Search results matching tag 'WPF Toolkit'

Re: Binding errors on screen load

Shahar — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:52:44 GMT

I ran a test:
I added a converter to each property and found that the order of the properties
when writing the control in xaml is the order how they are bound.
My control was written as follow:

<toolkit:IntegerUpDown Value="binding" Min="binding" Max="binding"/>

Once I inverted the order of the properties as follow:

<toolkit:IntegerUpDown Min="binding" Max="binding" Value="binding"/>

The screen crashes on load as expected.

Hope this helps.

Overview of the new v3.2 datagrid for WPF

Odi [Xceed] — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:43:00 GMT

Today marks the release of v3.2 of Xceed DataGrid for WPF. This is the 9th major update since the product was first introduced 2.5 years ago. Another one is coming, hot on its heels for August, with smooth scrolling innovations and other UI improvements, but here's what's new in today's release.

- There are now two paid editions of the DatagGrid, the new Standard Edition, and the existing Professional Edition.

- The new Standard Edition is aimed at folks who don’t need a whole lot of advanced features, but would still like to save time and get better results than when using Microsoft’s upcoming datagrid for WPF. The time saved, from the more complete design, abundant data binding options, documentation and helpful Xceed staff should easily outweigh its affordable $300 cost. It also has more features than the Microsoft grid, such as rich grouping support, more cell editors and input validation. Best of all, there’s a built-in instant upgrade path, so if your users eventually want filtering, printing, exporting, field chooser or other features, you can just upgrade and turn those capabilities on, instead of being painted in a corner with a control not designed to do them.

So what’s new in v3.2? For this release, we’ve made getting to your data, and presenting it properly, a lot easier to do.

- First, the datagrid now autodetects foreign keys in your datatables, so now it is easier than ever to display the corresponding values you want to display, instead of IDs. It also works with enumerations. To activate this new feature, just set AutoCreateForeignKeyConfig to True.

- Next, we added support for custom key value mappings. This makes it easy to map any kind of values or objects to fields in your data that represent keys. For example, if your table of employees has an Employee ID integer field representing an employee object, you can easily map that field so that the datagrid uses corresponding employee’s First name and Last name fields formatted as “Last name, First name” as the value to be displayed instead of the integer.

- Next, for users of the powerful Data Virtualization feature – which in v3.2 now also supports grouping – if your data source implements IQueriable, and LINQ does, we’ve made providing data to the datagrid a snap. You no longer have to handle a bunch of events to provide the datagrid with data, and you no longer have to worry about how the datagrid is sorted or grouped. Doing so was tiresome, now it’s code free.

- We also completed full support for the Entity Framework, which makes it super easy for Entity Framework users to get the grid to display hierarchical data. When binding the datagrid to a list of Entity objects, the datagrid will now automatically find and load the detail data into subgrids and use master/detail view. To turn this on, set AutoCreateDetailsDescription to True on the DataGridColectionViewSource and AutoCreateDetailConfigurations to True on the datagrid.

- We’ve also made it easier to work with unbound columns, in two ways. First, we support unbound data, which appends data to business objects that the grid displays. This method is great for displaying calculated columns or anything else which depends on the data. Second, we now directly support unbound columns, for displaying static information, such as a delete button for every row, progress bars, or any other controls or content which don’t depend on data.

The other important updates in this release deal with filtering. In previous versions, we offered Excel-like auto filtering, which provides a button for each column so that users can filter in the same way Excel does. In this version, there are two important additions to filtering capabilities for end users.

- First, we’ve added the ability for developers to define their own custom distinct values to add to the AutoFilter drop-down. You can use this to make the auto-filtering choices a lot more useful for end-users. For example, on a column with dates, you can offer the choice to filter by month. For names, the filtering choices could now be “A-C”, “D-F”, and so on. For numbers, you could group them into appropriate ranges, such as “0-99”,”99-1000” or “Odd numbers” and “Even numbers” – anything you want.

- Next, we’ve added a new row type, called the Filter Row. This row can be placed in the grid’s fixed or scrolling headers or footers, and provides users with an alternate way to set and view the datagrid’s current filter settings. It’s always visible, and works great with date ranges, as you can set a start and end date to filter by, or set value ranges such as “>5 AND <10”. You can filter Booleans using a three state checkbox, and strings can be filtered by typing a value that is contained in the string.

One last thing. The datagrid is now compiled for .NET 3.5 SP1. This service pack has been available for some time, and according to Microsoft, should be automatically pushed out and installed everywhere through Windows Update around the November timeframe.

