New in Windows Forms 2008 Volume 2
Grid Enhancements
CardView Printing – CardView is a display mechanism in the WinGrid that enables the developer to provide an alternate view of data, similar to that of the Microsoft Outlook Business Cards view. This added functionality provides an easy mechanism for the developer to print the grid while in this display mode.
Rotated Column Headers – Developers can now create new visualisations with the WinGrid by rotating the column header. This will come closer to mimicking real life printed forms and make it easier for the readability and transition of the end user from a printed document to a running application.
Row Edit Templates – Provides a dialog box that has knowledge of the underlying WinGrid. This template will provide an easy mechanism for a developer to show additional information to the end-user or provide a new mechanism for a developer to enhance the data-entry experience of the grid.
TreeMap – TreeMap is a chart that provides a visualisation aspect to hierarchical or relational data using nested rectangles. This is effective in showing things like the demographical data or allotment of financial capital.
AutoComplete Mode -- New ways to filter through data in a mechanism that can be compared to the Suggest mode made popular by Google is now enabled on the WinCombo controls.
WinValidator – The WinValidator is an extender control that enhances the experience of editable fields. Traditionally, developers had to write sometimes trivial logic to perform validation on multiple input areas on a form. This control will greatly decrease the amount of code the developer needs to write and increase the validity of data submitted by the end-user.
Visual Studio 2008 Docking Style – Not only does the latest color enhancements make it to the Dock Manager control, but also the addition of the preview pane. End-Users can now CTRL-Tab through their application and get the same rich live preview displayed to developers in their line of business solution.
New in ASP.NET 2008 Volume 2
WebSlider
The WebSlider is a light-weight, easy-to-use ASP.NET-based slider (aka TrackBar) control. Designed to enable developers to add another familiar user experience pattern to their application, the WebSlider is a simple but powerful element in the developers toolbox.
WebHierarchicalDataSource
Shaping data for display in a hierarchical user interface can often present significant challenges for a developer. The WebHierachicalDataSource control aims to simplify this by offering the developer a control which leverages the familiar data source control pattern and allows them to construct complex hierarchical data views from standard flat data sources such as the SqlDataSource or the ObjectDataSource. Because the data is exposed using the standard ASP.NET hierarchical data interfaces allowing you to bind the data to any display control which understands hierarchical data display.
New in Netadvantage for WPF 2008 Volume 1
xamDockManager - NEW!
With this new docking and layout control added to the NetAdvantage for WPF control set your application can give users wide-reaching flexibility in terms of layout so they can reconfigure their user interfaces and make most effective use of their screen real estate. It delivers run time customisability of panes within your user interface that are similar to the impressive docking and layout management features you're probably familiar with from Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.
Floating Content Panes
At the heart of xamDockManager is that an end user can float any content pane like the chart pane shown below by:
- Dragging the content pane with their mouse
- Selecting the 'Floating' option from the content pane's drop-down menu
- Double-clicking the header of a content pane that isn't floating
As the developer, you can also cause a content pane to float at any time by issuing the ChangeToFloatingOnly or ToggleDockedState commands. So you can give users an arbitrary UI element that they can use to cause a content pane to float. You can also impose constraints on which content panes can be made floating; each floating pane can be put into either the FloatingOnly state (the floating pane is not allowed to dock - only to float) or the DockableFloating state.
Docking Indicators
Docking indicators tell your end users where they can dock panes through the display of translucent buttons overlaying the user interface at run time. The screen shot above shows the default docking indicators. Of course, xamDockManager allows you to customise the docking indicators through a WPF control template as described in the walkthrough, Styling the Docking Indicators.
Tabbed Multiple Document Interface (MDI)
You don't only get docking functionality with the xamDockManager, but also the ability to easily display a tabbed user interface in the main client area of the xamDockManager, much like the code view or design view in Visual Studio 2008. Each content pane you add to the Items collection of a TabGroupPane appears within its own headered tab. This enables you to create tabbed MDI applications for WPF as explained in the walkthrough, Creating a Tabbed MDI Application.
Splitter Functionality
Using the SplitPane container of xamDockManager allows you to partition the end user's workspace horizontally or vertically with a splitter bar. Users can then resize the split pane's dimensions dynamically at run time by dragging the splitter bar. The walkthrough, Add Panes to xamDockManager, introduces you to working with the SplitPane container and some of its capabilities like changing its orientation and how content panes are initially located within a SplitPane.
