Check out this video playback control that was made using the versatile DevExpress ASP .NET image slider control:

How? Templates, ftw!

The animated gif above shows the DevExpress ASP.NET Image Slider control’s new templates support. ASP.NET Templates allow you to extend the control by defining your own HTML that you want to use within a control. So, in the above sample, we’ve created a couple of divs and some custom CSS to make a slick video playback control.

If you’d like to see the template’s HTML code, click the image below:

Specifically, we’ve add support for ItemTemplate, ItemTextTemplate, and ItemThumbnailTemplate.

Learn more about the Image Slider control here:

- ImageSlider: A New Touch-Enabled ASP.NET Image Slider and Gallery Control
- Use an ASP.NET Image Slider Control to show a Hero Graphic (aka banner image)

The DevExpress ASP.NET Memo field now helps you to limit the amount of characters typed into it:

Server check

A nice feature of the DevExpress ASP.NET Memo control is that it will check the length on the sever side too. This way, some one cannot fraudulently try to change the limit on client-side.

While it’s possible to use JavaScript to validate form data entry, this approach can’t be totally relied upon (JavaScript may be disabled, and form data may not be trustworthy if the client has been affected by a nefarious script). Server–side validation is a much safer option, and could be used, among other things, to check that the amount of data submitted isn’t too long. –SitePoint

Uses Browser

The DevExpress ASP.NET Memo control will try to use the default browser behavior for enforcing the MaxLength limit. Otherwise, it will default to using an internal script, if necessary.

Why set a limit?

Setting a limit is a usability feature. This way, if your website visitors are typing a phone number or postal code, then you can help them by indicating what the maximum number of characters they can enter is.

Check out the new SlideShow feature of the DevExpress ASP.NET Image Slider:

New Settings

We’ve added several new settings to make it easier for you to enable and manage the slide show capabilities of the ASPxImageSlider:

The ASPxImageSlider.SettingsSlideShow property provides access to the following properties:

· AutoPlay – specifies whether or not the slide show is initially enabled.
· Interval – specifies the time interval between changing images.
· PausePlayingWhenMouseOver – specifies whether or not the image playing stops when mouse is over control.
· PlayPauseButtonVisibility – specifies the Play/Pause button visibility.
· StopPlayingWhenPaging – specifies whether or not the image playing stops when end-user change images manually.

Hero Graphic Webinar

I recently did a webinar about “Hero Graphics” and how you can use the Image Slider to create a hero graphic. Check out the video and blog post here:

Use an ASP.NET Image Slider Control to show a Hero Graphic (aka banner image)

In that webinar, I used JavaScript to simulate a similar slide show effect. And I’m happy to say that this feature is now available directly from the Image Slider control.

Learn how to enable search engine optimized (SEO) URLs for your DevExpress ASP.NET MVC GridView extension.

What is ‘SEO Friendly’?

SEO or search engine optimization means that you’ve optimized your website forsearch engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. Search engines prefer to link a direct URL with some content.

Callbacks Issue

The problem arises because of AJAX callbacks that only update part of the page. AJAX is great for user experience but not for a search engine that wants a static page and URL so that it can be cached in their system.

DevExpress Solution

Many DevExpress ASP.NET products provide AJAX callback functionality built into the ASP.NET products. So, to enable SEO friendly mode for DevExpress ASP.NET MVC GridView’s pager, you’ll need to set your view to look something like this:

@Html.DevExpress().GridView(
    settings = > {
        settings.Name = "grid";
        settings.CallbackRouteValues = new { Controller = "GridView", Action = "SEOFriendlyPagingPartial" };
        settings.Width = Unit.Percentage(100);

        settings.KeyFieldName = "CustomerID";
        settings.Columns.Add("ContactName").SortOrder = DevExpress.Data.ColumnSortOrder.Ascending;
        settings.Columns.Add("CompanyName");
        settings.Columns.Add("City");
        settings.Columns.Add("Region");
        settings.Columns.Add("Country");

        settings.Settings.ShowGroupPanel = true;
        settings.SettingsPager.PageSize = 10;
        settings.SettingsPager.SEOFriendly = SEOFriendlyMode.Enabled;
        settings.SettingsPager.PageSizeItemSettings.Visible = true;
    }
).Bind(Model).GetHtml()

