Before we detail XAF’s 2021 Roadmap, our thanks to everyone who shared feedback/thoughts over the last few months. Your contribution is both important and greatly appreciated.
The following list outlines the features/capabilities we expect to introduce in the eXpressApp Framework (XAF) this year. As with our 2020 roadmap, we will keep this 2021 roadmap post up-to-date as we release new functionality or clarify our future plans throughout this year. As such, please do bookmark this page so you can return to it and track our progress.
ASP.NET Core Blazor UI
XAF's Blazor UI was officially released in v20.2 - it is ready for production use in simple CRUD scenarios (documentation).
First, some good news: XAF's Blazor UI v21.1 assemblies, demos and project templates will target .NET 5 instead of .NET Standard 2.1. This will bring with it new capabilities, both for us and also for XAF users: CSS and JavaScript Isolation, new Microsoft Identity Web packages for the latest Azure Active Directory SDK, performance and debugging enhancements, etc. For more information on this topic, please review these Microsoft articles: The future of .NET Standard | What's new in ASP.NET Core 5.0 | Migrate from ASP.NET Core 3.1 to 5.0.
In 2021, we also expect to offer feature parity between Blazor and our WinForms/WebForms UI for the most popular usage scenarios:
- Localization Module. We will introduce easier multi-language localization (like in WinForms/WebForms) support with predefined resources or via the Model Editor (we will release this feature in v20.2.6 for early testing). In addition, XAF's Blazor UI developers will be able to switch languages at runtime in v21.1.
- Clone Object Module for XPO. This module will also be available in v20.2.6 for early testing.
- Audit Trail Module for EF Core. Audit Trail will support both XAF UI apps and non-XAF apps.
- Office Module. A wrapped JavaScript Rich Text Editor will be used to edit rich text documents from within your XAF-powered Blazor UI apps (example).
- Dashboards Module. A wrapped JavaScript Dashboard control will be used to design and preview dashboards. The majority of XAF developers said that they were happy with this module for most data analytics usage scenarios (example).
- Scheduler Module. As part of our support for this feature, our base DevExpress.ExpressApp.Scheduler assembly will be made cross-platform for advanced usage scenarios. In the meantime, you can implement a custom List Editor based on the DevExpress Blazor Scheduler control (example).
- Action Container View Item. This item will help you include Actions into your detail form layout instead of the main menu (example). We hope to release it in a v20.2 updates as well.
- New Property Editors. We will support a faster Lookup Property Editor (with the New and Open buttons), Nullable, TimeSpan, Color, Tag Box and Hyper Link Property Editors out of the box.
- Grid List Editor. We will support more options in our Grid List Editor such as runtime column chooser, footer summaries (example), find panel, column header filters, etc. This feature relies on the DevExpress Blazor Grid, so please follow our ASP.NET team blog for roadmap updates as well.
- Popup Window Customization. We will include more options to modify pop-up window size (example), position, style and other settings (similar to our WebForms implementation - example).
- Chart and Pivot Grid List Editor Modules (!). Based on our roadmap survey, only 15.5% of XAF developers wanted these modules for data analytics scenarios in XAF's Blazor UI. We will decide on these modules at the end of 2021, once we ensure support for more popular modules first. We received almost zero feedback on the old KPI, Pivot Chart (aka Analysis) and Maps modules and will not likely support them in 2021. In the meantime, customers, who wants these modules or other controls that are unavailable out of the box, can integrate standalone JavaScript and native Blazor charts, pivot grids, tree lists, diagrams, or maps in their Blazor apps using standard XAF extensibility techniques: custom View Items, custom Property Editors, custom non-XAF forms or even reports. Please contact our support team if you require assistance in this regard.
- State Machine and Workflow Modules (!). Though we confirmed that this is a low popularity module for our users, (only 7% wanted it for XAF's Blazor UI), we decided to support this module as it was easy for us to do so (all tests passed successfully). Based on the roadmap survey, most users either did not find workflow-related scenarios important or preferred the simplicity and flexibility of Controllers with Actions (example). As for former Workflow Module scenarios, we also recommend that users implement Controllers or custom solutions such as Hangfire, Quartz.NET, and others - WWF and WCF will not be ported to .NET Core/.NET 5 by Microsoft. To save time with these advanced workflow scenarios, consider this ready and free module within the eXpand Framework.
WinForms and ASP.NET WebForms UI
Our primary focus will be on XAF’s new Web & Mobile UI for Blazor. This notwithstanding, we will do our best to address the needs of existing WinForms and ASP.NET WebForms UI users. We will focus on making it easier to migrate existing .NET Framework apps to .NET 5 or use existing apps alongside new Blazor projects. We will also extend our .NET 5 migration-related documentation (such as one, two) based on additional migration scenarios. .
Cross-Platform Enhancements
Security System
We will support Middle Tier Security in our WinForms UI for .NET 5 at the end of 2021. In the meantime, it is possible to connect XAF's WinForms .NET 5 clients to an application server running on .NET Framework.
We will also keep enhancing XAF's Core and Security System API for asynchronous data processing in 2021. This is important for both XAF's Blazor UI and non-XAF usage scenarios (like authorization in Blazor WebAssembly apps with XPO or EF Core).
Entity Framework Core for Data Access
v21.1 will also mark the official release of Entity Framework Core (EF Core) support in our Blazor UI (we included it as a CTP in v20.2 - example).
Core and Performance
A new DataAccessMode = Queryable will be available for faster lookups in XAF's Blazor UI and also easier integration with external data sources beyond supported ORM. Other performance enhancements will affect the Audit Trail module and the Model Editor. If you want to improve performance today, profile your app and review our best practices. Experience suggests that most issues can be addressed at the custom code or on the database side.
Designers and Wizards
v21.1 should mark the official release of the Model Editor for .NET 5 apps. We will not support Module and Application Designers in .NET 5 (.NET Framework apps will be unaffected), because they mostly duplicate Solution Wizard functionality and are rarely used (occasional configuration can be easily accomplished with a few lines of code, especially in Blazor apps: example). We may support Controller and Action Designers in 2021 should demand require it – as its implementation is very complex because of the changes made by Microsoft to Visual Studio’s architecture. Note that it is possible to create Actions with a few lines of code (example).
Our Enhanced Solution Wizard will help XAF developers complete the following more quickly:
- create a combined WinForms + Blazor .NET 5 solution or add a new .NET 5 Module to an existing WinForms or Blazor solution (example).
- create a solution with OAuth identity providers without writing any custom code (example).
- extend a security user class with additional properties (the roadmap survey confirmed that most users create "public class MyUser: PermissionPolicyUser" - example).
- create a solution that will target a single database or a database per tenant for SaaS scenarios (example).
- reuse XAF application data, logic and modules by Non-XAF apps using a separate Web API project with Swagger (OpenAPI) support (examples).
- create a solution with unit/functional testing and CI/CD infrastructure for Azure DevOps (example).
The list of planned enhancements is significant, so we cannot promise that everything will be completed this year. We will regularly update this post to reflect our latest vision.
More LINQ-based Filtering
Inspired by XAF's lambda-based methods like IObjectSpace.FirstOrDefault, we will extend the CriteriaOperator class for all DevExpress customers to create type-safe criteria more easily in v21.1. The new CriteriaOpertor.FromLambda<TModel,TResult> method will support common LINQ expressions and methods, most used CriteriaOperator descendants and custom criteria functions or aggregates.
// FROM
CriteriaOperator.Parse("Name = ?", "Gera");
// TO
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, bool>(cm => cm.Name == "Gera");
//-------------------------
//ConstantValue
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, int>(cm => Discount * Price * 0.8 );
// OperandValue
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, int>(cm => Value);
// OperandProperty
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, string>(cm => cm.Name);
// BinaryOperator
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, bool>(cm => cm.Age >27);
// UnaryOperator
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, bool>(cm => !(cm.IsLongterm));
// FunctionOperator
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, bool>(cm => cm.Name.Contains("Gera"));
// AggregateOperand
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, int>(cm => cm.Orders.Count());
// JoinOperand
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, int>(cm => JoinOperand.FromLambda<Order,
int>(om => cm.Oid == om.CustomerOid && om.Price > 5, g => g.Count()));
// Group Expressions
CriteriaOperator.FromLambda<Customer, bool>(cm => cm.Orders.Count()>10 &&
cm.Islongterm && cm.Orders.All(om => !(om.IsComplete)));Note that CriteriaOperator.FromLambda does not support any possible LINQ expression, because our criteria language and LINQ are not 100% compatible. For instance, GroupBy, OrderBy and other LINQ methods used for filtering are not supported.
XAF customers will especially enjoy the new methods to create predefined object and member security permissions in the ModuleUpdater class. Of course, there are many other helpful use cases in Controllers and business classes for filtering.
Your Opinion Counts
As always, we look forward to your comments and questions via email: xafteam@devexpress.com.