It'll come as no surprise that we are only about a month away from our next major update, v23.2, to be released in early December. Active VCL Subscribers can download our most recent EAP builds using the DevExpress Download Manager. You can also download our EAP demos using this link at your convenience.
I've been talking about some new features in v23.2 already (please review the following: VCL v23.2 EAP — Tooltips, Label Overlapping and More in Chart Control, High DPI/SVG Enhancements, and Other Upcoming Features), and in this post, I'll describe a few more features/capabilities that will be available in our VCL Early Access Preview (EAP) build.
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RAD Studio 12.0 Yukon Support
From what we've heard, Embarcadero may release RAD Studio 12 by the end of this year. As you would expect, DevExpress v23.2 will officially support this new IDE once it is available.
If you're currently in Embarcadero's beta testing program and testing RAD Studio 12, please note that our VCL EAP build will include Delphi 12 support (both 32-bit and 64-bit). Please take a moment to evaluate our EAP and let us know if you encounter any difficulties/issues. Your early feedback will help us better support RAD Studio 12.
Enhanced SVG Image Picker at Design Time
We revamped our image selector to support High DPI and SVG usage scenarios.
Improved Icon Organization
We added tabs for different icon collections (the Vector Icons tab is now the default).
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Font Icons
As you probably know, Windows 11 includes numerous font icons (“Segoe MDL2 Assets" and “Segoe Fluent Icons” fonts). v23.2 supports font icons (you can color these icons using the command at the bottom right of the tab).
User Preferences Are Now Preserved
Our image selector now remembers all essential user settings: selected collections, categories, sizes between IDE runs. For instance, if you do not like SVG icons by default, you can activate the Raster Icons tab and it will be your default option the next time you invoke this dialog.
Easy Integration of Custom / User-Defined Icons
Our image selector now supports custom or user-defined icon collections (notice the new + and - buttons). This is helpful when want to use Google Material, Font Awesome, or icons from your own designer.
While testing our new image selector, we've successfully integrated Google Material icons into our test VCL app with DevExpress controls. We will publish step-by-step instructions on how to do this in the coming weeks. In the meantime, a couple of teasers:
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Modernized Skin and Palette Selectors for Bar and Ribbon Menu
With new vector skins like WXI, and SVG support, we retired our old skin and palette selector in favor of the one pictured below (inspired by our WinForms implementation).
The new selector allows you to exclude old raster skins and display color instead of just the palette name. The new selector is also configurable in code or at runtime (for instance, to only display certain groups of skins). You can test the capabilities of this new selector in nearly all VCL demos (except for Mail Client).
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Chart Control - Export Data
As indicated in my previous v23.2 post, VCL charts can now export data using multiple file formats (export to SVG, PDF, Excel, Word, etc). You can also export charts programmatically using relevant API calls (ExportTo...). As you would expect, we published new Chart-related help topics (https://docs.devexpress.com/VCL/404415/ExpressCharts/vcl-charts?v=23.2) and added new Chart-specific modules to our VCL Demo Center.
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Chart Control - Print Data
Our VCL Chart control includes built-in Print Preview, Print, and Export to PDF commands. You can also print charts programmatically.
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Chart Control - Crosshair Cursor
A crosshair cursor allows users to track series or indicator data point coordinates within the VCL Chart Control. It consists of argument and value lines, associated labels, and data point labels. While our full implementation is not included in this EAP (you can see a preview in the Line module of our ExpressChartControl demo), we hope to deliver the following functionality this year:
Other Features to Test in this EAP (v23.2)
Please refer to the following post for additional features included in this EAP: VCL v23.2 EAP — Tooltips, Label Overlapping and More in Chart Control, High DPI/SVG Enhancements, and Other Upcoming Features. If you encounter issues with new features/capabilities in this EAP, please submit a support ticket via the DevExpress Support Center - we'll be happy to follow up.
Your Feedback Matters
Thanks,
Dennis Garavsky
Principal Product Manager
dennis@devexpress.com