Specifically, the SettingsPager.SEOFriendly property tells the DevExpress MVC GridView to render direct links for the pages. Therefore, when each page of the GridView has a direct link like this one below:

(Online demo for SEO Friendly feature)
http://demos.devexpress.com/MVC/GridView/SEOFriendlyPaging?seogrid=page4|size10|sort1|a0 

The seogrid variable in the above URL contains the information that is parsed by the DevExpress MVC GridView when it loads that page. Therefore, it’s possible for you navigate to a direct page with just the URL.

Web Crawlers Only

But what if you wanted to provide a good AJAX experience for your end-users with callbacks while still getting some google-juice for SEO purposes? DevExpress MVC GridView has an answer for you here as well.

Set the DevExpress MVC GridView’s Pager to SEOFriendlyMode.CrawlerOnly and the GridView renders hyperlinks in the pager when a web-crawler is detected. For other visitors, standard pager links are generated. So, search engines can index the entire contents of the grid and site visitors experience the same callback functionality.

Register now for the "Create and customize beautiful ASP.NET websites w/DevExpress” webinar on August 15th, 2013 at 10am PDT:

Register Now

This is the best ASP.NET webinar you’ll see in August 2013. Why?

Lately, I’ve been doing some customizations to the slick DevExpress Web Mail demo. Currently, it looks like this:

In the webinar, I discuss how you can take an existing ASP.NET website that uses DevExpress and customize it. For example, I modified the above site’s styles and fonts to make something like this:

Join me for this webinar as I show you how to modify fonts, colors, icons, and more.

Check out the “Express Way Tour” video below:

Recently, we did a multi-city tour to discuss design and DevExpress ASP.NET controls. The video above contains some of the great parts of the talks.

Learn about UI

Here’s the official description:

Explore the how and why of great UI. If you believe you're not an artist, that UI is merely subjective, or that a great UI is not worth the effort, then this keynote is for you. You'll learn how to measure UI quality, covering user models, entry points, orienteering, and discoverability, with tips and code samples for the .NET developer sprinkled throughout.

DevExpress ASP.NET and MVC Controls Overview
Creating elegant, interactive and engaging web applications requires a comprehensive suite of controls and extensions and a fully customizable selection of themes. DevExpress ASP.NET ships with 16 highly polished themes for your next web application. You can use each of these themes, without modification or manipulate them using our free ASP.NET Theme Builder.

Good To Great UI
In this session, you'll learn how small changes can improve your UI. Mark Miller joins Mehul Harry to discuss and show how seemingly small UI changes can yield important benefits to customers using your software.

Unofficially, it’s a good video where Mark Miller talks about User Interface and design. Then later in the video, Mark and I apply some of the tips from his excellent talk.

This is video is worth watching even at one hour and twelve minutes. So sit back with some lunch, coffee, and/or popcorn.

A report and a control are both great ways to present information. However, there are a couple of differences which may help you to decide when to use a report and when to use a control.

Static vs Dynamic

A report or account is any informational work (usually of writing, speech, television, or film) made with the specific intention of relaying information or recounting certain events in a widely presentable form.^[1] –Wikipedia

Wikipedia defines a report as information in a presentable form. Therefore, a report is something that you spend time crafting and make it look very good because the end-user may print or email it.

A user interface control, on the other hand, is dynamic. You and your end-users can interact with a control: move columns, group data, check boxes, edit data, and so much more.

A beautiful report

 Online example here

Here’s an example of how a reports make your data look beautiful. Colors, lines, fonts, etc. The data even shows you master-detail hierarchy. Now let’s compare that with a control.

A powerful control

 Online example here

Here’s an example of the DevExpress ASP.NET GridView that shows master-detail layout. While it doesn’t look as pretty as the predefined report, it is beautiful and perfect for engaging and interactive live usage. We can page through the data, expand/collapse the master-detail rows, sort the data, and so much more.

Reports & Controls, best of both...

If you want to make the best UI and provide a great experience for your end-users, then use DevExpress Reports and Controls together! Don’t compromise.

Use the powerful DevExpress UI controls to build your application interface. Then, you can provide export and printing capabilities by creating custom reports. And everyone wins and lives happily ever after.

Check out the image below of the beautiful DevExpress ASP.NET MVC “Clinical Study” demo:

The demo shows off some of our ASP.NET MVC controls (such as the GridView, charts, PivotGrid, and editors) in a representative example app. You can learn more about this ClinicalStudy demo by watching the webinar referenced in this blog post: : "A Powerful ASP.NET MVC Web Application – DevExpress Clinical Study Demo”

A Custom Theme

For the purposes of this demo, we created a special theme that helps show how flexible and beautiful the DevExpress MVC extensions are. We called this special theme, ClinicalStudy, to go along with the app. However, it was only created for this particular demo, so was not shipped as part of our regular set of themes.

Nevertheless, we have received a lot of requests from customers who want to use this theme. So we are officially going to release this theme to you, our loyal customers. Before I give you the download link though there are some disclaimers about using this theme:

Disclaimers

1. This is a not a full theme. Do not expect every DevExpress control to be customized in the same way. The controls that are supported are (GridView, PivotGrid, Chart, TreeList, and Editors). Also, the theme may not fully support all visual elements of these controls.
2. There is no official support for this theme. Use it by all means, but since it is not a full theme that’s part of the product, we do not provide support for it. However, …

Download

Get the beautiful (even though it’s not complete) ClinicalStudy theme here:  ClinicalStudyTheme.zip

Customize it

Like other DevExpress ASP.NET themes, this one can be customized using the DevExpress ASP.NET Theme Builder tool.

Note: If you get any DevExpress version errors, you may need to use the DevExpress Project Converter tool.

Request for Full Theme

Now, let’s say you and your end-users fall in love with this theme and want DevExpress to spend our time to extend it in to a full theme. Here’s what I recommend, track this suggestion: Q524751

Because creating a theme that works across all the desktop and mobile browsers that we support is time consuming. Time we could spend to create new controls and features. So we need to make sure that the time invested is valuable enough to our customers (aka you). Thank you.

The DevExpress ASP.NET products will have very limited support for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) in the next major release. That’s both the good and bad news.

We ultimately plan to end support for IE6 going forward with new releases because of several major reasons.

Why stop supporting IE6?

Two years ago, I asked if we should drop IE6 support. The majority of our customers responded positively that we should. And now in 2013, it’s come to the point where we can no longer hesitate but make a decision. We are going to limit IE6 support. The main reasons?

1. IE6 is a very old browser (2001). It does not support the newer technologies that the DevExpress ASP.NET team would like to use for our controls in order to make them even better. Currently, HTML5 and CSS3 are standards for all modern browsers and web applications, however IE6 does not support them. DevExpress ASP.NET server controls support HTML5 and take advantage of CSS3 in our controls.

2. Our newer DevExpress ASP.NET controls have stopped supporting IE6 because we’ve moved to using CSS3. New controls like the ASPxDocking, ASPxImageSlider, ASPxImageGallery, and ASPxFormLayout will not work in IE6. New features like EndlessPaging in ASPxGridView (and ASPxDataView) will not work in IE6. Our new ASP.NET themes (iOS, Metropolis, etc.) do not support IE6.

This does not mean that you cannot use these controls in your apps if your users use IE6; for example, there are customers who use the ASPxFormLayout without issues in that browser. However, we cannot (and do not) guarantee that the control appearance and behavior will be correct in IE6.

3. Supporting IE6 can introduce new bugs. The DevExpress ASP.NET development team is constantly improving our ASP.NET controls for performance and appearance by taking advantage of new technologies such as CSS3. These code modifications can result in new bugs when used with IE6.

Of course the DevExpress ASP.NET team is ready to research and fix them. However, they will not be fixed for IE6 if the team has to seriously modify the control.

4. DevExpress ASP.NET demos are broken in IE6 because our demo pages render HTML5. To test whether a control works in IE6, I recommend you create a test project, add a Transition or Strict DOCTYPE tag to the page, and then add and test the required components at runtime.

5. Microsoft will stop supporting IE6 when it stops support for Windows XP in April 2014. At that point, the basic security of the browser will start to deteriorate and users should migrate to a later version.

IE6 limited support

We understand that some end-users are still using IE6 (especially in Intranet applications) and we want to make your transition from IE6 as smooth as possible. If however you encounter an issue with our products using IE6 then please feel free to contact our support team. We will research the issue and try to fix it under the limitations I've already described. This applies to our ASP.NET controls that support the older browser like the DXperience v2013.1, v2012.x, etc.

Goodbye ‘Classic’, Hello ‘Lightweight’

Starting with DXperience v2013.2, we will only support IE7 or later. In fact, we shall be dropping the RenderMode known as ‘Classic’:

Back in 2010, we introduced the “Lightweight” and “Classic” render modes. You can learn more about it here:

- ASP.NET Menu, NavBar And Pager Performance Improvements – v2010 vol 1
- ASP.NET Popup Control – Lightweight Render, Scroll Bars, CSS3, MVC and more (available now in v2011.1)

Since the ‘Classic’ render mode is for IE6, we will no longer need it. Instead we shall use the “Lightweight” mode by default. Yay!

Less than 1% in the West

IE6 usage worldwide has dropped to 6.1%, according to www.IE6countdown.com:

Breaking it down further, it’s less than 1% for the Americas and Europe, with the rest of the world pretty much at much less than 5%. China is the sole holdout, it seems, where 1 in 5 people are still using IE6.

Supported Browsers

DevExpress ASP.NET AJAX Controls and MVC Extensions are cross-browser compatible and are carefully tested against the following desktop browsers to ensure utmost compatibility: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, Mozilla FireFox 2.0+, Google Chrome 1.0+, Apple Safari 3.0+, and Opera 9.0+. We also support mobile browsers for iOS, Android, and Windows 8, including touch.

DevExpress ASP.NET controls are still the best on the market and we will continue to improve them for widest reach possible of browsers. If you have concerns, please let me know: mharry@devexpress.com

Thanks!

Here's an improvement to the DevExpress ASP.NET demos that helps you to learn faster. It does not have a name so I'm calling it 'relevant code highlighting' or 'demo code - the good parts':

Good parts - Highlighted

All the DevExpress ASP.NET demos now highlight the relevant code bits of the demo that you're viewing.

For example, in the image above, only the HTML markup and JavaScript code that is necessary for the multiple selection demo have been highlighted. But other code is still there to give us proper context

Take a look the demo online here: DevExpress ASP.NET File Manager Demo - Multiple File Selection

In a standard ASP.NET page we need various bits of code to display. But when you're looking at a demo, you don't want to hunt through the code to find which items are the ones needed for that particular feature.

So our new online demos for v14.2 release highlight the relevant bits of code and saving you time.

It's the little things

This may seem like small feature but any UI changes that improve our life by saving time and giving us better context are worth it.

Try the new v14.2 demos

Check out all the DevExpress demos:

• DevExpress ASP.NET WebForms Demos
• DevExpress ASP.NET MVC Demos

Then let me know what you think about this new feature and how we can make our online demos even better. Thanks.

With the v14.2 release, you can now create a menu that behaves like the one at devexpress.com:

This slick new feature of the DevExpress ASP.NET Menu control is called 'full-width submenu'. And yes, the feature was inspired by the devexpress.com main menu.

