WPF — Year-End Roadmap (v24.2)

In this post, I'll outline WPF capabilities/features we expect to ship in our next major update (v24.2) including focus in the following areas:

• Accessibility
• AI 
• DateOnly & TimeOnly support

As always, we welcome your feedback. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to submit your thoughts using the survey at the end of this post.

.NET Core / .NET

.NET 9 Support

We will support .NET 9 across our WPF product line (v24.2 and v24.1) after November 2024. Currently, we support the most recent .NET 9 preview builds for those using v24.1 (early adopter testing).

.NET 8, .NET Framework 4.6.2, Visual Studio 2019 Will Be Minimally Supported Versions for DevExpress Libraries (v24.2+)

Learn more about this global change in this announcement.

Source Code Builder Enhancements

In v24.2, we will simplify procedures used to rebuild assemblies from source code:

• Our source builder tool will ship in the DevExpress Unified Component Installer.
• Our source builder tool will be more stable (we added more internal tests for the rebuild process on our build farm) and will require fewer steps to initiate/complete source rebuild.
• It will be easier to rebuild .NET Core/.NET projects (currently, it is a manual process) and generate the corresponding NuGet packages (including the localization packages).

Easier Upgrade to .NET from .NET Framework

We expect to improve integration with Microsoft's .NET Upgrade Assistant Tool. We also expect to offer predefined mappings for appropriate DevExpress packages (allowing Microsoft's tool to map DevExpress assembly references to corresponding DevExpress NuGet package references). If .NET Upgrade Assistant Tool mappings fail to meet our expectations, we will make necessary changes to the DevExpress Project Converter instead. NOTE: We will remove the old DevExpress .NET Core Migration Tool in our v24.2 release cycle (because of the aforementioned changes).

WPF Accessibility — Keyboard Navigation and Automation

We will extend our WPF product library with the following accessibility-related enhancements:

• Keyboard navigation. End users will be able to execute additional actions without relying on a pointing device.
• UI Automation and Screen Readers. We'll enhance the automation tree used by screen readers (Narrator, NonVisual Desktop Access, etc) to assist visually impaired end users. This improvement will also benefit UI testing frameworks, allowing for more comprehensive UI tests.

WPF AI-related Capabilities

We expect to introduce multiple features to help you seamlessly incorporate AI capabilities into your DevExpress-powered WPF apps. In addition to UI enhancements, we will ship an integration library for popular AI services such as OpenAI, Azure, and Ollama.

While final capabilities will depend on our ongoing research, here are some of the AI features you can expect in our next major release:

Memo Editor — Text Predictions

You will be able to display smart text suggestions in our Memo Edit control. Pressing the Tab key will apply a suggestion, allowing users to enter information faster, avoid spelling errors, etc.

AI Assistant Menu

We will introduce a menu with smart action support across our text-based UI controls. Here are some of the actions you can expect in our v24.2 release cycle:

• Rewrite
• Summarize
• Shorten
• Expand
• Proofread
• Fix Spelling
• Translate

These actions will be applicable to either a single word, selected text, or to entire text blocks. 

Smart Search (Semantic Similarity)

When users search for specific text, they may not know its exact representation within the database or UI. While tags can be used to improve search operations, populating and maintaining them can be time-consuming, especially if using dynamic data.

v24.2 will include APIs to help you incorporate smart search capabilities when using DevExpress WPF controls.

DateOnly & TimeOnly Enhancements

As you may know, .NET 6 introduced DateOnly and TimeOnly types to better handle date/time values (when compared to the DateTime struct). We will continue integrating features related to both, ensuring seamless use of DateOnly and TimeOnly values within DevExpress-powered WPF apps.

TimeOnly — Second Rounding

The TimeOnly structure includes hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds. Since users typically need to select only hours and minutes, our WPF Grid control will automatically round TimeOnly values to the nearest minute within filtering elements. Filters created by our WPF Grid control will also be based on minute intervals.

Additionally, we will support time group intervals, allowing you to display items with the same hour and minute values, even if seconds differ.

TimeOnly — Popup Filters

We will add time-specific options to the DevExpress WPF Grid control's column filter popup to help users filter TimeOnly data with ease.

TimeOnly Editor

At present, you can only use TextEdit with a mask to edit TimeOnly objects (by entering text). We expect to support TimeOnly via a time-specific WPF Editor.

DateOnly/TimeOnly — TreeList Support

In our v24.1 release cycle, we added DateOnly/TimeOnly support to our WPF Grid. With v24.2, we will introduce similar support for the DevExpress WPF TreeList control. 

DateOnly/TimeOnly — Property Grid Support

PropertyGrid will automatically generate an editor (with appropriate settings) when an edited object uses DateOnly or TimeOnly properties.

WPF Grid Control — Batch Edit

As you may know, Microsoft Excel allows you to select multiple cells and apply text changes by pressing Ctrl + Enter (instead of Enter). In v24.2, a similar feature will be added to our WPF Grid control, allowing users to apply identical values to multiple cells simultaneously.

WPF Map Control — Bing Maps Deprecation and Azure Maps Support

Because of Microsoft's decision to deprecate and retire Bing Maps, we expect to add Azure Maps support to our WPF Map Control.

Refer to the following blog post to learn more about this change: Important Announcement: Bing Maps for Enterprise Service Deprecation.

WPF Reports

DateOnly & TimeOnly Support

We will introduce support for DateOnly and TimeOnly values within 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 What's New in v24.1 to learn more about recent enhancements in this particular space.

Export Enhancements

HTML Export — Preserve Rotated Text

We will introduce expanded text rotation options for reports exported to HTML. With this update, the XRLabel control will preserve 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 document 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 options for PDF documents generated from a report. 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.

Office File API & Office-Inspired Desktop UI Controls

New AI-Powered Enhancements

We will integrate AI-Powered features into our WPF Rich Text Editor and Spreadsheet components. These enhancements will allow users to quickly understand the underlying essence of individual documents via Generative AI summaries and translate documents to a preferred language using AI-powered translations. In addition, we plan to give you the ability to describe images used within Office documents using AI-powered APIs.

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

Spreadsheet Document API and Spreadsheet UI Control

Dynamic Array Formulas

Dynamic arrays are a modern and powerful way to work with Excel document formulas. Unlike standard array formulas, which return a single value for each cell with a formula, dynamic array functions return a dynamic array of values (this array of values automatically spills into neighboring cells). Dynamic arrays offer many advantages, including new functions (XLOOKUP, XMATCH, Sort, etc.). 

We expect to enhance our formula calculation engine and integrate dynamic arrays into relevant DevExpress Spreadsheet-processing tools. Core functionality will include the following:

• Dynamic array calculations (formulas) and Spill Range support.
• New formula error type (#SPILL!).
• Spill range reference (# symbol).
• Implicit intersection operator (@ symbol) to return a single formula value instead of an array.

Embed Images in Cells

Modern versions of Microsoft Excel support a new locate image feature - "Place in Cell" (available from the Insert->Picture menu). This option gives you the ability to embed an image directly into a cell instead of placing it over worksheet content.

With v24.2, our Spreadsheet Document API library and desktop Spreadsheet UI control will ship with "Place in Cell" image placement support. As you would expect, this new feature will allow you to import documents with images embedded in worksheet cells and save these documents to supported Excel formats without the content loss. Embedded cell images will be correctly displayed when you preview workbooks using our desktop Spreadsheet editors and when you print/export documents to PDF (and of course, we'll offer new APIs to manage embedded images in code).

Word Processing Document API and Rich Text Editors

Page Borders

With our next update, DevExpress Word-processing components will support Microsoft Word Page Borders (you will be able to import and save documents with page borders to supported Word formats without content loss). Page borders will be displayed properly when you preview the document via the visual control and print/export the document to PDF. APIs to manage page borders will be also available.

Small Caps Formatting Support

In our v24.2 release cycle, DevExpress Word processing tools will ship with Small Caps character formatting support. Small Caps formatting will be applied whenever you preview the document via the visual control and print/export the document to PDF. We will introduce API settings to manage Small Caps formatting in code and enhance the Font dialog for our WPF Rich Text Editor so as to apply appropriate formatting via the User Interface.

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