Thanks, and I can’t wait to show you the a video of what’s in the next release, a release that’s coming soon, and has lots of amazingly responsive smooth scrolling and animation.

Let us know what else you want us to implement, by posting in the Roadmap 2009 thread on the forums at Xceed.com.

Good programming!

How does Xceed DataGrid for WPF stack up against Microsoft’s?

Odi [Xceed] — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:17:00 GMT

Today I noticed this blog post by Nigel Spencer discussing his experiences with both Microsoft's WPF datagrid and Xceed's. I liked that Nigel recognizes that any new datagrid coming out this year will be significantly behind in maturity. If you take a look at the 25 releases of Xceed's WPF grid so far, you'll see hundreds of improvements to the product over the 2.5 years it has been on the market. Not only would you have to live through that with any new datagrid coming out soon (or even in the past year), but the competition's pace will be slower. That's because Xceed's UI controls team, which used to make a variety of controls for Windows Forms, is now focused entirely on datagrids and hasn't spread its teams to design ribbons, charts and other WPF controls not directly related to datagrids.

Nigel also mentions the Microsoft WPF toolkit datagrid. Nice to see that he thinks we got a few things right that Microsoft might have missed in their v1. Here's a portion of his post:

So how does the Xceed DataGrid stack up against Microsoft’s? Here are some of the benefits that I’ve found so far:

Binding to SelectedItem works just fine.
ReadOnly properties support at Grid, Column and Row level.
CheckBox column allows simple styling whilst preserving ReadOnly value.
Automatically supports current selection and edit indicators in the row header.
The grid theme matches the OS theme out of the box. This is how it should be. Sure the grid can be custom styled to suit but it only makes sense that by default the grid should match the look and feel of the standard themed controls.
When auto-generating column headers it correctly uses any System.ComponentModel.DisplayName attributes that have been applied to the underlying class.
There are lots of options at grid and column level that determine how a cell should enter edit mode. This is very useful for columns such as CheckBox columns where requiring a click to enter edit mode can be highly annoying (since the user would expect the click to toggle the checkbox).

Here are a couple of things Nigel suggests we could improve in an upcoming version:

An easier mechanism for custom sorting. Rather than having to specific custom IComparer implemenations often it is easier to refer to an unbound property that contains the raw data. Like Microsoft’s SortMemberPath property. Hmm… I wonder if you could use a generic SortComparer to provide the same functionality?
Smaller assembly size. I know these days 2.08Mb shouldn’t be an issue but for my current contract it is. We have a ClickOnce application that is deployed to machines in remote country areas. Many of these machines are still using dial-up! Adding another another 2Mb to our current 4.5Mb total is a decision not to be made too lightly. [We’ve already been burned with a ridiculously bloated NHibernate assembly (1.6Mb)]

Thanks for the suggestions. You can be sure the team has noticed them.

Ten reasons to use Xceed’s entry-level WPF datagrid instead of Microsoft’s

Odi [Xceed] — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:48:00 GMT

Note: This blog post is edited from time to time to keep it up to date.

Microsoft has completed development of a basic WPF grid. It isn’t distributed as part of any RTM runtime of WPF, but is included in the .NET / WPF 4.0 beta. Many people are already trying it out.

Meanwhile, Xceed has released v3.2 of our entry-level datagrid for WPF called Xceed DataGrid for WPF Standard Edition, improving the feature set and supporting the latest .NET capabilities, such as Entity Framework, which even Microsoft's own datagrid doesn't have built-in support for. Xceed DataGrid for WPF version 1.0 was released about 2.5 years ago on the same day as Windows Vista and .NET 3.0 were released. We clocked 11000 hours of R&D to bring that initial version to market. I suspect we've quadrupled that effort for the latest version and for the additional features in the Professional Edition. These are, by far, the most mature products for WPF available.

We've priced the Standard Edition at an affordable $299.95 per developer. We think the return on investment will come back to you many times over. Here's why:

10 reasons why you should pass on using the basic Microsoft grid, and adopt Xceed’s Standard Edition instead.

1. Greater reliability

Even though the new grid has Microsoft’s signature on it, the product is still raw, unproven, and has its share of bugs. Xceed on the other hand has released 9 major updates, 26 total updates to our datagrid, tweaked hundreds of items to satisfy developers, and has brought the product to a highly stable state. Stable enough to be used by Microsoft in Visual Studio Team System 2010, and by IBM in SystemBuilder, for example.

2. More features

Xceed’s Standard Edition not only provides the capabilities the basic Microsoft grid does, but packs a total of over 100 built-in features, so you have more to work with. You’ll spend less time hunting in forums and blog posts, or experimenting to achieve your goals. Features such as grouping with UI virtualization and group-by row, masked textbox and other cell editors, fixed headers and footers, support for XML data sources, scroll tips, input validation and additional themes.

3. Instant upgrade path / Don’t paint yourself into a corner

If you use the basic Microsoft grid, and find you need one or more capabilities that it does not provide, you are effectively stuck. You must either attempt to develop them yourself (which may be very costly or perhaps not even feasible if the datagrid was not designed with that scenario in mind) or lose all your development investment to replace the control with a more suitable one. With Xceed’s Standard Edition, the impressive set of advanced features from the Professional Edition of the product are already built-in, tested, and ready to be immediately activated with a new license key if needed.

4. Less hacks

Developers are already spending time and money attempting to make the basic Microsoft grid do things it is not designed to do out of the box. This often results in workarounds with mediocre results. For example, attempting to achieve a Master/Detail view by placing a second grid instance in a row’s “Row Detail” area. This will, at best, provide a confusing scrollbar-within-scrollbar scenario with a poor user experience.

5. Frequent updates

If you encounter an issue with the Microsoft grid, do not expect a speedy update. Need support for the new Entity Framework but it doesn’t support it yet? It could be a long wait. Once a Microsoft control is finally released inside a platform as opposed to being released on Codeplex, it typically receives little attention until the next major platform release, historically a year or more later. On the other hand, Xceed DataGrid for WPF Standard Edition is updated often, providing timely updates that address the wide variety of new needs customers have.

6. Increased productivity

Becoming productive with Xceed’s datagrid is easy because it comes with extensive documentation and a wide variety of sample applications. At present, Microsoft grid includes little, if any documentation. There’s also an easier installation experience and a much better design-time experience thanks to a design-time configuration window that lets you set up most features quickly and easily.

7. Wow factor

Why make the switch to WPF if nobody can tell the difference? The Microsoft grid looks and feels like a typical Windows Forms datagrid. There’s nothing WPF-like about it, it doesn’t include any themes and there are no subtle animation cues anywhere. While it can be styled by a designer, and is a true WPF control, out of the box it doesn’t bring any new UI goodness to the table, and doesn’t raise the bar. In contrast, Xceed has developed and offers a variety of themes that have wowed developers over the past two years. Xceed is proactive as well, having already demonstrated the upcoming smooth scrolling feature (easy for WPF to handle thanks to offloading the task to the GPU), touch gestures and sticky group headers. This isn’t your father’s WPF.

8. New interface styles

Commercial components typically incorporate support for new interface styles much sooner than Microsoft does. For example, Microsoft’s own components only started supporting the Office 2003 style in 2005. If Microsoft introduces yet another style (and this is sure to be the case), you’ll either have to wait for Microsoft or someone else to style and code it for the Microsoft grid, or do it yourself. With Xceed’s datagrid, you can be sure a theme for the new style will promptly be available. In the case of the basic Microsoft grid for WPF, even the Office 2007 themes aren’t available. They are available as an upgrade to Xceed’s Standard Edition.

9. Better support to help you get to the finish line.

The technical support offered with Xceed’s components is far more targeted and can make all the difference on the road to completing your project on time and on budget. If you use the free Microsoft datagrid, there is currently no consistent source of help, only forums. With Xceed, it is in our best interest to ensure everyone gets help. If you want priority support, it is also available, without breaking the bank. To enlist guaranteed help from Microsoft can be prohibitively expensive, and may not be available yet for the WPF grid.

10. Built to last

Remember the improved Microsoft datagrid for Windows Forms 2.0? It was a complete redesign, with a new API that you had to learn. You could not swap out the previous version, make a few minor changes, and recompile. Microsoft’s free new WPF datagrid also has the potential to follow the same path. Xceed datagrids, on the other hand, are designed with a wide variety of future features in mind. The products are architectured to evolve without causing you to make major changes or to restart with new controls.

Conclusion

Xceed’s user interface division exists solely to produce datagrids. As a result, the entire development team focuses on datagrids and what they need to be first in their class. Microsoft, on the other hand, does not seem to aim to build the best controls, but rather to provide basic implementations with enough extensibility to enable common development scenarios. Xceed products give you the best return for your time and money.