v15.2 will bring with it a number of enhancements to our WPF Report Designer. Before I describe those, please note that though you are free to use this control inside your WPF projects, we have not yet officially released it. This product will remain a community tech preview once we ship v15.2.
Both a Report Wizard and Data Source Wizard are shipping in this release and work just like their WinForms counterparts: The Wizards allow you to select data source type (including our new Excel Data Source), specify connection settings, build a SQL query using the Query Builder, and in the case of the Report Wizard, specify settings for automatic report layout generation.
v15.2 also includes dedicated editors for complex report control properties. These include a Collection Editors, Formatting Rules Editor and Style Editor.
As you can see in the image below, the Report Explorer now displays Formatting Rules, Styles and non-visual components available in the open report.
A Group and Sort panel has also been added to the Report Designer. Just like its WinForms counterpart, the panel makes it easier to apply grouping and sorting rules to a report.
New Report Designer View
If you've used our WPF Report Designer, you'll be familiar with our classic designer view (ReportDesignerClassicView) pictured below.
v15.2 will introduce a new, modern web browser inspired view (ReportDesignerBrowserView). This view is now used by default.
Finally, context menus are now available for all report controls. Context menus provide access to important settings and commands for all report controls and bands. For certain report controls, the context menu also includes an Edit… option, which invokes a dialog with complex setting options for the control (such as data binding settings, formatting, etc.)
