v21.2 is a couple of months away and we wanted to document some of the features we expect to ship in November.
Before we describe these features, a quick reminder: If you are an active Universal or DXperience subscriber and want to test upcoming v21.2 features before our official release, you can download our first Early Access Preview (EAP) build via the DevExpress Download Manager.
This EAP may not include all features/products we expect to ship in our v21.2 release cycle. As its name implies, the EAP offers an early preview of what we expect to ship in two months.
Visual Studio Report Designer for .NET 5 Apps - Release Candidate
We stabilized and enhanced our market-first Visual Studio-integrated Report Designer in this development cycle and are looking forward to your feedback on our most recent update. v21.2 related enhancements include:
- Improved startup time - at least 2x faster than v21.1.
- Improved custom type discovery (from your assemblies) for both
ObjectDataSourceandEFDataSource. - With v21.2, the Report Designer is enabled by default for
*.vsrepxfiles. - You can now open standard
XtraReportclass files (*.cs) with our updated Visual Studio Report Designer. We now offer a unified design time experience for both .NET Framework and .NET (.NET Core) apps.
The following video demonstrates how our new .NET 5 Visual Studio Report Designer loads a report.
If you’ve yet to explore the capabilities of our Visual Studio Report Designer in .NET 5/.NET 6, refer to the following release article for additional info: Reporting - Visual Studio Integrated Report Designer for .NET Apps (CTP, v21.1).
Report Designer Enhancements
Expressions
We extended our Report Designer (for all supported platforms) and improved its user experience when defining expression bindings:
- A new button (with a formula-f symbol) is now displayed next to the selected control. This button allows you to invoke the Expression Editor instantly.
- The new Expression Editor view allows you to set up expression bindings for various report control properties directly within its dialog window. A glowing formula (f) symbol indicates that a property has an expression assigned:
- The Properties panel within Report Designers now highlights “bindable” properties with a formula (f symbol indicates that a property is bound to data:
We also replicated this user experience within the Visual Studio Report Designer properties panel:
New Toolbox
All Report Designers (minus our integrated Visual Studio Report Designer) now feature a new two-column toolbox that displays our entire report control set simultaneously. You can expand/collapse the toolbox when using the desktop (WinForms and WPF) version of DevExpress Reports:
WinForms Report Viewer - DirectX Support
Our WinForms Document Viewer control now supports DirectX rendering for both user interface elements and the report document. The benefits of DirectX rendering are numerous and include:
- Up to 80% faster document rendering
- Smoother scrolling experience
- Enhanced responsiveness in multi-page mode
- Enhanced glyph rendering quality thanks to DirectWrite
Enable the viewer's UseDirectXPaint property to switch from the default GDI+ rendering engine to DirectX.
The following videos help demonstrate the power of DirectX rendering:
- Rendering speed – As you can see, DirectX is far faster than GDI
- Smoother scrolling – Like the previous example, DirectX is more efficient than GDI
- You need to embed PDF file content into a report with common headers/footers (headers/footers will be printed on PDF file pages as well).
- You need to print specific content (pictures, bar codes, page numbers, a report watermark) over the contents of your PDF file.
- You need to design a pre-printed form and use a PDF file as a watermark.
- You need to create a report document with an A4 paper kind and include a PDF file with different page dimensions.
- Join overloads (SQL Data Source)
- SelectNodeBuilder (Data Federation)
- Reporting for WinForms and WPF — End of Default Bitmap Icons Support
- Cross-Platform PDF Export — Image Conversion and Compression
- Reporting for Web Forms — End Of Medium Trust Support
- Reporting - The InitializeStoredProcedures method signature has been changed
Localization - Translation Strings CSV Import/Export
You are now able to export report localization strings to a CSV file and use it to translate report elements with the help of third-party services. In addition, our Localization Editor can import translations made within a CSV file and apply it to a report.
PDF Content - Embed PDFs into Report Pages
The XRPdfContent report control exposes a new GenerateOwnPages roperty – a property that manages operation mode. This control can act like a subreport when the property is disabled. With the help of a control placeholder, you can limit the area to scale and embed PDF files directly into your report. Refer to the following diagram for more information on our implementation:
This new mode is useful when:
If you’ve yet to explore the capabilities of the XRPdfContent report control, refer to the following article for more information: Reporting - Merge PDF Documents into Your Report (v20.1).
Parameters - Print Display Values
The Expression Editor now features a new GetDisplayText function. This function allows you to print selected display values for a lookup parameter:
SQL and Data Federation Data Sources - Right Outer Join and Full Outer Join
Both our SQL and Data Federation Data Source now support Right Outer and Full Outer join types:
When you create a report in code, you can use our Reporting API to construct queries with these new join types. Refer to the following help topics for code samples:
Web Report Designer Enhancements
Updated User Interface
Please review the following article for information related to UI enhancements introduced in this EAP: Reporting — Updated Web Report Designer UI (Coming Soon in v21.2).
To explore this new UI, be sure to check out the following online demo: Web Report Designer - Online Demo.
Cross-Tab
Our Web Report Designer ships with a new Cross-Tab report control. We’ve also included a Cross-Tab report wizard to help you create cross-tab reports with ease.
Report Design Analyzer
The Report Design Analyzer panel (designed to help you isolate, diagnose, and address common report design/layout-related issues) has been integrated into the DevExpress Web Report Designer (v21.2).
If you’ve yet to explore the capabilities of the Report Design Analyzer, refer to the following article: Reporting — Avoid Mistakes in Report Creation with The Help of Report Design Analyzer (v21.1).
Breaking Changes in v21.2
Your Feedback Counts
As always, we welcome your feedback. Please post your comments below or create a new support ticket if you've beta tested our Early Access Preview.