Benefits

A full-width menu can be very useful and provides benefits like:

1. A large popover (overlay) menu that spans the whole browser width. Great way to get the user's attention.
2. The full-width spans to different browser sizes.
3. It's great for menus that have many options.

ASP.NET & MVC

The new full-width submenu feature of the DevExpress ASP.NET Menu control is available for both ASP.NET WebForms and MVC.

Semantic Markup

Another great feature of the DevExpress ASP.NET Menu is that uses semantic lightweight markup! I described in an earlier post about our menu control providing semantic markup. And the great thing is that you don't even need to use the 'RenderMode' property anymore.

The DevExpress ASP.NET Menu control provides semantic markup by default.

Try Online Demo

DEMO - ASP.NET Menu - Full-width Submenu

In the next major release of DevExpress (v15.1), we are going to drop support for Internet Explorer 7 (IE7).

Here's why...

Legacy browsers like IE7 are a headache for web developers to support. This includes control and framework developers like DevExpress. The older browsers prevent us from moving forward.

We have a lot of code that supports IE7 and IE7 only, be that code HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or C#. Dropping support for IE7 means that we no longer have to carry that code forward and we no longer have to provide support for that browser version in the new controls and features we will be releasing this year.

And there are other reasons to drop IE7 now...

Less than 1% Usage

Worldwide usage of IE7 is less than 1%.

For less than 1 in 100 browsers, providing support is no longer cost-effective, whether that is DevExpress maintaining support for its range of older and newer controls, or you as developer of a web application.

How long will Microsoft support IE7?

ZDNet reports that Microsoft is about to drastically limit which IE versions it will support in its operating systems. In essence, only the latest browser version for a given OS version:

Starting January 12, 2016, Microsoft is changing its list of supported Windows configurations. Effective that date, the company said in an announcement today, “only the most recent version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates.” - Ed Bott, ZDNet

Feedback

I would love to hear your feedback on this decision. How will this affect you?

Are you still supporting IE7? If you still have to for the indefinite future, you can use v14.2 of our ASP.NET controls, but my advice is to move forward. Once IE security updates are no longer available, your risk window will start to expand.

Leave me a comment below or email me directly: mharry@devexpress.com

Thanks!

Now that we, DevExpress, have started to maintain the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit and are almost ready to release the first version under our stewardship, the question about support needs to be addressed.

Open Source

The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit is and will remain Open Source Software (OSS). It will not become a DevExpress product, and so we will not provide support through our usual support channels. After all, those channels are for customers who have paid for their product subscriptions and the support is provided as part of that.

Instead, like all OSS, support for the AJAX Control Toolkit will be a community-driven effort. We'd like to encourage you to get involved with the project and provide feedback, pull requests, possible fixes, etc.

Report Issues

Naturally, we accept that not everyone will be able to debug and analyze and fix bugs, so there must be a way for interested developers to report issues. To do so, please register or sign-in to CodePlex and create an issue ticket using this link:

ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit - Issues

Features/Fixes/Improvements

This list of issues will also become the major source of suggestions that our team will use to help improve the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. For suggestions, we will be updating the status of such items on this list. Not only that, but the CodePlex issues site provides some nice features such as tracking, voting, and so on.

We hope that, as users of the AJAX Control Toolkit, you will participate in this community-driven effort to help drive the Toolkit forward. Thanks!

Validation of input data is important for your websites. Here's a great XKCD comic that drives home this point:

Now, check out the video for my recent webinar on ASP.NET MVC's Unobtrusive Validation feature:

What's it about?

The video begins with me giving a short description, history, and a few other details about the ASP.NET MVC Unobtrusive Validation feature.

Then, Don Wibier (DevExpress Technical Evangelist), shows three technical demos about:

1. The standard ASP.NET MVC feature for unobtrusive validation from Microsoft.
2. How DevExpress MVC Extensions build on top of the standard ASP.NET MVC feature.
3. WebForms developers also have great validation features available to them with DevExpress ASP.NET WebForms controls. And Don shows a small WebForms example to highlight these features.

