important things by answering my questions above. Your other thoughts and suggestions are welcome too, as always.

See Also: General Information > Installation > Upgrade Notes

Update on WinForms SVG Images Support in v18.1

Please do not miss our recent update in the WinForms SVG Images Support - Preview in v18.1 KB article:

We've extended the number of scenarios where SVG images are now correctly shown in a WinForms XAF application with the following:
● SVG images used for SingleChoiceAction itself and its items shown in the bar and ribbon controls.


● SVG images used for SingleChoiceAction shown in the popup menu.


● SVG images used for ParametrizedAction shown in the bar and ribbon controls and in the popup menu.



● SVG images used for ParametrizedAction shown in ButtonsContainer on a detail view.



● SVG images used for nodes in TreeListEditor via the new DevExpress.Persistent.Base.General.ITreeNodeSvgImageProvider interface.



Your feedback is needed!
If you want to test this feature with your real world applications on a virtual machine (or another suitable test environment) prior to the official release, download the v18.1 preview build here: DevExpress XAF v18.1 Preview installer 

UPDATE on Customization Forms - XAF WinForms v18.1.3+

With v18.1.3 (RTM or Beta2), a tooltip will be shown for complex property paths to avoid confusion from fields with the same name. Refer to the attached video:

Note that since multiple customization forms can be opened at the same time, now the form's header also includes the View's caption. We hope your end-users will appreciate these minor usability improvements. Refer to the original Support Center ticket for more details.

See Also:
Customization Forms and Model Editor Improvements - XAF v17.2.6

The future of old RichTextPropertyEditor and HtmlPropertyEditor with the introduction of the new Office-inspired Word Processing Module - YOUR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED!!!

Why bothering?

As many of you already heard, we are shipping the Office module with the Rich Text Editor in v18.1. It allows end-users to create, load, change, print, save and convert documents in different formats, including HTML. At this stage, this new module is for WinForms only. We see ways to support more Office functionality and cover other platforms in the future.

As you know, there are two very old XAF Property Editors, which perform similar functions, but with lower quality. They are both based on standard Microsoft controls:

DevExpress.ExpressApp.HtmlPropertyEditor.Win.HtmlPropertyEditor - this is a part of HTML Property Editor Module that integrates the System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser component. 

DevExpress.ExpressApp.Win.Editors.RichTextPropertyEditor - this is a part of the standard DevExpress.ExpressApp.Win module that integrates the System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox component.

We created them almost 10 years ago when DevExpress did not provide controls with similar functions. Today, their usage is not justified also because of missing High DPI support, nice icons and useful functions like Mail Merge. Workarounds can be implemented for these standard controls too, but it does not make much sense to invest our resources into this when much better options are already available. These editors have not recently received updates in other areas anyway. This is still a maintenance work for our team that could have been spent on something else.

What we want to change and how?

XAF v18.1 - An application will not start if there are non-existent member or type info for the Application Model elements

Starting with v18.1, we have introduced checks for type and member info existence at the core level. If a type or member is not existent, the exception will be thrown by default:

NOTE: Type and member info is mandatory as ALL standard and third-party modules rely on it. We do NOT recommend disabling this check in production, because your application will still fail later (you may not notice it and it will happen on an end-user machine).

Typical but not all scenarios where you may see this error are:
- Code changes to an underlying object type structure. For instance, class renaming or removing, namespace or assembly changing; member renaming, removing or its underlying type changing (also applied to custom fields added at runtime).
- Invalid model differences for changed types and members are still present (e.g., for ListView columns and a DetailView layout, appearance and validation rules).

Please refer to this Support Center article for more details on possible solutions and ways to disable this behavior.

Updates to the new Rich Text Editor Module and ASPxGridLookup-based PropertyEditor in v18.1

Please do not miss the updates to the following KB articles from our team:

https://www.devexpress.com/go/XAF_Try_RichTextEditorModule_v18.1.aspx
We have moved further and added Mail Merge support to the new module. To enable this feature, set the MailMergeDataType property in RichEditWindowsFormsModule in Application Designer. Now it's also possible to work with multiple rich text editors in the Ribbon mode. You can open the content of the selected rich text editor in a popup window using the 'Show in Popup' context menu item. Also now you can view rich text content in a list view's columns.

https://www.devexpress.com/go/XAF_Try_ASPxGridLookupPropertyEditor_v18.1.aspx
ASPxGridLookupPropertyEditors provides the capability for creating/modifying objects via a popup window. The add and edit buttons open the popup window to create a new object or to modify a selected one. ClearButton allows clearing the editor value. 

Your feedback counts!
If you are an active Universal subscriber and would like to test these new features prior to the official release, download the DevExpress XAF v18.1 Preview installer. By providing early build access, we hope to find out whether our new features and solutions address your requirements and issues. Your testing efforts and your feedback help us deliver the best possible final implementation.

Learning through reading the source code

I will start this post with the new Visual Studio 2017 function, which I hope will be helpful for XAF developers too. I have both RTM and Preview versions installed, but I am mostly using the latter one for testing. The new function I spotted in their change logs is called "View decompiled source definitions instead of metadata (C#)".

As you can guess from its name, it changes the very often used "Go To Definition" command (F12) so that it displays the actual code of a C# type or member who's source code is unavailable - very useful and convenient, IMHO. It is decompiled using ILSpy, the tool I have already been using for years as default program association for opening *.dll files -  partially the reason of why this news got my attention. This experimental feature is new in Visual Studio 2017 version 15.6 preview 2+ and it must be turned on explicitly using the Tools > Options  >  Text Editor > C# > Advanced > Enable navigation to decompiled sources menu item. 

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.

Welcome the DataStoreCreated event in the ConnectionDataStoreProvider and ConnectionStringDataStoreProvider classes

This is rather a minor improvement, but I bet it will save code lines for some advanced XAFers who touch the internals of the XPO data layer created by XAF for various low-level database-specific customization like setting connection timeouts, changing default schemas, enabling and customizing caching, service end-points, etc. Check out this updated article for some example code showing the new approach in action.

The DataStoreCreated  event is available in XAF v17.2+. Its event arguments (DataStoreCreatedEventArgs) expose the DataStore and Destination parameters that provide access to the current data store and its type (SchemaChecking,  Updating or Working).

Frankly speaking, this is quite low-level and rarely needed stuff, so we have not yet have it covered in the online docs, only in KBs. So, please refer to my 

How to customize the underlying database provider options and data access behavior in XAF article to learn more about it. Should you have any questions or additional usability suggestions, please let me know.

How to show Color Swatches for the Bezier skin and persist the user choice in XAF WinForms apps

If you are a fan of the new SVG Bezier skin, our WinForms components received in v17.2, do not miss the XAF integration on the subject:

https://www.devexpress.com/kb=T579152

Both theWinForms and XAF teams are looking forward to hearing from you on this new feature. Learn more about this major release from our What's New documents.

What's New in XAF Help 17.1.3 and 17.1.4

In this post, I would like to provide an overview of the most important additions to XAF documentation introduced after the 17.1 release.

Documentation updates with regard to ways to resize windows in XAF

We have recently updated our online documentation in this regard, so you may be interested to check it out:
    Task-Based Help > How to: Adjust the Size and Style of Pop-up Dialogs (WinForms)
    Task-Based Help > How to: Adjust the Size and Style of Pop-up Dialogs (ASP.NET)

Attentive readers could notice that the PopupWindowShowAction.CustomizePopupWindowParams event arguments now provide the new Size and Maximized properties that can be used to specify the popup window size from a platform-agnostic module in certain cases (check the end of both articles above for more details on the limitations).

Of course, these code solutions can be further improved based on your business requirements. For instance, if you want to provide a developer or application user with the capability to specify sizes in the Model Editor, you can extend required View node types (e.g., IModelView) with the Width and Height attributes in the Application Model and then modify the aforementioned code to read these attributes respectively. Refer to the eXpressApp Framework > Concepts > Application Model > Extend and Customize the Application Model in Code article for more details.

Please tell me about your experience with these solutions or about anything you would love to improve in this regard. Thanks in advance.

The Frame.GetController method may return null when the XafApplication.OptimizedControllersCreation property is set to True

With XAF v17.1, Solution Wizard sets the XafApplication.OptimizedControllersCreation property to True for newly created XAF projects (existing projects will not be affected). 

To avoid possible null reference exceptions in nested List Views, always check if the Frame.GetController<ControllerType> method result is not null when the OptimizedControllersCreation property is true. The latter option is required to get faster loading of DetailView when it contains a lot of nested ListView items (learn more...).

Our online documentation was already updated to describe this optimization specificity and add these null-checks everywhere; e.g., check theses examples: one, two. KB articles, Code Examples and popular Support Center tickets are not yet updated, but we hope to do this with time as well. Should you find missing checks in our learning materials, please contact us.

ASPxColorPickerPropertyEditor - New ASPxColorEdit-based editor for color properties

With XAF v17.1, you can consider using the new DevExpress.ExpressApp.Web.Editors.ASPx.ASPxColorPickerPropertyEditor class for representing color properties. It is enabled by default only in newly created XAF v17.1+ projects (existing projects will continue using the previous ASPxColorPropertyEditor). 

Refer to the Property Editors | Color Properties section in the FeatureCenter.Web demo to play with the new editor live.

This is a small feature, but it is still worth mentioning here because we received several user requests for it. Finally, we wanted to go away from the custom tailored editor we used (it was created many years ago before ASPxColorEdit) and this was a good task for a junior developer☺.

What about you? Are you using this editor in your apps? If so, please tell us more about your typical uses.

Web Layout Manager improvements and important changes in XAF v17.1

In the 17.1 version, we have improved the scenario of loading the ASPxPageControl tab content when XafApplication.DelayedViewItemsInitialization equals True and the Conditional Appearance module is involved. So, if you encountered missing or not fully loaded tab contents in this configuration, and had to previously adjust the application-level DelayedViewItemsInitialization or View-level DelayedItemsInitialization options to avoid this behavior (learn more...), starting with v17.1, it is possible to revert these options to True by default. 

Take special note that these improvements required us to introduce some changes, which may affect a very small group of users who created and registered custom layout group templates in WebLayoutManager. Frankly speaking, this was needed for very advanced scenarios (we could locate only a few cases in our large Support Center database), so we expect that the majority of XAF users will not be affected by these changes. Anyway, if you feel or know that you could have been affected, refer to the Web Layout Manager improvements and important changes in XAF v17.1 KB Article for more details.

BTW, have you ever created custom layout item and group templates for WebLayoutManager?:-) If so, please share your use-cases in comments. I am asking because it is quite possible that we already have better solutions for you (e.g., expandable/collapsible layout groups are already supported out-of-the-box)!

New and updated help topics in version 16.2.4

Recently, Dennis has published a huge list of changes introduced in XAF documentation in the previous major update (16.2). In this post, I would like to overview another set of changes in XAF documentation introduced with the 16.2.4 minor update of XAF.

New and updated XAF videos

I am glad to announce that the XAF team have published several new videos in DevExpress channel. These videos demonstrate the most attractive features from the What's New in XAF v16.2 list.

XAF Mobile Platform (CTP)

With this video, you can learn how to add a mobile client for your XAF application. This is the updated version of the previously published video. It demonstrates the following mobile enhancements introduced in 16.2

1. New UI layouts optimized for desktop and tablet devices.
2. Improved look and feel.
3. Application Simulator no longer requires an internet connection.
4. 'Active' and 'Enabled' action states are now context-dependent.

What is New in Help in XAF v16.2

As you probably know, in addition to the new great features the version 16.2 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 are listed below. I highlighted the topics I personally like or value the most in yellow. I would also greatly appreciate it, if you tell me about your favorite topics in comments!

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.

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

Collapsible layout groups in the new XAF Web UI

Starting with v15.2, the new XAF web UI provides a built-in solution for this task. Please see a screenshot from our XCRM demo:

You can enable this feature for required layout groups in the Model Editor via the new IsCollapsibleCardGroup option at the Views | <DetailView> | Layout | level: