In the v17.1 DevExtreme release, we're introducing a new HTML 5 client-side TreeList widget!

The TreeList is a widget that displays data from a local or remote source in the form of a multi-column tree view. Basically, the TreeList has almost all the features and functionality of the excellent DevExtreme DataGrid but in a tree-style (i.e. hierarchical) layout:

We also offer the TreeView widget, which is great for navigation purposes, but a TreeList is richer and provides more powerful features like data editing.

Features

The TreeList is packed with the following features:

• Powerful databinding – the TreeList supports binding to data sources containing hierarchical or plain data.
• Virtual mode and virtual scrolling – the TreeList can show large amount of data with good performance
• Data Editing and Input Validation
• Data Filtering and Search
• Data Sorting
• Single and Multiple Row Selection
• Fixed and Band columns
• Column Chooser
• Column Resizing and Reordering
• Keyboard Navigation, Right-To-Left and WAI-ARIA support
• Adaptability
• And more...

Get Started

Watch this five and half minute video that shows you how to get started with the new DevExtreme TreeList widget:

Angular, ASP.NET MVC, .NET Core, & More

DevExtreme widgets integrate well with frameworks and libraries like Angular, jQuery, ASP.NET MVC, and more.

What do you think about the new DevExtreme TreeList widget? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Check out these two new features of the powerful DevExtreme DataGrid widget in the v17.1 release.

Advanced Column Resizing

You now have two choices of how the DataGrid will resize columns:

• widget - modifies the width of the entire widget. In other words, the widget itself will grow or shrink when a column is resized.
• nextColumn - the widget width stays the same when a column is resized but instead the column immediately to the right will expand or contract.

This gif shows the two options in action:

You can still control the minimum column size using the columnMinWidth and column.minWidth options.

Popup Edit Form

A new popup edit form will display a modal popup that provides your end-users an alternative way to edit the grid's data:

By default, the Popup Edit Form is auto-generated based on column settings, but you can customize it through the options or redesign it using templates.

And both these features are available for the new TreeList widget as well.

What do you think about the new DevExtreme DataGrid enhancements? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

A couple of years ago, Facebook released React, 'a JavaScript library for building user interfaces'. It's been gaining popularity since its release and many developers have asked us, "when will DevExpress support the React library?" Well, we're hyped about React too and I've got great news!

I'm happy to announce that we've been working on a new Data Grid for the React library. We're calling it the 'React Data Grid' and it'll be available in the coming weeks as a community technology preview (CTP).

We're starting with the Data Grid and we have plans to provide even more controls going forward. Now, let's dig into how we designed our React control(s) and how they can help you.

Native not wrapper

Our new React Data Grid is a native control for the React library. While time consuming, we decided to create a new Data Grid from scratch. An easier approach would have been to re-use the existing (and excellent) DevExtreme Data Grid widget and simply provided a wrapper. However, we listened to your feedback about how you prefer native controls and we agree. Native controls work better for React's architecture.

Creating 'native' React components instead of jQuery wrappers provides benefits like:

• Can be used in isomorphic apps (server-side + client-side);
• Utilizing React built-in performance optimization with help of immutable state
• Stateless (controlled) mode is available for using in Redux-based apps and state persistence.
• Lightweight due to composable architecture and no extra dependencies (such as jQuery)
• API is familiar to React developers
• Leverage "Virtual DOM" - allows React to perform efficient DOM updates and get great client-side performance.

So, to provide you the best UI experience and take advantage of React's features, we are building 'native' React components. To be fair, wrappers are great in some scenarios. For example, the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls are really the DevExtreme client-side JavaScript widgets that are wrapped as ASP.NET MVC controls. So they provide you the benefit of using client-side DevExtreme widgets as ASP.NET MVC controls in the ASP.NET MVC and .NET Core frameworks.

Themes & other components

Bootstrap

For themes, we've decided to integrate the popular Bootstrap front-end framework. This allows you to use any compatible Bootstrap 3 theme that's available in the vast Bootstrap ecosystem.

It also means that our React Data Grid works seamlessly with other Bootstrap-based components available in the popular React-Bootstrap library. Currently, we only offer the Data Grid and no 'simple' components such as editors, buttons, etc. So, you can start building your React app using 'simple' React components from open-source libraries like React-Bootstrap. Then make-it-awesome by including our rich business React components like our React Data Grid.

Material-UI

We're also working on supporting the popular open-source implementation of the 'Material UI' concept for React, Material-UI library. Like the Bootstrap React components, you can also use 'simple' Material UI React components from this library and then add our rich business React components (Data Grid, etc).

Both of these technologies will allow you to apply themes easily and provide simple components that are not in our React component set. Basically, we want to complement the existing popular UI libraries for React. This saves you time when you need simple controls and powerful DevExpress React controls.

Templates

Our React Data Grid will also provide UI templates that allow you to modify, extend, and customize the markup that is rendered by our React Data Grid.

Features === Plugins

Our React Data Grid is packed with great features like:

• Editing - Create/Update/Delete
• Data Sorting and Grouping
• Filter Row
• Detail Row
• Paging
• Multiple Row Selection
• Virtual Scrolling
• Templates

We're also looking into adding more features like: Column resizing/reordering, column chooser, fixed columns/rows, header filter, bands, and more.

Composable & Extensible

The Data Grid features listed above will not be part of the grid. Typically, features like editing are included in the component and you simply enable or disable them via a property. However, our React Data Grid will use a 'Composable and Extensible Plugin-based Architecture'. Therefore, the features are plugins and you enable them through the source code:

This approach has the following benefits:

1. Our React Data Grid will be lighter because it will only load the features that you need.
2. Plugin architecture allows you to extend our React Data Grid with custom plugins. If you want a feature that is not supported by our grid then a custom plugin can be written to extend the grid's functionality.

Performance

By building our grid natively in React, we've achieved outstanding performance. We researched and incorporated the performance tricks and best practices provided by the React team. In fact, it's based on a functional approach that utilizes immutability and pure functions. Our 'React Data Grid' is fast:

To see it in action and learn more, be sure to sign up for the webinar.

Upcoming webinar

Sign up for our upcoming webinar where I'll talk about our React Data Grid:

Register for webinar

What do you think about our new React Data Grid? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

One of our primary goals for DevExtreme in 2017 was to improve our HTML5 Scheduler's performance. I'm happy to report that the DevExtreme Scheduler's client-side rendering performance is faster than ever. Check out the difference when compared to our previous v16.2 release:

Rendering Improvements

We've improved our HTML 5 Scheduler widget's rendering logic. Previously, any action with a single appointment always re-rendered all appointments displayed in the current view. With the improved logic in the v17.1 release, appointments are only re-rendered when one of the following occurs:

• Dragging an appointment
• Resizing an appointment
• Changing an appointment using the appointment form
• Adding an appointment
• Deleting an appointment

These improvements provide a better end-user experience. The changes also make the DevExtreme Scheduler as fast (and faster in some cases) than the competition. For example, here's comparison with other popular calendar/scheduler widgets when 'creating a single appointment':

What do you think about the DevExtreme Scheduler's performance improvements? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Check out these two new enhancements to our ASP.NET Grid controls that will help your end-users:

Command Toolbar

A new command toolbar has now been integrated into our DevExpress ASP.NET Grid, Card View, Vertical Grid, and TreeList Controls. The new command toolbar is great for your users because they will have access to common commands like edit buttons or search filtering in a convenient location (at the top of the GridView). By having them in the toolbar, your Grid will also save space within the control:

The new toolbar can be enabled with default buttons or you can customize it by adding your most frequently used grid commands for quick access. You can also add or remove toolbars, change their position, and contents. Toolbar items can trigger standard grid commands (e.g. data item editing, deleting, creating, etc.) and any custom actions too.

And because it's part of the GridView, the new command toolbar supports any of the beautiful themes that are provided by DevExpress ASP.NET Controls.

Touch-Enabled Customization Dialog

We've also improved the end-user experience for customizing our GridView on mobile devices. A new Customization Dialog allows you to apply column level data shaping operations with absolute ease when using touch-enabled devices. The new dialog is optimized for tablets, smartphones, and desktops/laptops with touch screen displays. This modal dialog has larger touch-targets and allows your end-users to easily customize the following grid options:

• Column Chooser
• Sorting
• Filtering
• Grouping

Both of these features are available for our ASP.NET WebForms and MVC versions of the controls mentioned above. And they are part of the v17.1 release.

Which of the enhancements are you most excited about? Drop me a line below.

Thanks!

Now that the v17.1 release is available, you can try out a new client-side JavaScript UI widget that's available with DevExtreme, DropDownBox:

The new DropDownBox widget combines a dropdown and a text field. And it let's you select items like our SelectBox widget but it allows you to extend it's functionality with templates. With the DropDownBox, you can embed a DataGrid, TreeList, TreeView, etc. And the embedded Grid or TreeList widget can filter, search, sort, and edit the data.

Try the demo online here: DropDownBox Demo - Single Selection

The DropDownBox widget is lightweight and still comes packet with these great features:

• Binding to all DevExtreme dataSources, arrays, as well as binding through WebService and OData services
• Client-side templates
• Full keyboard support
• Validation
• Support for all major tablets and mobile browsers: (Chrome, Mozilla, Android’s default browser, iOS Safari, Opera)
• Deferred rendering
• Right-to-left support
• WAI-ARIA Accessibility support

Get started with the new DropDownBox widget by watching this short video:

Then download the latest DevExtreme and try the new DropDownBox widget in your projects.

As part of our continuous effort to find and patch security issues, we recently discovered a few vulnerabilities in the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit library.

We have fixed and patched these vulnerabilities along with a few public issues in the v17.1.1 release that is now available.

I recommend that you upgrade to the latest ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit release as soon as possible.

Security Vulnerabilities

We discovered and fixed the following three major vulnerabilities:

• Uploading a file with an arbitrary extension
• A DoS attack on the server where AjaxFileUpload control is located
• It is possible to obtain info about files outside the temporary upload folder

To protect those websites that may not have upgraded to the latest release, we have not published the details of these vulnerabilities on GitHub.

Bug fixes

We've also patched three issues that were reported to us on GitHub:

AjaxFileUpload Issue

• Item 327 - AjaxFileUpload events have an invalid sender

HtmlEditorExtender Issues

• Item 320 - HtmlEditorExtender generates an extra "br" tag
• Item 324 - HtmlEditor does not show toolbar images when EnablePartialRendering=true

Update to v17.1.1 (or higher)

Please upgrade your ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit version to the latest version. You can download our useful installer here:

Or use the Nuget libraries:

ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit Nuget packages

Then give us your feedback on GitHub.

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 using it.

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

In May 2017, we announced our CTP of the DevExtreme React Grid. And since then, we've released the DevExtreme React Grid on GitHub in the DevExtreme Reactive repo:

• https://devexpress.github.io/devextreme-reactive/react/grid/
• https://github.com/DevExpress/devextreme-reactive

Your feedback helps us improve these controls. So please click the 'Star' and 'Watch' links on this repo and let us know your thoughts. You'll also get updates about other future DevExtreme React controls too. So by 'watching' the repo you'd get the latest updates like this: we're about to release new Material UI templates and demos:

Distribution

The DevExtreme React Controls are only available on the NPM distribution and the development will be on this GitHub repo. They will not be included in the DevExtreme installation that you find at https://js.devexpress.com. The React framework and other supporting libraries are on GitHub and we intend to be in the same ecosystem. In fact, we've also moved DevExtreme to GitHub but DevExtreme will still have an installation available at https://js.devexpress.com.

Webinar Recap

Check out the recent 'New in v17.1: DevExtreme' webinar to learn about the DevExtreme React Grid:

More controls!

The DevExtreme React Grid was only the first of other controls that we have planned. What's next? Stay tuned to find out.

Please try the excellent DevExtreme React Grid and then let us know what you think of it.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Back in 2014, I announced a new set of themes for our DevExpress ASP.NET and MVC controls. It goes without saying that these themes looked great, but, perhaps even better, they allowed you to easily customize the theme's base font and color. This was a huge improvement over our traditional 'classic' themes because you could now quickly create a version of one of the new themes to suit your business needs and design.

The bad news was that, in order to take advantage of this feature, you had to use our 'Theme Builder' tool.

Settings - Web.Config, API, etc.

So now for some good news! You can now simply set that base font and color for DevExpress ASP.NET and MVC controls directly from the web.config file or by using our API! The following examples work with DevExpress ASP.NET v16.2 and above.

Web.config

In your web.config, specify the 'baseColor' and 'font' settings in the themes of DevExpress section:

<configuration>
  ...<devExpress>
    ...<themes enableThemeAssembly="true"
                 styleSheetTheme=""
                 theme="Metropolis"
                 customThemeAssemblies=""
                 baseColor="Green"
                 font="30px Calibri" />
    ...</devExpress>
  ...</configuration>

Programmatic API

You can also set the base font and color using API calls:

protected void Application_PreRequestHandlerExecute(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    ...
    DevExpress.Web.ASPxWebControl.GlobalThemeBaseColor = "Green";
    DevExpress.Web.ASPxWebControl.GlobalThemeFont = "30px 'Callibri'";
}

Or in ASP.NET MVC you use the following approach:

protected void Application_PreRequestHandlerExecute(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    ...
    DevExpress.Web.MVC.DevExpressHelper.GlobalThemeBaseColor = "#00FF00";
    DevExpress.Web.MVC.DevExpressHelper.GlobalThemeFont = "30px 'Callibri'";
}

The value formats for the color work with RGB, Hexadecimal, and Color names too. Learn more here.

Limitations

Only the following themes support the changing both the base color and font: Mulberry, Moderno, Metropolis, Metropolis Blue, iOS, Material, and Material Compact.

These classic themes allow you to set the base font only: Aqua, Black Glass, Glass, Office2003Blue, Office2003Olive, Office2003Silver, PlasticBlue, RedWine, SoftOrange, and Youthful.

Documentation

Check out this excellent help documentation topic that gives even more detail:

Theming > Changing Theme Base Color and Font Settings

Demos

Try out the latest DevExpress ASP.NET demos online and experience the theme parameters change dynamically. You can use the theme options on the top right:

Then, drop me a line below on what you think about the easy way to customize a DevExpress ASP.NET theme. Thanks!

Since releasing the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls in May 2017, we've received some great feedback on bugs, improvements, feature requests, etc.

And thanks to your feedback, we're improving "DataSource URL generation" in the DevExtreme v17.1.5 release. First, let's look at the feature and the problem we aim to solve:

DataSource URLs

The DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls are client-side JavaScript DevExtreme controls that are wrapped in native ASP.NET MVC Server controls. Therefore, they handle things like data-binding and events differently than typical ASP.NET MVC Server controls.

Data-binding is different for client-side controls because you need a web service to deliver that data to the client-side control. With the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls, we've made that aspect easier for you by providing 'DataSources'. So whether you're using a static collection, ASP.NET Web API, OData, OLAP Cube, or read-only JSON then our DataSource objects help you to data bind them to a DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Control. I recommend reading the excellent data-binding help topic to learn more.

Problem

Now let's dive into the specific issue and solution with DataSource URLs. The two most common ways to specify data sources for our MVC controls are connecting them to an MVC or a Web API controller:

// MVC
@(Html.DevExtreme().DataGrid()
  .DataSource(d => d.Mvc().Controller("Data").LoadAction("Get"))

or

// WebAPI
@(Html.DevExtreme().DataGrid()
  .DataSource(d => d.WebApi().Controller("Data").LoadAction("Get"))

From the earliest release candidate builds, we've used certain defaults when configuring data access in this manner. Specifically:

1. We automatically assign the route name depending on the platform and the controller type:

2. For .WebApi(), we automatically configure all CRUD actions ("Get", "Post", "Put", "Delete")

While those default settings work well, we've discovered the following issues with them:

1. Attribute routing does not work out of the box (except for .WebApi() in .NET Core because we do not assign a route name). Developers need to manually specify .RouteName(null) or .RouteName("MyRoute") to make them work.

2. Full CRUD actions for .WebApi() are not always needed because in many cases, you may just need to display some data. To disable the generation of redundant URLs, developers have to assign .UpdateAction(null), .InsertAction(null), etc.

3. For most WebAPI route patterns (including the one declared in the WebAPI project template), our predefined action names appear in the query string producing ugly URLs like /api/Orders?action=Get.

Solution

To solve the above mentioned issues, we're introducing a new global flag named UseLegacyRouting and its default value is set to true. This new flag will be part of the DevExtreme v17.1.5 release.

The new UseLegacyRouting flag is fully backwards compatible too.

If you set it to false, then no default route names and no default actions will be used thereby avoiding any unexpected effects we mentioned above.

For ASP.NET MVC 5 applications, enable it in Global.asax.cs:

protected void Application_Start()
{
  DevExtreme.AspNet.Mvc.Compatibility.DataSource.UseLegacyRouting = false;
  // ... the rest of your code ...
}

For .NET Core apps, add the line to Startup.cs:

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, 
                      IHostingEnvironment env, 
                      ILoggerFactory loggerFactory) 
{
  DevExtreme.AspNet.Mvc.Compatibility.DataSource.UseLegacyRouting = false;
  // ... the rest of your code ...
}

What to expect when the flag is set to false

Besides the improvements (working attribute routing and cleaner URLs), you may face the following changes in behavior:

1. If you have custom routing rules declared before the default one, or using attribute routes with {controller} and {action} placeholders, then they may take precedence and change resulting URLs. You might need to specify .RouteName(...) explicitly to restore the previous behavior.

2. For .WebApi(), insert, update, and delete action URLs won't be generated by default. You need to specify them explicitly. For example, to enable update URL, add .UpdateAction("Put") for routes based on action names or .UpdateAction(true) for routes based on HTTP verbs.

Recommendations - true or false?

I recommend that for existing projects you set the UseLegacyRouting flag to true. For new projects, or those that you'd like to upgrade to the new approach, set the flag to false. This will help you transition to future versions of the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC controls.

We're considering changing the default value of UseLegacyRouting to false in the next major release (17.2) and we'd like your feedback.

What do you think about the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Back in March 2017, we began to publicly host our DevExtreme source code on GitHub. One of the benefits of GitHub source hosting is that we can provide developers with 'pre-release' builds easily.

Pre-Release

I'm happy to announce that DevExtreme pre-release builds are now available. A pre-release build allows you to experience some of the new controls and features that will be part of future releases. In fact, a pre-release is now available that has DevExtreme v17.2 features. The DevExtreme v17.2 final release is will be available later this year.

The pre-releases are available for download on the DevExtreme GitHub releases page:

https://github.com/DevExpress/DevExtreme/releases

What's in the pre-release?

The current pre-release is labeled '17.2 Sprint 6' and includes improvements for DataGrid, Scheduler, and Editor controls. You can read the release notes here:

https://github.com/DevExpress/DevExtreme/releases/tag/17.2.0-sprint.6

However, this is not the first v17.2 pre-release build. We published the '17.2 Sprint 5' a few weeks ago and it includes our new (upcoming) data visualization widget: dxFunnel.

Now, as software developers, you'll know that not every build will have something interesting. That said, I recommend that you 'watch' our repo so that you do not miss any pre-release news.

Sprints

Our DevExtreme dev team uses Agile and works in sprints that last two weeks. Therefore, you can expect a pre-release about every two weeks.

NPM & Bower packages too

You can download pre-release packages from NPM:

npm i devextreme@17.2.1-pre-17248

and Bower too:

bower install devextreme#17.2.1-pre-17248

Watch the repo

Click the "watch" button on the DevExtreme GitHub repo and you will get notifications when we release a new preview build.

Warning

Please be aware of the following regarding 'pre-release' software:

Products marked as pre-release (Beta, Community Technology Preview "CTP", or Release Candidate "RC") may contain deficiencies and as such, should not be considered for use or integrated within any mission critical software application. DevExpress may discontinue availability of its pre-release software, limit or modify software functionality, or eliminate support services at any time.

Our intention with pre-release software is for the early-adopters who want to preview, test, and provide feedback to help us improve upcoming features, controls, etc.

I recommend reading our 'pre-release' software web page.

Preview Demos

We're also working on publishing our demos on GitHub too. This will be available as a new devextreme demos repo soon and allow you to test pre-release features demos.

What do you think about the DevExtreme pre-releases on GitHub? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

We received some feedback from our customers about an issue with how the DevExtreme MVC CheckBox Control handles client-side validation.

The main issue they found was that when using the MVC CheckBox control on a form that needed to be submitted, the user had to check the box before they could submit the form even if the field is not marked as 'Required' on your data model.

This was an odd issue because when we looked at the server-side model, we didn't find any attribute that would've require the "true" value only. So then why does our CheckBox control enforces the 'required' check?

A Few Words About DevExtreme Validation

DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls are, basically, client-side JavaScript DevExtreme widgets wrapped in native ASP.NET MVC server-side controls. Client-side editors have a set of validation rules that are mapped to attributes of the server-side model. This way, the editors can generate validation rules based on the attributes automatically.

The Root of the Problem

After some debugging and research, we discovered that the 'Required' attribute is implicitly attached to non-nullable properties, such as the Boolean property in our case. This was confirmed in a note to the AddImplicitRequiredAttributeForValueTypes property in ASP.NET MVC documentation.

So what happens if we use the native MVC check box control, will it still display the same issue? Turns out, no, it does not because the native check box control ignores the 'required' check.

Then we compared the results of validating a value against the 'required' rule in DevExtreme with that in jQuery Unobtrusive used in ASP.NET MVC projects by default. Here's what we found:

Value	jQuery Unobtrusive	DevExtreme	Match
null	invalid	invalid
number	valid	valid
empty string	invalid	invalid
non-empty string	valid	valid
DateTime	valid	valid
true	valid	valid
false	valid	invalid

The crucial difference turned out to be in how the "false" value is handled. jQuery Unobtrusive validation accepts both "true" and "false" values of a Boolean property. DevExtreme validation, which adopts the HTML5 behavior, considers "false" an invalid value, and as a result, doesn't let the user submit the form unless the CheckBox is checked.

Now that the mystery is uncovered, we found two possible ways to work around this issue:

1. set to "false" the AddImplicitRequiredAttributeForValueTypes property
2. use a nullable bool type instead of bool type in your application

Unfortunately, both of these would not work for all users.

Solution

To provide a good solution that will work for all customers, we're introducing a new global flag called Compatibility.Validation.IgnoreRequiredForBoolean in the v17.1.6 release.

When set to true, the DevExtreme validation engine will ignore the Required validation rule for bool type, which is the proper mode for MVC apps. When set to false, it keeps the previous DevExtreme or HTML5 like behavior. The default setting will be set to false in versions 17.1.x.

We've updated our project templates and you'll find this new flag in:

• "Global.asax" file for classic MVC on VB or CS

protected void Application_Start()
{
  DevExtreme.AspNet.Mvc.Compatibility.Validation.IgnoreRequiredForBoolean = false;
  // ... the rest of your code ...
}

Protected Sub Application_Start()
{
  DevExtreme.AspNet.Mvc.Compatibility.Validation.IgnoreRequiredForBoolean = False' ... the rest of your code ...
}

• "Startup.cs" file for ASP.NET Core MVC

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
  DevExtreme.AspNet.Mvc.Compatibility.Validation.IgnoreRequiredForBoolean = false;
  // ... the rest of your code ...

How to use Required for bool type when IgnoreRequiredForBoolean is enabled?

You can decorate your model properties with the [DevExtremeRequired] attribute. This attribute supports the HTML5 behavior for bool type on a client and on the server side. For all other value types, it's behavior is similar to using the 'Required' attribute.

Beware: will change in v.17.2

The global flag is "false" by default in v17.1, however, it'll change to "true" in v17.2.

Twitter: @mehulharry

In August 2017 Microsoft released the ASP.NET Core 2.0 framework. This major update packs a lot of new features as their announcement blog post makes clear:

This release features compatibility with .NET Core 2.0, tooling support in Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3, and the new Razor Pages user-interface design paradigm. For a full list of updates... -Microsoft Announcement blog post

We've been working hard to provide compatibility with this new release and I'm happy to announce that our DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC controls now support ASP.NET Core 2.0.

To get ASP.NET Core 2.0 in Visual Studio 2017 15.3.x, please check this link: https://www.microsoft.com/net/core

To learn more details about ASP.NET Core 2.0, please see this detailed blog post:https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/webdev/2017/08/14/announcing-asp-net-core-2-0/

Get started

To get started with ASP.NET Core 2.0 and DevExtreme MVC Controls in just a few minutes, create an ASP.NET Core 2.0 project using VS2017 and then add DevExtreme MVC Controls resources to it using this guide (see "ASP.NET Core MVC" section):

DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls: Download and Installation

In this screenshot of the Solution Explorer, you see the necessary DevExtreme packages and files that you'll need for ASP.NET Core 2.0:

Upgrade Existing Projects

To upgrade your existing ASP.NET Core 1.x application that is based on *.csproj and includes DevExtreme MVC Controls, you'll need to make the following changes:

1. Change the "TargetFramework" in your *.csproj file:

<PropertyGroup><TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework></PropertyGroup>

2. Replace "Microsoft.AspNetCore.*" packages with the new "Microsoft.AspNetCore.All" meta package:

<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.All" Version="2.0.0" />

Your csproj file should look something like this:

Then run your upgraded project and the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls will work in ASP.NET Core 2.0:

Razor Pages

As part of ASP.NET Core 2.0, Microsoft also introduced 'Razor Pages', which makes page-focused scenarios easier and more productive:

Razor Pages allow you to code without the need for a controller, for example:

We tested the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls with the new Razor Pages feature and it works brilliantly. Here's the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC DataGrid that's bound to a WebAPI web service in a Razor Page:

Are you using DevExtreme MVC Controls with ASP.NET Core 2.0? I'd love to hear about it, drop me a line below. Thanks!

Twitter: @mehulharry

Earlier this year, we released the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for the ASP.NET WebForms framework. We developed these new set of innovative controls to provide a great experience when used within the Bootstrap framework. If you're not familiar with our Bootstrap controls, please take a look at these pastblogposts.

After releasing these new controls for WebForms, one of the biggest questions we got was, "What about ASP.NET Core and MVC?"

Well, I'm here to announce another great innovative web offering from DevExpress ...

ASP.NET Core...Cross platform

Version 2.0 of the new ASP.NET Core framework was recently released and I'm happy to announce our new set of controls specifically for this new framework: 'the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0'. That's the unofficial name for now.

These new controls have a new API and architecture that takes advantage of the ASP.NET Core framework. However, they do keep a similar set of features as the existing ASP.NET Bootstrap controls for WebForms.

The combination of ASP.NET Core framework and DevExpress Bootstrap controls means:

1. Write modern web application using C# (or your favorite supported .NET language)
2. Cross-platform support: Linux, MacOS, and Windows
3. Use a wide set of Bootstrap themes (https://themes.getbootstrap.com/)
4. Full support for MVC features: Data Annotation attributes, model binding, unobtrusive validation, and more.
5. DevExpress elegance, power, ease, and features!

Help Test CTP Release

The first release of these controls is a CTP (community technology preview). It's available today and we'd love for you to test them in your ASP.NET Core 2.0 projects.

By testing the new controls and providing us feedback, you'll help us improve them before the final release.

Getting started

We've made the getting started experience easy using our NuGet server. Take a look at this step-by-step guide:

https://demos.devexpress.com/aspnetcore-bootstrap/GettingStarted

Then play around with the online demos:

Provide feedback

Once you've integrated them into your project, please provide us feedback via the excellent DevExpress Support Center.

What's included?

Nearly all 20+ of the existing DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap controls are available in this CTP release. This includes controls like the GridView, Navigation controls, Editors, and more. However, the FormLayout, UploadControl, and the Charts are not available yet.

Also check out these projects that help you to get started:

The web is about choices...

Currently, we also offer another set of controls for the ASP.NET Core framework, the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls.

The main goal of the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core is full compatibility with Bootstrap themes. If you plan to create a Bootstrap application then use the Bootstrap Controls whether for ASP.NET WebForms or ASP.NET Core.

The DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls support ASP.NET MVC (3+) and ASP.NET Core (1.x and 2.0). Keep in mind that they're based on client-side JavaScript controls. If you are a JavaScript dev then you may prefer the 'DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls'. If you are a .NET dev then you may prefer 'the DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core'.

What about ASP.NET MVC?

At this time, our new Bootstrap controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0 will not support previous versions of the ASP.NET MVC framework. That is not to say that they will never support those frameworks. We will keep an eye on your feedback and decide in the future.

Bootstrap 4 Beta

The Bootstrap team just announced the 'Bootstrap 4 beta' release.

Good news, we are supporting Bootstrap 4 for our new Bootstrap controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0 out of the box.

Join the webinar

On Tuesday, October 24th, 2017 at 10am, I'll show you how to get started with the new DevExpress ASP.NET Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0. You'll learn about the NuGet package(s), boilerplate project, changing Bootstrap themes, and features of the controls. We'll also cover ASP.NET Core features such as Model Binding, Data Annotations, and Unobtrusive Validation.

Sign up for the live webinar here: New Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0

What do you think of the CTP release of the DevExpress Bootstrap Controls for ASP.NET Core 2.0? Drop me a line below.

Thanks!

The DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls provide a powerful data layer to help you read and write data with our controls. The data layer is invisible but serves an important role for your apps. In fact, we've got a great documentation data layer topic that I recommend reading:

In this blog post, I'll highlight the changes coming to the DevExtreme data layer in the upcoming v17.2 release. We're introducing a set of changes and improvements that are primarily driven by customer feedback.

New behavior of Url generation of .Mvc() and .WebApi() data sources

In the v17.1.5 release, I talked in detail about the change to our DataSource URL generation. Please take a look at this blog post that describes our motivation and the changes: DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls: DataSource URL Improvements (17.1.5).

Since August 2017, many customers have shared projects and code with our support team and it's good to see that many have enabled the new mode and are happy with it.

Warning: In the v17.2 release, we're changing the default value of the flag controlling that behavior (UseLegacyRouting) to false. Meaning, we don't want to use legacy routing but the new and improved approach. However...

This could BREAK your existing projects. This potential breaking change can be avoided. However, I recommend that you test your existing projects as we've seen good feedback from many customers. You can test this change using the new flag now by downloading v17.1.5+ release, which is available now.

If you're not ready for the change when v17.2 is released then simply set the UseLegacyRouting to true:

For ASP.NET MVC 5 applications, in Global.asax.cs:

protected void Application_Start()
{
  DevExtreme.AspNet.Mvc.Compatibility.DataSource.UseLegacyRouting = true;
  // ... the rest of your code ...
}

For .NET Core apps, in Startup.cs:

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, 
                      IHostingEnvironment env, 
                      ILoggerFactory loggerFactory) 
{
  DevExtreme.AspNet.Mvc.Compatibility.DataSource.UseLegacyRouting = true;
  // ... the rest of your code ...
}

In v17.2, all DevExtreme demos and project templates have been updated to use the new routing mode. This, you'll find, works more predictably and in accordance with the standard MVC @Url.Action and @Url.RouteUrl constructs.

Support for Areas

Areas are an ASP.NET MVC feature used to organize related functionality into a group as a separate namespace (for routing) and folder structure (for views). Using areas creates a hierarchy for the purpose of routing by ... Areas provide a way to partition a large ASP.NET Core MVC Web app into smaller functional groupings. - Microsoft Documentation

Also in v17.2, we've added support for 'areas'. So both the .Mvc() and .WebApi()data sources now provide the .Area() configuration option in addition to .Controller() and .Action(). This means that you can now reference API controllers in different areas.

RemoteController: consume API controllers from a different domain/host

If API controllers were located on another domain, it was problematic to use them. Customers had to use JavaScript instead of strongly-typed Razor syntax.

In 17.2 we improve this by introducing a new kind of data source: RemoteController. Basically it is the same as .Mvc() or .WebApi() but instead of specifying routing options (controller, action, etc), you specify direct Urls pointing to anywhere on the web.

Here's an example:

@(Html.DevExtreme().DataGrid()
    .DataSource(ds => ds.RemoteController()
        .Key("OrderID")
        .LoadUrl("http://www.example.com/Orders/Get")
        .InsertUrl("http://www.example.com/Orders/Insert")
        .UpdateUrl("http://www.example.com/Orders/Update")
        .DeleteUrl("http://www.example.com/Orders/Delete")
    )
)

Updated DevExtreme.AspNet.Data library with new features

DevExtreme.AspNet.Data, the open-source library used by DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls for data access has been updated to version 1.3 with a number of enhancements:

• Support for server-side "select" operation (PR #125)
• Published LoadResult and Group classes (PR #130)

What do you think about the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

The DevExtreme DataGrid and PivotGrid widgets are getting enhancements for you and your end-users. In the v17.2 release we're adding UI features that help you when working with data in our grids:

Built-in Search in Header Filter

The Header Filter is a great way to filter the data in the grid because it gives you all the unique values of the column. However, if there are many distinct values, it can be annoying to scroll through the list trying to find a particular value.

In the next 17.2 release, we've added a search text box that allows to filter data inside the dxDataGrid and dxPivotGrid's header filters. This gif shows the new feature in action:

You can still control whether searching is enabled in the header filter using the dxDataGrid.headerFilter.allowSearch and dxPivotGrid.headerFilter.allowSearch options.

Built-in Search in Column/Field Chooser

We've also added the search functionality to the dxDataGrid's column and dxPivotGrid's field chooser:

Customize these features through the dxDataGrid.columnChooser.allowSearch and dxPivotGrid.fieldChooser.allowSearch options.

Built-in Date-Time Filter for dxDataGrid

The dxDataGrid’s DateTime columns can be now filtered using the date and time:

Additional minor improvements

• The validationCallback function now provides access to the current dxDataGrid row data via the data parameter when a Custom validation rule is used  
• The dxPivotGrid field’s sortBy option can now accept the none value to disable local sorting

Angular, ASP.NET MVC/Core, & More!

Note that all these new features are available in the DataGrid and PivotGrid Angular components, ASP.NET MVC and .NET Core controls, and jQuery widgets too.

Try it now

The new features of our dxDataGrid and dxPivotGrid widgets are included in the v17.2 pre-release that is available via npm right now. Please note that this pre-release may contain some bugs and is not intended to be used in production:

npm install devextreme@17.2.1-pre-17273

Learn more about DevExtreme's pre-releases in this blog post.

What do you think about the grid improvements in the next release? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Check out these new features of the DevExtreme HTML5 TreeList widget in the upcoming v17.2 release.

1. Recursive Selection Mode

The TreeList will include a new recursive selection mode that enables you to select or deselect an entire branch with only a single click. A click on a node can select or deselect all the children nodes too. Enable the feature using the selection.recursive option:

selection: {
    // …
    recursive: true
},

Here you can see that when we select a child node then the TreeList recursively selects the associated parent nodes as well:

2. Built-in Search

If your TreeList contains thousands of records then it's difficult to find a specific node. That's why in the v17.2 release we've added search functionality within the header filter to speed up filtering.

The headerFilter.allowSearch option is available at the widget options root level and within column’s options. This allows you to enable header filter search for all columns or only for a specific column.

treeListOptions: {
    //...
    headerFilter: {
        //...
        allowSearch: true //all columns
    },
    columns: [{
        //...
        headerFilter: {
            //...
            allowSearch: true //specific column
        },
    }]
}

In this animation below, you can see how time-saving the header filter search functionality can be:

What if there are too many columns in your TreeList? Simply enable the search box in the column chooser to get the same search functionality for columns:

columnChooser: {
    //...
    allowSearch: true
}

This makes finding columns a breeze and the feature is available regardless of the column chooser mode:

3. New Lazy Loading Mode

With the upcoming release, you can optimize the TreeList’s performance by delaying the load of collapsed items (and their children). In this mode, you can load child nodes using the following methods:

1. loadDescendants()– loads children nodes recursively

2. loadDescendants(keys) - loads the specific node’s children recursively

3. loadDescendants(keys, childrenOnly)– loads only a single level of the specific node’s children or all its children recursively depending on the childrenOnly argument value

4. getNodeByKey Method

Also in this release, you can obtain a TreeList’s node using the key by calling getNodeByKey(keyParam):

treeListInstance.getNodeByKey(8);

This call returns the full node which includes the level, key, the “visible” and “hasChildren” flags, children array, and an object representing the node's parent.

Angular, ASP.NET MVC/Core, & More!

Note that all these new features are available in the TreeList Angular component, ASP.NET MVC and .NET Core control, and jQuery widget too.

Try it now

The new features of our TreeList widget is included in the v17.2 pre-release that is available via npm right now. Please note that this pre-release may contain some bugs and is not intended to be used in production:

npm install devextreme@17.2.1-pre-17291

Learn more about DevExtreme's pre-releases in this blog post.

What do you think about the TreeList improvements in the next release? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Strongly-typed HTML helpers are great when you're constructing your view in ASP.NET MVC. Helper methods like the built-in @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.FirstName) have been around for a long time. And they provide benefits like compile-time checking of views, Razor support, and enable the use of data annotations to automatically configure important options like validation rules.

Since we released the DevExtreme ASP.NET MVC Controls, they have included a set of HTML helper methods to help you do things like setting up the DevExtreme editors. For example, here we're creating a DevExtreme MVC DateBox control that will be bound to our OrderDate field from the model:

@Html.DevExtreme().DateBoxFor(m => m.OrderDate)

In one line, we're creating the editor and binding it, magic!

More Lambda Expressions

In the next major release, v17.2, we've extended the ability to use expressions within our HTML helpers. We have added more lambda expressions to our larger widgets. This allows to use them to configure items like:

• DataGrid and TreeList columns
• DataGrid summaries
• PivotGrid fields
• Items of our Form control

Therefore, the DataGrid control can now be declared using this syntax:

@(Html.DevExtreme().DataGrid<Sale>()
    .Columns(columns => {
        columns.AddFor(m => m.CategoryName);
        columns.AddFor(m => m.ProductName);
        columns.AddFor(m => m.ProductSales);
    }) 
    .Summary(s => s.TotalItems(total => { 
        total 
            .AddFor(m => m.ProductSales) 
            .SummaryType(SummaryType.Sum); 
    })) 
)

Notice the generic type argument of the DataGrid<Sale>() and AddFor calls configuring columns and total summary without the use of any string constants.

Previously, the column would be declared using strings like so: columns.Add().DataField("CategoryName");. The new lamdba expressions approach is better for the reasons listed below and makes you more productive.

IntelliSense support

One of the best things about using lambda expressions is that you get IntelliSense in your Razor views based on the type:

Data Annotations

A nice feature of the AddFor method is that it infers useful information about the property. This information includes the property name and data type.

And we also process the model's data annotations. For example, if any members of the Sale class are annotated with the Display attribute, then it will be automatically assigned as the column caption:

public partial class Sale { 
    [Display(Name = "Category")] 
    public string CategoryName { get; set; }
    [Display(Name = "Product")] 
    public string ProductName { get; set; } 
    [Display(Name = "Sales")] 
    public Nullable<decimal> ProductSales { get; set; } 
}

Better Validation

If your data is annotated with Validation attributes, such as [Required], [StringLength], [Range], etc, then DevExtreme MVC will honor and apply them to column validation options of DataGrid or TreeList. So, when using expressions, you get client-side validation configured automatically for you.

Typed Form Control!

The new strongly-type HTML helpers also enables us to implement 'highly-requested' customer scenarios like this one for a 'typed Form control' sample:

@(Html.DevExtreme().Form<Employee>().Items(items => { 
    items.AddSimpleFor(m => m.FirstName); 
    items.AddSimpleFor(m => m.LastName); 
    items.AddGroup().Caption("Address").Items(addressItems => { 
        addressItems.AddSimpleFor(m => m.Address); 
        addressItems.AddSimpleFor(m => m.Region); 
        addressItems.AddSimpleFor(m => m.PostalCode); 
    }); 
}))

Optional but recommended

You don't have rewrite your existing code because this new functionality is completely optional. You can continue to use strings, and existing projects will work fine after the upgrade. I suspect that after reading about the benefits above that you'll consider using them in a future project. Which is what I recommend, that you use expressions for newer projects.

Lambda expressions are available in both the classic ASP.NET MVC and the new ASP.NET Core versions of our library. You can use them regardless of the app language, be it C# or VB.NET.

We like them so much that we've updated all of our demos and project templates to use expressions (where possible).

What do you think about the strongly-typed HTML helper improvements in the next release? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

Check out these great new 'adaptive' features of the DevExpress ASP.NET Scheduler in the v17.2 release. What do I mean by adaptive?

Adaptive web design (AWD) promotes the creation of multiple versions of a web page to better fit the user's device, as opposed to a single version that other web design techniques use. Adaptive web design encompasses a range of other strategies that can be combined with responsive web design. - Wikipedia

Adaptive web design helps you to address the various size screens that your website may beAdaptive web design helps you address the presentation of data on the differently-sized screens that your users may be using.

In the v17.2 release, we maximized the ASP.NET Scheduler's views and visual elements to adapt to the width of their parent container. Adaptive Layout is now supported for the following ASP.NET Scheduler elements:

Agenda View

The Agenda View is now fully adaptive. The layout is automatically adjusted to the current client width for the following Agenda View elements:

• “Date Header” column
• “Appointment Interval” column
• “Main Appointment Content” column
• “Resources” column

Therefore, you can view information about appointments without horizontal scrolling on different screen sizes:

Edit Appointment Form

The Form Layout Control is now used as a container for the Edit Appointment Form editors.

This allows the Scheduler to automatically re-organize the Edit Appointment Form content based on the available client area:

View Selector

The Scheduler's View Selector panel also provides a slick feature where it'll place buttons in a drop-down menu when there is not enough space to display them all:

Scrolling Fixed Headers

We've also improved (or fixed depending on your point of view) the vertical scrolling in the Agenda view. Now the “Date” headers’ content remains visible on screen as a fixed header while scrolling:

View Visible Interval

The View Visible Interval width can be automatically adjusted to an available client width by changing date-time formats:

WebForms & MVC

These new adaptive features will be available for our ASP.NET WebForms and MVC versions of the ASP.NET Scheduler control. And they are part of the v17.2 release.

Which of the adaptive enhancements are you most excited about? Drop me a line below.

Thanks!

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry

The DevExtreme HTML5 JavaScript widgets provide a number of ways to help your end-users work with a large amount of data that is presented in our UI controls. For example, the data grid widget provides excellent features like paging, filtering, and searching to help you find the information you need.

With the v17.2 release, we're extending the search functionality to many of our other widgets too.

TreeView and List

With the upcoming release, we have added the searchValue option for the dxList widget. We've also extended the search capabilities for both TreeView and List widgets by adding the following options:

SearchEnabled, searchExpr, searchMode, and searchEditorOptions

Learn more about these options by reading the v17.2 documentation. In v17.1, we added Search functionality to TreeView and with v17.2, you can now customize that search further.

For example, in the code below, we've setup placeholder text for the search textbox:

treeViewOptions: {
    //...
    searchEnabled: true,
    searchMode: "contains",
    searchEditorOptions: {
        //TextBox config
        placeholder: "Search..."
    }
}

The same search textbox can be enabled for the List widget too. In this sample, we're limiting our search expression to only the "Name" and "Price" fields:

listOptions: {
    //...
    searchEnabled: true,
    searchExpr: ["Name", "Price"]
}

DataGrid and TreeList

The DevExtreme HTML5 JavaScript DataGrid and TreeList widgets also have improved search functionality. I recommend reading these two posts that dive deeper into these widgets:

• DevExtreme TreeList Improvements (v17.2)
• HTML5 JavaScript DataGrid and PivotGrid Enhancements (v17.2)

One feature I'd like highlight is the updated 'column chooser' that also has search functionality now. This can help you when you have several columns in your widget. To show the search box, turn on the columnChooser.allowSearch option.

dataGridOptions: {
    //...
    columnChooser: {
        //...
        enabled: true,
        allowSearch: true
    }
}

Once enabled, you'll see the search textbox in the column chooser:

To provide quicker access to values, we have also added a built-in search box to the header filter. It can be enabled both at the widget and specific column levels:

treeListOptions: {
    //...
    headerFilter: {
        //...
        allowSearch: true //all columns
    },
    columns: [{
        //...
        headerFilter: {
            //...
            allowSearch: true //specific column
        },
    }]
}

Once enabled, you'll see the search textbox in the column's header filter:

PivotGrid

We have also integrated search into the HTML5 JavaScript PivotGrid's Header filter. It's available inside the Field Panel as well as the PivotGridFieldChooser. The Field Chooser also allows you to search by fields. Your end-user will find this useful because helps when:

• there are a large number of fields
• some of them are grouped by properties and are not visible

pivotGridFieldChooserOptions: {
    //...
    allowSearch: true
}

Angular, ASP.NET MVC/Core, & More!

Note that all these new features are available in the DataGrid and PivotGrid Angular components, ASP.NET MVC and .NET Core controls, and jQuery widgets too.

Try it now

The new features of our dxTreeView, dxList, dxTreeList, dxDataGrid and dxPivotGrid widgets are included in the v17.2 pre-release that is available via npm right now. Please note that this pre-release may contain some bugs and is not intended to be used in production:

npm install devextreme@17.2.2-pre-beta

Learn more about DevExtreme's pre-releases in this blog post.

What do you think about the search improvements in the next release? Drop me a line below.

Email: mharry@devexpress.com

Twitter: @mehulharry