Helpful links

• Unobtrusive Client Validation - DevExpress Documentation
• Validation Overview - DevExpress Documentation
• OWASP - Data Validation
• Client-side vs Server-side Validation in Web Applications

Watch the video and then drop me a line below with your thoughts. Thanks!

The DevExpress ASP.NET controls will no longer support Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) in version 15.1 and above.

If you still have to support IE7 then you can use v14.2 of our ASP.NET controls, but my advice is to move forward. Once IE security updates are no longer available, your risk window will start to expand.

Your feedback

Recently I asked if dropping IE7 would affect you and your customers.

The response was a resounding call to drop IE7 and move our codebase forward.

Thank you for your feedback.

Upgrade to latest IE

I recommend that you upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer.

Why? Because many modern websites do not support older browsers. Read more here.

And older browsers also prevent us from moving forward. Read more here.

Project Spartan (IE in Windows 10)

I'm excited to see the new versions of IE that are being announced with Windows 10. With a possible new rendering engine, improved JavaScript, etc. It's an exciting time to be a web developer.

And, as usual, DevExpress web technologies will support the popular released browsers.

Leave me a comment below or email me: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

I'm happy to announce the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit v15.1 release is now available!

Click the download button above to get the latest bits.

Revised and Improved

Late in 2014, DevExpress took over the maintenance of the venerable ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Our major goals for the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit were these:

1. Make it work and make it stable - The library had many issues (some 2,200 at the last count) that prevented it from working properly. So the first job was prioritizing them and solving the major blocking ones (in the end, totalling nearly 1/3 of those 2,200). For more detail, please take a look at the What's new in v15.1 information below.
2. Improve the 'getting started' experience - The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit (ACT) was very difficult to download, install, and start using. We have improved this experience immeasurably by introducing a fantastic new installer that installs ACT into the Visual Studio toolbox for versions 2010 through 2013.
3. Introduce modern browser support - The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit did not work in all modern browsers. With the v15.1 release, it now works with all popular HTML 5 browsers.
4. Add support for Visual Studio 2013 templates - The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit did not support Visual Studio 2013's new web project templates well. With this v15.1 release, we have solved this major issue.
5. Provide an upgrade path - The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit's core codebase is now over 7 years old. While we at DevExpress can help to improve many of its features, we do not plan to rewrite it from the ground up. That would take a massive effort and many breaking changes. And it's not necessary because a better, modern, feature-rich, and more, set of user interface controls is available with DevExpress ASP.NET. Download the free DevExpress 30 day trial.

The new version number: v15.1

We have updated this release's version number to v15.1 because we wanted a more semantic version number system. Similar to our own version system, you'll be able to tell by year and major release version at a glance. So v15.1 means '2015 major release 1'.

What's new in v15.1?

Here's what's new...

New installation experience

DevExpress has redesigned and created an improved ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit installer that leverages Visual Studio’s extensibility features. This new installer automatically registers the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit components into the Toolbox of all available Visual Studio versions that you have installed on your system.

Single binary

The former ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit releases provided different assemblies for each .NET version. Starting with v15.1 we've built a single assembly that supports all .NET versions later than .NET 3.5. Support for .NET 3.5 has been dropped.

Dependency cleanup

The ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit assembly is now free from external dependencies: it no longer requires AjaxMin, HtmlAgilityPack, or WindowsAzure. All functionality depending on third-party packages has been extracted to separate packages (ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.StaticResources, ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.HtmlEditor.Sanitizer), all of which are available as Nuget packages.

ASP.NET Web Optimization framework for JavaScript and CSS bundling and minification

The outdated custom resource bundling and minification mechanism (causing the dependency on ToolkitScriptManager) has been replaced with a modern and better approach, using the ASP.NET Web Optimization framework.

