What's new in NetAdvantage for WPF Line of Business 11.2 Release

[Infragistics] Mihail Mateev / Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The new NetAdvantage for WPF 11.2 is on the market these days. This is an amazing product, including many new features and many new useful features in existing controls and libraries. New controls support Infragistics shared XAML strategy to support the same XAML controls in both Silverlight and WPF. In the new 11.2 release there are many components and libraries, available for Silverlight like high-performance XamGrid and Persistence Framework. Customers, who use NetAdvantage for WPF LoB could enjoy the chart controls (XamDataChart, XamPieChart, XamFunnelChart) available now for both Line of Business and Data Visualization XAML products.

New Controls

XamGrid (new control for WPF ported from Silverlight)

Infragistics Silverlight high-performance grid is now available as native WPF control. The gives the same interaction experience and developer API experience in both Silverlight and WPF. All existing features and any new feature to the XamGrid are available in both Silverlight and WPF. One of the most interesting features is conditional formatting .

Conditional formatting allows you to test certain values, such as a column of cells in XamGrid, and apply specific appearances to any of those cells that match certain criteria.

In the new NetAdvantage for XAML Line of Business Vol.2011.2 XamGrid comes with many new features.

New XamGrid Features

Editor Behaviors

Three columns in the XamGrid control – DateColumn, ComboBoxColumn and CheckBoxColumn can be configured to be always in edit mode. This means they are always accessible, visible and available for editing without any further user interactions or the editing mode being enabled in the XamGrid control.

By using the EditorDisplayBehavior property, you can configure the DateColumn, ComboBoxColumn and CheckBoxColumn to be always in the edit mode. It is possible to change the default edit mode between “Default” “Always” and “EditMode”.

Export to MS Excel

Starting with the 11.2 release, you can export the XamGrid data to Microsoft Excel files.
Excel export supports using of filtering, sorting, summaries group by and formatting of the exported data.

Selection – Select All Rows

In the 11.2 release it is possible to select all rows in the child band, all rows in the grouped area all rows or in the XamGrid.

Summaries in Group Headers
Column specific styles

In the XamGrid now there is possible to customize the look the special rows using specific styles

XamGrid Filtering update

In the new release now is added Excel Style Filtering

Events update

XamDataChart

Infragistics Data Chart is added to XAML LOB Products - Leading XAML Data Chart, previously only available to customers who owned out Data Visualization product, is now part of the WPF and Silverlight Line of Business products.

All XamDataChart features are available in the WPF Line of Business suite. Data Chart control also offers a many new features:

New Chart Series

In the new 11.2 Release XamDataChart received an additional 15 new series:

Custom Series / Series Inheritance
Bar
Stacked100Bar
Stacked100Column
StackedBar
StackedColumn
Point
StackedArea
Stacked100Area
StackedLine
Stacked100Line
StackedSpline
Stacked100Spline
StackedSplineArea
Stacked100SplineArea

Custom series example: ControurAreaSeries, that inherits Series class.

Error Bars

Error Bars are used when you have a sample of data and you want to show mean , standard deviation, confidence intervals and possible error.

Error Bars are supported in the following Series types:

ColumnSeries
SplineSeries
LineSeries
AreaSeries
StepLineSeries
StepAreaSeries
SplineAreaSeries
All Scatter-Type Series

XamPieChart

XamPieChart is also available in the new 11.2 release for WPF LoB.

You can enjoy the excellent features of XamPieChart as a move from summary information to detailed data drilling down and up, use explosion support and adjusting XamPieChart label positions

The Others Category in the Pie Chart control can be used to group the smallest data values into one slice

You could via click on a pie slice to toggle its explosion.

XamFunnelChart

Another new component in the 11.2 release is a XamFunnelChart. This control represents a chart with a funnel shape. It displays sections in a top-down composition each representing the data as slices from largest value to the smallest value

Funnel chart main features:

Defining Slices - Manually defining funnel slices. Each slice takes a double value. By default this results in a uniform funnel.
Inverted Funnel - Developers can invert the funnel to display it as a pyramid.
Funnel Arc - The funnel control allows developers to make the funnel sides curve. The curve parameters can be controlled by the developer.

XamInputs (XamMaskedInput, XamCurrencyInput, XamNumericInput, XamDateTimeInput)

The controls in the XamInputs group are meant to guide the users during data entry and give you an opportunity to check if the entered data meets some predefined criteria. The controls are cross-platform by design therefore you can use them in Silverlight or WPF interchangeably. The input controls can be used as standalone textboxes or in combination with other controls, for example as cells in a XamGrid control.

XamMaskedInput

You can make different masks like a phone number mask with required (‘#’) or non-required (‘9’) digits like so – “(###)####-###”

XamNumericInput

The XamNumericInput as the name suggest also accepts only digits and they can be restricted not only via a mask but by a minimum and maximum values.

XamCurrencyInput

You could to add a XamCurrencyInput control to your application configured with several common masks. the Year

XamDateTimeInput

It is a simple text box control that uses a mask to assist end users in entering dates and/or time values in the correct format. The XamDateTimeInput also comes with one outstanding feature – a dropdown calendar that lets users pick the date right there and have it entered for them. It is also possible to use AutoFillDate property: when user set it value to Year or MonthandYear input automatically fills the Year or MonthandYear when user leaves the control and has not entered them.

XamComboEditor (new control for WPF ported from Silverlight)

The cross-platform Combo Editor is a virtualized, databound dropdown list with a text field, functioning in either a Select or Edit mode.

Multi Column Combo (XamMultiColumnComboEditor)

The XamMultiColumnComboEditor is designed to give developers a richer display choice for dropdown data. The multi-column combo acts just like a grid; it can automatically generate columns for every property on the data object that is contained in the IEnumerable that is set on the control’s ItemsSource property

The multi-column combo supports auto-generation (and/or manual definition) of the following column types:

TextComboColumn
CheckBoxComboColumn
ImageComboColumn
DateComboColumn

Resource Washer (new component)

This is a new cross-platform feature, available for all Infragistics Line of Business and Data Visualization XAML products.

With Resource Washing, you can set the color (the WashColor) on groups of resources (WashGroups) in an existing ResourceDictionary to update the color of the controls in your application. Using Resource Washing, you can take a basic looking application and re-brand it to your corporate colors, of you can set a WashColor at runtime to change the look of an application.

The main features are:

Set the color (the WashColor) on groups of resources (WashGroups) in an existing ResourceDictionary to update the color of the controls in your application.
Wash Modes

Live setting a wash color

<ResourceDictionary>

  <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>

    <igThemes:RibbonOffice2k7Black />

      <igThemes:ResourceWasher AutoWash="True" WashColor="#FF3399CC" WashMode="HueSaturationReplacement" >

        <igThemes:ResourceWasher.SourceDictionary>

          <igThemes:RibbonOffice2k7BlackBrushes />

        </igThemes:ResourceWasher.SourceDictionary>

      </igThemes:ResourceWasher>

  </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries>

</ResourceDictionary>

XamCalculationManager

The XamCalculationManager adds Microsoft Excel-like formula support to any control on the form, including native WPF controls and Infragistics XAML controls.

Some of the key feature of the new calculation manager are:

Over 100 Functions - With over 100 built-in Microsoft Excel-like functions including arithmetic, statistical and financial functions, your end users will enjoy the powerful computational capabilities in your applications
Asynchronous Calculation - When there are many records to be acted upon by the it can run in asynchronous mode for greatest performance
Formula Editor - Use the custom Formula Editor dialog at design-time, or expose this dialog at run-time so end users can modify formulas
Custom Formulas - Add your own custom formulas for data-driven lookups, analytics, etc.

XamCalculationManager has the following main parts:

XamCalculationManager - Manages all formulas as well as getting values from sources and setting values on targets of those formulas
ItemCalculator – Exposes an Item property and a collection of ItemCalculations which each identify a property on the specified item that can be the source and/or target of a formula.
ListCalculator – Exposes ItemsSource and Items properties as well as two collections.

The ListCalculator object allows you to bind to data and perform calculations on that data.

  

        <ig:ListCalculatorElement x:Name="listCalcElement" CalculationManager="{StaticResource CalcManager}"

                                  ItemsSource="{Binding Path=AllShippingDetails}">

            <ig:ListCalculatorElement.Calculator>

                <ig:ListCalculator ReferenceId="AllShippingDetailsCalculator">

                    <ig:ListCalculator.ItemCalculations>

                        <ig:ItemCalculation TargetProperty="Shipping" 

                                            Formula="([Price] * [Quantity])"/>

  

                        <ig:ItemCalculation ReferenceId="Total" 

                                            Formula="([Price] * [Quantity]) + [Shipping]"/>

                    </ig:ListCalculator.ItemCalculations>

  

                    <ig:ListCalculator.ListCalculations>

                        <ig:ListCalculation ReferenceId="GrandTotal" Formula="Sum([Total])"/>

                        <ig:ListCalculation ReferenceId="AverageQuantity" Formula="AVERAGE([Quantity])"></ig:ListCalculation>

                    </ig:ListCalculator.ListCalculations>

                </ig:ListCalculator>

            </ig:ListCalculatorElement.Calculator>

  

        </ig:ListCalculatorElement>

Formula Editor

This is a new control. that provide a full-fledged formula editing experience for the end user with the XamFormulaEditor and its intuitive FormulaEditorDialog, which offers assistance and updates dynamically while he or she types.

XamFormulaEditor

The formulas can be edited in the XamFormulaEditor. When you change the values for x and y the results of the calculations are updated accordingly in the text boxes

FormulaEditorDialog

Use the FormulaEditorDialog as a stand-alone control. When the Edit Formula buttons are pressed, a FormulaEditorDialog is displayed to the user.

XamTileManager

XamTimeNamager is a completely new control for NetAdvantage Vol.11.2 . This component is available for both Silverlight and WPF LoB products. You could use Tile Manager to organize tiles in the your layout as desired – in a grid, spanning columns, rows, etc.

XamTileManager main features includes:

Drag and Drop – supports the dragging and rearranging of tiles.
State Based Customization (tiles supports different states: Maximized, Normal, Minimized, Minimized-Expanded and different templates for each state)
Dynamic Tile Resizing
Build-in and Custom Animations – it is possible to set animations during the state transitions of tiles.
Save/Load Layout –users could save and restore their changes at run-time.

XamTileManager offers much more useful features like:

Adding and Removing Tiles
Maximized Tile Location
Different Tile Settings
Adding and Removing Tiles
Easy to Use Data Binding
Explicit Tile Layout

You could use UseExplicitRowColumnOnTile option to create tiles of varying sizes.

Persistence Framework (ported from Silverlight, CTP)

In the NetAdvantage for WPF 2011 vol.2 is available the new Infragistics Control Persistence Framework. With the Control Persistence Framework, you can easily persist and load a control’s property values throughout end-user sessions. The framework supports the persisting and loading of control state of any control.

Here are some storage mediums that you can use to persist and load your settings:

Isolated Storage
Database
With the Control Persistence Framework, you can save all of a control’s property settings or you can selectively choose a subset of properties that will be persisted; you also have control over the fine tuning of the save and load process along with several events that you can handle for further control and customization.

Infragistics Word Library

In the NetAdvantage for WPF 2011 Volume 2 you could use the new Infragistics Word library. The Word library enables you to create Microsoft Word documents using forward-only streamer.
The WordDocumentWriter is a streamer object that provides a fast, non-cached, forward-only means of generating streams or files containing word processing data. This object is available in the InfragisticsWPF4.Documents.IO assembly. The WordDocumentWriter object enables you to create Word documents with improved performance through the forward-only streaming approach.

Undo/Redo Framework (CTP)

This is a new framework, available in the NetAdvantage for WPF LoB Vol.11.2

The Undo Framework provides the infrastructure for supporting unlimited linear Undo/Redo functionality. Some of the main features are:

Undo/Redo History Stacks – The UndoManager automatically manages the Undo/Redo history stacks. The collections raise change notifications and therefore may be used as a source for providing a UI that displays the entries in the history stacks.
Built-In UndoUnits – The framework includes a number of built in undo units that providesupport for undoing/redoing property and collection changes.
Delegate UndoUnit – The framework makes it easy to add a method/delegate as an operation in the undo/redo history.
ObservableCollectionWithUndo – The framework includes a derived ObservableCollection that makes it easier to add support for undo/redo of collection changes.
Transactions – Provides the ability to group one or more operations into a single history entry. One may also rollback a transaction performing the operations that were stored up to that point.
Custom UndoUnits – The framework allows developers to create their own custom UndoUnit to support undo/redo of other types of operations.
Commands – A number of built in commands are provided to make it easier to invoke an Undo/Redo operation from within your UI.

New Features in Existing Controls

XamDataGrid

In 11.2 release WPF XamDataGrid includes several new features:

CellValuePresenterStyleSelector StyleSelector re-evaluate on ItemChanged – this was driven by feature requests.
Excel Style Filtering – this is the ‘killer’ feature across both XamDataGrid in WPF and the XamGrid, which is the new cross-platform grid. With Excel Style Filtering, customers now have the option of enabling an enhanced Filter UI which mimics the look, feel and behavior of a Microsoft Excel filter.
Formula Support (CTP)

Reevaluate the style on a cell value change

  

        <!-- Brushes -->

        <SolidColorBrush Color="#FF216e99" x:Key="BlueBrush_InRange" />

        <SolidColorBrush Color="#FFc62d36" x:Key="RedBrush_BelowRange" />

        <SolidColorBrush Color="#FF386a23" x:Key="GreenBrush_AboveRange" />

  

        <!-- Styles -->

        <Style x:Key="CVP_Field_Green" TargetType="{x:Type igDP:CellValuePresenter}">

            <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource GreenBrush_AboveRange}"/>

            <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Bold" />

        </Style>

        <Style x:Key="CVP_Field_Normal" TargetType="{x:Type igDP:CellValuePresenter}">

            <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource BlueBrush_InRange}"/>

        </Style>

        <Style x:Key="CVP_Field_Red" TargetType="{x:Type igDP:CellValuePresenter}">

            <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="{StaticResource RedBrush_BelowRange}" />

            <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Bold" />

        </Style>

        <Style x:Key="CurrencyStyle" 

                       TargetType="{x:Type igEditors:ValueEditor}">

            <Setter Property="Format" Value="c" />

        </Style>

Excel Style Filtering

XamDataGrid formula integration (using XamCalculationManager)

Excel Library Enhancements

The Excel Library now includes the following new features:

Shapes Support – Support for a few simple shape types including rectangles, right triangles, line shapes, and more. These can be created in code and saved to a workbook. In addition, shapes can now be flipped horizontally and vertically and you can change their outline and fill colors.
Data Validations – Constraints can now be placed on the values entered by users in Microsoft Excel. All data validations, including drop down lists and custom formula validations, are supported.
Print Titles – Groups of rows and columns can now be set to be repeated on each printed page when the users prints the worksheet in Microsoft Excel.
Print Area – Rectangular ranges of cells can now be set to be printed on their own pages when the user prints the worksheet in Microsoft Excel.
Page Breaks – Horizontal and vertical page break can now be added to the worksheets. This will allow you to force content to move to the next page when the user prints the worksheet in Microsoft Excel

NetAdvantage for WPF LoB Vol.11.2 is coming next days. This is an outstanding product with many new new features, that can satisfy every developer of business applications. Follow news from Infragistics in https://es.infragistics.com/ and twitter: @infragistics for more information about new Infragistics products.