Blazor — Year-End Roadmap (v24.2)

As always, thank you for your continued support and your interest in the DevExpress Blazor UI component suite. The following Year-End Roadmap (v24.2) documents what we expect to ship in December 2024 (including 10+ new components).

As always, if you have questions or suggestions, feel free to share your thoughts in the survey at the end of this post or submit a ticket via the DevExpress Support Center.

.NET Ecosystem

.NET 9 Support

We will support .NET 9 across our Blazor component suite (v24.2 and v24.1) after November 2024. We will also add support for the latest .NET 9 previews for v24.1 (for early adopter testing). If you'd like to learn more about Blazor-specific enhancements in .NET 9, please review the following Microsoft article: What's New in ASP.NET Core 9.0.

.NET 8, Visual Studio 2019 Are Minimally Supported Versions for DevExpress Libraries in v24.2

To learn more about this global change and how it will impact your DevExpress-powered Blazor project, please review the following announcement.

Source Code Builder Enhancements

With v24.2, we will simplify the steps needed to rebuild assemblies from source code:

• Our source builder tool will be a part of our Unified Component Installer, not a separate download.
• The new tool will be more stable (we added more internal tests for the rebuild process on our build farm) and require fewer steps.
• It will be easier to rebuild .NET Core/.NET projects (currently, it is a manual process) and generate corresponding NuGet packages (including localization packages).

New Blazor Splitter

Our new Blazor Splitter component will allow you to separate web page content into multiple resizable panes. The DevExpress Splitter component will support unlimited nested splitter panes, allowing for the creation of complex layouts.

Key features will include:

• Ability to specify horizontal or vertical orientation for the splitter.
• Live content refresh during resize operations for the best possible user experience.
• Panes that can be collapsed or expanded with specific buttons.
• Customizable visual appearance of splitter elements.

New Blazor Ribbon

v24.2 will include a new Blazor Ribbon component, a tabbed toolbar designed to organize multiple command items across different tabs. Our Blazor Ribbon will include data-bound mode support, allowing you to obtain tab, group, and item information from a data source.

Key features will include:

• Support for multiple editors as items, including buttons, text boxes, combo boxes, and more.
• Compact design that displays all items within an active tab in a single line.
• Context tabs that combine different items into categories, appearing on the ribbon when users select specific objects.

New Blazor Dialog

Our Blazor Dialog component will include a set of predefined alert and confirm dialogs, similar to those in JavaScript. This capability will allow you to pass parameters to a method, display the dialog, and handle user actions without the need for custom Razor markup. 

bool result = await DialogService.ShowConfirmAsync(new DialogOptions {
    Title = "Delete a record",
    Text = "Are you sure you want to delete this record?",
    RenderStyle = DialogRenderStyle.Danger    
});

New Blazor Range Selector

We expect to ship our Blazor Range Selector in our next major update (v24.2). As you'd expect, the DevExpress Range Selector will allow you to visualize data within its scale. Users can select a range by dragging sliders or using the mouse to select an area on the scale. This control integrates well with our Blazor Chart library, enhancing data filtering and visual range setting experiences.

Key features will include:

• Customization of major/minor scale ticks.
• Scale label customization for a personalized display.
• Customization options for slider handles and markers.
• Configurable shutter settings and much more.

New Blazor Carousel

v24.2 will ship with a new Blazor Carousel component, designed to display an image collection using a carousel UI metaphor. The DevExpress Blazor Carousel will include multiple navigation controls and allow users to easily switch images.

Key features will include:

• Support for slide show and loop functionality.
• Navigation buttons and dot indicators for intuitive image navigation.
• Flexible item template support for customized content presentation.

New Blazor Sankey

Our next major update will include a new Blazor Sankey component, a visualization tool used to depict the flow from one set of values to another. Sankeys are best used when you want to display a many-to-many mapping between two domains or multiple paths through a set of stages (e.g., how Google Analytics displays traffic flow between pages on your website).

Key features will include:

• Customizable appearance of node labels.
• Configurable nodes and links.
• Title and subtitle settings.
• Tooltip customization.

New Buttons — Blazor Split Button, Dropdown Button, and Button Group

We expect to add three new button components to the DevExpress Blazor UI suite in our v24.2 release cycle (Blazor Split Button, Dropdown Button, and Button Group). These new Button types will help extend the capabilities of your DevExpress-powered Blazor app and address a variety of usage scenarios.

New Blazor Search Box

Our new Blazor Search Box will allow you to introduce a search UI anywhere within your Blazor app (and maintain UI consistency when using other DevExpress Blazor components). Key features will include:

• Search icon
• Placeholder text
• Clear button
• Validation icons
• Size mode support

Keyboard Support

To better align with accessibility standards and improve user experiences for those with disabilities, we plan to add keyboard navigation support to the following Blazor UI components:

• Scheduler
• FormLayout
• Tabs
• DateRangePicker
• Window

Blazor TreeList

Official Release

In addition to new features and enhancements, our Blazor TreeList will be ready for production use. We will finalize its APIs/behaviors and minimize potential breaking changes for those currently using it within a project.

Data Editing

We expect to introduce the following Blazor TreeList data editing modes in our v24.2 release cycle:

• Edit Form / Popup Edit Form
• Edit Row
• Edit Cell

For all edit modes, you will be able to introduce input validation via Data Annotation attributes and configure editors using EditSettings and/or templates.

Export to Excel

Our Blazor TreeList component will support XLSX, XLS, and CSV data export. For Excel files, node hierarchy will be implemented with outlines.

Save & Restore Layout

Much like our Blazor Grid, the DevExpress Blazor TreeList will include APIs to save layout information to a local storage, database, or a remote service. As you might expect, you will be able to store the following layout information:

• Applied filters;
• Pager state;
• Column position, sort index, visibility, and width.

New Filter Mode — Nodes

In this new filter mode, the TreeList will display all nodes that meet the applied filter criteria as a plain list. This is useful when working with large collections and when finding specific records is more important than keeping node hierarchy visible.

API Enhancements

We expect to extend our Blazor TreeList's API with the following members:

• RootValue - specifies the ParentID value used to distinguish root-level nodes in self-reference data sources (default is 0).
• AutoExpandAllNodes - specifies whether to expand all nodes when TreeList data is loaded for the first time.

Blazor Grid & TreeList

Row Drag & Drop

Both our Blazor Grid and TreeList components will feature built-in support for row-based drag and drop operations. Users will be able to reorder rows, change tree hierarchies, and/or move rows from one table to another.

New Item Row

Our Blazor Grid and TreeList will be able to display an empty row below or above data records. This empty row can be used to add new records quickly (especially when using Cell Edit mode).

Blazor Data Editors

ComboBox, TagBox & List Box — Grouping

ComboBox, TagBox, and List Box will be able to split items in a list into non-collapsible groups. Groups make the list of options more readable and help users locate required options more quickly.

ComboBox, TagBox & List Box — Disable Items

We will release APIs to disable individual ComboBox/TagBox/List Box items. Disabled items are greyed out and cannot be selected.

List Box — Search

A built-in search box will allow users to filter List Box items and highlight search results.

Blazor PDF Viewer

Official Release

In our upcoming release, we will address a series of known limitations and enhance overall stability to ensure that the DevExpress Blazor PDF Viewer is robust and ready for production apps.

Blazor Tabs

Close Tab Button

Our built-in close button feature will simplify the use of the close tab option in your DevExpress-powered Blazor app (by eliminating the need for custom templates or additional markup).

Tab Reorder

v24.2 will allow users to reorder tabs by dragging them to a desired position. 

Blazor Charts

Crosshair

Crosshairs are thin vertical and horizontal lines centered on a data point within a chart. This feature helps users identify series point values in a precise manner. When enabled, the crosshair follows the cursor and snaps to the nearest series point, enhancing data analysis and associated user experiences.

Zoom and Pan Change Events

Zoom and pan change events will allow you to handle zoom/pan operations and send API requests for new data and repopulate charts as needed. This will be of importance if your solution analyzes large datasets (thanks to the use of data aggregation before sending it through the API).

Selection API

In our upcoming release, we will introduce new methods to allow you to programmatically select series or points, as well as clear selections. This functionality will benefit those who must display selected values at startup.

New Aggregation Interval Property

Our new aggregation interval feature will aggregate series points that fall within the same interval. If the axis displays numeric values, you will assign a number to this property. For instance, an aggregation interval of 100 will create intervals like 0 to 100, 100 to 200, 200 to 300, etc. If the axis displays date-time values, you will set this property to an accepted string values such as 'days', 'months', 'years', and others.

Blazor Report Viewer & Report Designer

SqlDataSource — Microsoft Azure SQL Support with Microsoft Entra Authentication

We will add support for Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure Active Directory) authentication in SqlDataSource for Microsoft Azure SQL databases. This update will allow you to seamlessly connect to Azure SQL databases using modern and secure authentication methods. We will extend the MsSqlAuthorizationType enumeration with the following types (mirroring those found in .NET):

• ActiveDirectoryPassword
• ActiveDirectoryIntegrated
• ActiveDirectoryInteractive
• ActiveDirectoryDefault

Automatically Resolve Missing Fonts

We expect to introduce a new built-in method or API to automatically detect missing fonts in your application’s hosting environment (such as various Docker images, Azure App Service, etc.), download them from Google Fonts, and add them to the DXFontRepository. This implementation is based on the approach detailed in the following blog post: How to Manage Fonts and Deliver a Unified User Experience when Using DevExpress Reports and Office File API. This enhancement will ensure that the reports appear as designed, regardless of the hosting platform.

Additionally, we will include an option to log the names of any missing fonts to the application output. This feature will help you identify and resolve document appearance issues.

Web Report Viewer — SVG Print Preview

In our next release, we will introduce an option to enable SVG-based print preview functionality within the DevExpress Web Report Viewer. This enhancement will reduce the viewer's memory footprint when transferring report page data between the server and client (i.e., when navigating through the document, zooming the document, etc.). This enhancement will also enable users to preview reports with high fidelity using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), ensuring sharp and clear representations of report elements.

HTML Export — Preserve Rotated Text

We will introduce expanded text rotation options for reports exported to HTML. With this update, the XRLabel control in resulting HTML files will preserve the text rotation defined by its Angle property (supported angles are 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees, and their negative counterparts). This enhancement will ensure that your DevExpress Reports-powered document's text orientation is accurately maintained during HTML export, providing a consistent visual appearance across different formats.

PDF Export — Export Bookmarks

With this new feature, you will be able to simplify/enhance navigation for PDF documents generated from your reports. Bookmarks added to your report will now be preserved in the exported PDF document, allowing users to quickly jump to specific sections within large documents.

DateOnly & TimeOnly Support

We will introduce support for DateOnly and TimeOnly values across DevExpress Reports. This update will allow you to utilize the aforementioned types when:

• creating expression bindings
• report and query parameters
• calculated fields
• and when sorting, grouping, and filtering data.

Refer to the What's New in v24.1 to learn more about recent enhancements in this particular space.

New AI-Powered Enhancements

We will integrate AI-Powered Summarize and Translate features into our Report Viewer components. These enhancements will allow users to quickly understand/analyze core insights associated with a given report (using Generative AI summaries) and convert report documents to a desired language with AI-powered translation tools.

To leverage these capabilities, you will need to use your own Microsoft Azure Open AI API key or use offline open-source models powered by Ollama and/or Onnx Runtime.

Report Designer — Dimension Notations

To simplify the report design process, v24.2 will introduce dimension notations within the DevExpress Report Designer. When you resize controls, the designer will provide precise visual feedback and display dimension notations based on a specified ReportUnit property value (such as inches, centimeters, or pixels).

New Barcode Types — Aztec & Micro QR Code

Our next major update will support the following Barcode types: Aztec and Micro QR Code

• Aztec barcodes offer a compact/efficient way to encode large amounts of data without requiring a quiet zone, making them ideal for space-constrained documents.

• Micro QR Codes offer a smaller alternative to traditional QR Codes, suitable for space-limited output (where only small amounts of data require encoding).

Text Selection and Copying to Clipboard

The DevExpress Blazor Report Viewer will allow end-users to select and copy report content.

Shortcuts for macOS

We will duplicate shortcuts for Blazor Report Designer and Report Viewer tailored for macOS users (utilizing the Command ⌘ key).

Custom Parameters Validation

A new API will allow you to implement custom validation rules for report parameter inputs, including enforcing mandatory parameters.

Incremental Search in Parameters

We will introduce incremental searching for parameters linked to data collections.

Interactive Margins

Users will have the ability to modify document margins directly within a Report Viewer interface.

Long-term Initiatives

While our roadmap showcases key features we expect to deliver in our v24.2 release cycle, we have begun initiatives that cannot be completed within a single release cycle. Some of these initiatives may or may not make it to the final release. Notable initiatives include:

New Fluent Theme

We will introduce a new Fluent-like theme over the next two major release cycles (to modernize the visual design of our Blazor component libraries). This initiative aligns with established design/usability standards. As you would expect, we will continue to support existing themes to ensure maximum flexibility and minimize breaking changes to current projects.

Pivot Grid

Over the next two major release cycles, we plan to introduce a new Blazor Pivot Grid component. Our new Pivot Grid component will offer advanced features and improved overall performance for a variety of data analysis usage scenarios. To prevent breaking changes in current projects, we will create a new Pivot Grid component alongside our existing offering. 

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