Modern browsers

The new Toolkit can be easily used with the latest standard Visual Studio web-project templates. Therefore, it works with Bootstrap. And it also works in modern HTML 5 browsers.

Source code put in order

We worked hard to clean and add a structure to the entire source code tree. Unused and outdated code has been removed. The Visual Studio solution has been reorganized to a plain and simple structure. And now the new build pipeline is considerably faster and more straightforward. The new layout is easier to understand and faster to build.

Rollback of unfinished and experimental features

We have removed features from past releases that were incomplete and/or experimental. For example, two major items that caused many issues and headaches were the malfunctioning support for Windows Azure and the so-called “jQueryzation” of ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit.

Bug fixes

With the v15.1 release, we have addressed some major issues for the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Restructuring and cleaning up the toolkit was just the starting point to fixing many of the bugs. We have even more plans for the toolkit so stay tuned!

Feedback

Get the latest ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit v15.1 release and let us know your feedback by reporting it here.

How to upgrade to v15.1

Please take a look at the 'How to upgrade to v15.1 release' article to see how to migrate your existing ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit projects to the new v15.1 release.

Try DevExpress ASP.NET

We’d like to thank you for installing the DevExpress Edition of the AJAX Control Toolkit and look forward to your feedback as you begin its use.

When we took over the fabulous ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, our goal was to reach those web developers who want to use great web user interface controls for their web projects and DevExpress ASP.NET provides that and much more.

Try the free DevExpress 30 day trial.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Check out these two interesting webinar videos on "Best practices, tips, and tricks with DevExpress ASP.NET controls".

Part 1

In part 1, you'll learn about best practices, caching, and charts optimization:

Part 2

In part 2, you'll learn tips and tricks related to CSS footer, button links, ASPxGlobalEvents control, trackbar+chart control, and Bing maps:

Demo source code

You can download the source code of the demos here:

• Mehul's Github: https://github.com/Mehul/BestPracticesDevExpressASPnetWebinar
• Don's Github: https://github.com/donwibier/DXBestPractices
• SalesViewer demo source code is installed with the DevExpress install and typically installed in your public documents folder like this:
  C:\Users\Public\Documents\DevExpress Demos 14.2\Components\ASP.NET\CS\SalesViewer
• E2381 - ASPxperience - how to use the ASPxGlobalEvents control to avoid problems with resizing | DevExpress Support Center
• E4013 - How to show ASPxLoadingPanel on page startup | DevExpress Support Center

Links:

Here's the links mentioned in the webinars:

From Part 1:

OLTP vs. OLAP

Create First OLAP Cube in SQL Server Analysis Services - CodeProject

create olap cube - Google Search

OLAP Multiple Totals - ASP.NET AJAX OLAP Data Mining Control Demo | DevExpress

Large Database (Server Mode) - ASP.NET AJAX OLAP Data Mining Control Demo | DevExpress

Online transaction processing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Online analytical processing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Binding to Large Data (Database Server Mode) - Online Documentation - Developer Express Inc.

From Part 2:

Sticky Footer | CSS-Tricks

CSS position property

ASPxGlobalEvents Members - Online Documentation - Developer Express Inc.

ControlsInitialized Event - Online Documentation - Developer Express Inc.

BrowserWindowResized Event - Online Documentation - Developer Express Inc.

DevExpress Search - ASPxGlobalEvents sample code

Don's blog post is helpful too.

Thanks!

Check out this small sample that allows you to explore the DevExpress set of icons included with your DXperience Subscription:

Interactive tool

The DevExpress DXperience subscription includes over hundreds of beautiful and professionally designed icons. And you can use these icons with the DevExpress controls because we provide dialogs in Visual Studio for you to choose the icons.

However, there wasn't a decent way to search through the icons outside of Visual Studio.

So we've made an interactive tool (sample) that allows you to search for icons.

And because new icons are added as we develop new controls, demos, etc., you can use the tool to find which icons are included in your installed version.