Pane Navigator
End users are given a convenient way to switch between open pages with the pane navigator through an optional pane navigator display button, by pressing the keyboard combinations CTRL + TAB or ALT + F7, or you can control display programmatically (for instance, to respond to a different keypress) as described in the walkthrough, Show the Pane Navigator Programmatically. Having a pane navigator takes the guess work out of switching content panes because xamDockingManager will display a preview of the pane to the user beforehand.
Pinning and Unpinning
The 'pushpin' metaphor is familiar to most end users, and xamDockManager includes innate pinning support of its content panes. End users can cause a content pane to hide by unpinning it. Likewise, they can pin a hidden pane when it flies out to make it stay visible. As you would expect, it is easy for your application to programmatically pin/unpin content panes by setting their IsPinned property to true/false.
Layout Persistence
- Once your end users have configured the layout of your application the way they like it, they will expect that your application will remember their preferences and present them with this same layout the next time they run your application. Fortunately, xamDockManager has you covered with its methods for saving and loading layouts in an XML format to Stream or String (useful for retaining preferences in a database). See the About Saving and Loading Layouts help topic for further guidance.
xamDataGrid - Enhanced!
Our WPF data grid control has been enhanced in this release of the NetAdvantage for WPF controls with new row aggregation support through summary fields that support several built-in mathematical calculations out-of-the-box.
Add Summaries to any Field
When you enable the row summary feature by setting the AllowSummaries property on a field's FieldSettings object to true, your end users will see an icon in the field headers that they can click to open a summary calculation selection box. This gives them an intuitive and easy-to-use interface for selecting one or more calculations to apply to a data field at run time.
Format Summary Appearance
You can use format strings to customise the way a calculated summary value appears. xamDataGrid permits several placeholders, which can be composed and arranged in any sequence to meet your user interface's needs:
- Actual value of the summary formatted according to its StringFormat
- Name of the summary calculator (for instance, the name of the function such as "Sum")
- Key property on the summary definition (for instance, readable text such as "Year-to-Date Sales Total")
- Name of the field whose summary is being calculated (for instance, "Sales" used in combination with the Key such as "Total Sales" or "Average Sales")
For more information on using these placeholders when formatting summaries or handling the events that let you update the format whenever a summary's value changes, see the help topics on Applying Default Summary Formats and Formatting the Value of a Summary.
Add Custom Calculations
We can't anticipate every mathematical or statistical calculation your application might need to perform on a data grid field, so we made sure that you can provide your own summary calculator to plug-in to this feature. In many cases, the key is simply having your calculation happen within your override of the SummaryCalculator's Aggregate method, which the data grid calls when summary values need to be recalculated. You also have control over the name of your calculation that appears within the summary calculation selection box to the user, whether it applies to a given data type, and more. See the Creating a Custom Summary Calculator walkthrough for a detailed step-by-step explanation.
Expansion Indicators
We have added a new ExpansionIndicatorDisplayMode property to the FieldLayoutSettings object. By setting this new property, you can control on your own whether expansion indiciators are shown or hidden for records which do not have any child records.
Label Text Behavior
Three new properties help you modify the behavior of label text in a Field object's label so that you don't have to create styles and templates to align, trim or wrap text in a LabelPresenter object. The new properties are LabelTextAlignment, LabelTextTrimming, and LabelTextWrapping.
NetAdvantage for WPF Volume 2
Pattern-Based Architecture
Having an architecture founded on recurring design patterns keeps your eye on the big picture. Ramp up to speed quickly by learning how a pattern applies to one control, and then reusing that knowledge for every other control exemplifying that pattern.
These patterns are epitomised separately by WPF controls like the xamDataGrid (pronounced "zamDataGrid") with its ability to manage, organise and crystallise hierarchical data for users, and the xamRibbon (pronounced "zamRibbon") to provide intuitive, application-wide navigation for multi-functional applications like the Office® 2007 ribbon UI does. Other controls like the xamCarouselPanel (pronounced "zamCarouselPanel") add signature flair for presenting a sequence that uses motion, visual effects and transparency to add value. The NetAdvantage for WPF controls show in their variety how these patterns can be composed to solve scenarios that need to impress, empower, and inform users in different ways.
ThemePacks
NetAdvantage for WPF ships with 15 ThemePacks, designed by the Infragistics Visual Design Group, making it easy for you to give the controls a clean and modern look with a single property setting.
- Windows Themes including Luna (Windows XP), Aero (Windows Vista) and Royale (Windows Media Center Edition)
- Office 2007 Themes including Office 2007 Black, Office 2007 Blue and Office 2007 Silver
- Infragistics designed Themes include: Fall, ForestGreen, Leaf, Lipstick, Wind, Water, and Onyx
Examples
A pair of polished WPF applications bring together over 125 code xamples (pronounced "zamples") demonstrating the power and flexibility of each control in NetAdvantage for WPF. Learn every feature and its XAML code within the xamFeatureBrowser. Be inspired to push the envelope by the xamShowcase panorama.
Highlighted Features
- Built from the ground up to leverage WPF platform features, including high resolution graphics, rich styling and animation capabilities and integrated UI virtualisation technology.
- Supports lazy loading, adding, updating, deleting, sorting, grouping, resizing, and scrolling data from either flat or hierarchical data sources.
- Carousel motion with special effects (includes scaling, skewing, and opacity effects) along a discrete path or continuous circuit.
- Rich data entry that includes mask, date/time, numeric, currency, combo box and text editors.
- XBAP compatible controls mean you can deploy rich client applications through the browser.
- Astounding data visualisation capabilities with carousel presentation and animated, 2D/3D charts in WPF using the xamChart..
Netadvantage for Windows Forms 2008 Volume 2
This product includes the following:
- WinGrid
- WinCalcManager
- WinChart
- WinCombo
- WinDataSource
- WinDesktopAlert
- WinDockManager
- WinExtras
- WinAnimation
- WinButton
- WinCalculator
- WinDropdownButton
- WinFormattedLinkLabel
- WinLabel
- WinPopupContainer
- WinProgressBar
- WinScrollBar
- WinStatusBar
- WinTooltipManager WinEditors
- WinTrackBar
- WinCalculatorDropdown
- WinCheckEditor
- WinColorPicker
- WinComboEditor
- WinCurrencyEditor
- WinDateTimeEditor
- WinFontNameEditor
- WinFormattedTextEditor
- WinMaskedEdit
- WinNumericEditor
- WinOptionSet
- WinTextEditor
- WinTrackBar WinExplorerBar
- WinGauge
- WinGroupBox
- WinGridBagLayoutPanel
- WinGridDocumentExporter
- WinGridExcelExporter
- WinInkProvider
- WinLayoutManagers
- WinListbar
- WinListView
- WinNavigationBar
- WinPrinting
- WinPrintDocument
- WinPrintPreviewControl
- WinPrintPreviewThumbnail
- WinGridPrintDocument
- WinSchedulePrintDocument Infragistics.Documents
- PDF Export
- XPS Export
- Infragistics.Excel
- XLS Export
- XLS Import
- WinSchedule
- WinDayView
- WinWeekView
- WinMonthViewSingle
- WinMonthViewMulti
- WinCalendarCombo
- WinCalendarInfo
- WinCalendarLook
- WinSpellChecker
- WinTabbedMdi
- WinTab
- WinToolbars
- WinRibbon
- WinTree
Netadvantage for ASP.NET 2008 Volume 2
- AJAX WebGrid loading, updating, sorting, scrolling & filtering of flat or hierarchical data - with no code!
- Rich data entry capability, including masked, datetime, numeric and text editors and a full WYSIWYG HTML Editor
- Complete navigation solutions with WebTab, WebTree,
WebMenu, WebNavBar and WebToolbar
- Export WebGrid to major document formats such as PDF, XPS and XLS
- Comprehensive resource scheduling using the WebSchedule controls
- Rich 2D and 3D Charting Engine with over 50 Chart types
- Extensive Client Side Object Model (CSOM)
- Microsoft SharePoint Portal Support
- AJAX controls for ASP.NET are compatible with Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX, and they include support for its UpdatePanel, the Microsoft AJAX Library and the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.
Windows Forms – Update your desktop applications with the Vista look and feel, stunningly fine-grained style properties plus innovative controls like WinNavigationBar for breadcrumb navigation
ASP.NET – Publish more than data, publish knowledge by exporting WebGrid and WebChart into PDF/XPS documents your users can share, plus import and export capability for Microsoft Excel XLS workbooks
Windows Presentation Foundation - Visualise data in animated new ways from carousel data presentations to breathtaking charts that leverage the power of the WPF platform to revolutionize your users’ experience