As I write this post, the teams are making the final v14.2 build ready to upload to our servers. In fact, by the time you read this, we will have flipped the (metaphorical) big red switch that makes it available to you, our active customers. Although our previous major releases have been bursting at the seams with new controls, new features and new enhancements, I’d have to say that, from my point of view, v14.2 caps them all. I wonder how we can do better for v15.1…
With this release, we continue to pull the platforms you know and use (and perhaps even love) into new areas of data visualization, attractive user interfaces, and usability. Just for some brief examples: a responsive UI for ASP.NET; a slick, fast full-featured export engine for Excel, which supports our new grouped/filtered data export from our grid and spreadsheet controls; an HTML5-based report designer/viewer; forms support in our PDF control; a preview richedit control for the Web; master-detail for the client-side datagrid; a new “Office for iOS” style for the WPF ribbon; umpteen updates for the Dashboard including element grouping and data filtering. And that’s what I can think of from the top of my head, before I even search the What’s New blog posts and remind myself of the new features for the map controls (mini-maps!), the report server, eXpressApp Framework, new chart types, and so on. There is a lot to read and digest.
If that small synopsis has whet your appetite, you can find out more on the What’s New in 14.2 page, or read about various new features in more detail here on the DevExpress community blogs. Some typical examples:
- Seth on Filter Elements and Grouping in the Dashboard
- Dennis on XAF including the End-User Report Designer for ASP.NET
- Ray on Master-Detail in the HTML5 datagrid
- Mehul on the ASP.NET suite’s new support for responsive UI
- Paul on Forms and Annotations with the PDF control
- Don on adding Cloud Providers for the ASP.NET File Manager
- Me on grouping and filtering with the WinForms & WPF spreadsheet controls
We have a couple more “New in v14.2” webinars to present this week – if you’ve missed any, please check our YouTube channel for the repeats – and, once the release is out, we have planned several webinar presentations in the coming weeks to explain some of the new features in more detail. We also have new tutorial videos that will be published throughout the remainder of 2014 and into 2015. If your preference is web programming, our online demos have all been updated to show off the new improvements and controls.
DevExpress Universal 14.2 is now ready for download if you have an active license. If you are new to DevExpress (or perhaps didn’t renew last time), please check out these new features in the evaluation version. I’m sure you’ll find something that will entice you to purchase. Have fun!