Code example

The tool is available as a code central example project that you can download and run on your local Visual Studio:

Run online: Icon Library Explorer

Download: Source code - Icon Library Explorer - T205563

Help topic: Icon Collection

The sample uses the excellent DevExpress ASP.NET GridView control to see all the available icons.

New Shopping Cart Icons

In the DXperience v14.2.6 minor release, we've added 2 new shopping cart icons:

These icons are available as 16x16 and 32x32, enjoy!

Watch the "Create an MVC Website Inspired by Microsoft Outlook.com" video:

In the webinar, I discuss one of the ways that you can port a large (and beautiful) website, DevAV sample, to ASP.NET MVC.

Demo source code

You can download the source code of the demo project that I used in the webinar here:

• Github: https://github.com/Mehul/DevAV-MVC

Links

I recommend that you also watch the WebForms version of this webinar:

• DevAV WebForms Webinar - http://dxpr.es/DevAVWebinar1
• DevAV Online Demo
• DevExpress ASP.NET MVC Extensions
• MVC online demos

Thanks!

A new release of the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, v15.1.2, is now available. We've included bug fixes, nuget install package, more documentation, VS2015 RC support, and more!

Click the download button above and the get the latest bits.

(If you missed news about the latest v15.1 ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit release then please read this helpful blog post.)

v15.1.2 Includes:

1. Nuget v15.1.2

A Nuget package is now available as an alternative to the installer:

ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Nuget package

2. Bug fixes

• Item 27427 - MaskedEditExtender's ClearMaskOnLostFocus does not work
• Item 27771 - ModalPopupExtender error
• Item 27775 - Tab Container in 15.1
• Item 27776 - AutoComplete OnBlur Issue
• Item 27777 - System.Reflection.AssemblyMetadataAttribute is not in mscorlib in 4.0
• Item 27780 - stylesheets (via CDN) not loaded via HTTPS
• Item 27781 - Bundling throws error "Cannot use a leading .. to exit above the top directory."
• Item 27794 - MaskedEditExtender: backspace not working in FireFox
• Item 27809 - ValidatorCalloutExtender after Postback
• Item 27823 - 'HtmlEditor.ToolbarButtons.RemoveLink.debug.js' embedded error
• Item 27827 - CalendarExtender parse a date value as NaN in IE8
• Item 27831 - Version 15.1 Issue with Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX controls
• Item 27840 - Visual Studio Not Found when installing with VS 2015 RC Community

3. Sample site updates

• Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure dependency removed from Web.config
• Microsoft.AspNet.ScriptManager.MSAjax removed from packages
• Solution file made compatible with Visual Studio 2010

4. Installer updates

The excellent DevExpress installer for ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit has also been updated:

• Fixed detection of Visual Studio 2015 RC
• Fixed the way installer determines running Visual Studio
• Fixed installer crash on .NET 4.0
• Added installation logging (log files are saved to %LocalAppData%\Temp)
• AJAX Control Toolkit main assembly (AjaxControlToolkit.dll) is now installed to User Documents (“ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit\Bin” subfolder)

5. Documentation

We've also added helpful documentation articles on the CodePlex site:

• FAQ (Frequently asked questions)
• Step-by-Step Installation Guide
• Troubleshooting Installer Issues
• Visual Studio IDE support
• Browser support

Feedback

Get the latest ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit v15.1.2 release and let us know your feedback by reporting it here.

How to upgrade to v15.1.2

Please take a look at the 'How to upgrade to v15.1 release' article to see how to migrate your existing ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit projects to the new v15.1.2 release.

Try DevExpress ASP.NET

We’d like to thank you for installing the DevExpress Edition of the AJAX Control Toolkit and look forward to your feedback as you begin its use.

When we took over the fabulous ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, our goal was to reach those web developers who want to use great web user interface controls for their web projects and DevExpress ASP.NET provides that and much more.

Try the free DevExpress 30 day trial.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry