ASP.NET Rich Text Editor - Spell Checking, Find & Replace and Predefined Styles

Recently, I told you about the enhancements to the excellent DevExpress ASP.NET Spreadsheet control. Today, I'll tell you about our other major 'Microsoft Office' style control, the DevExpress ASP.NET Rich Text Editor. We've added some great new features that you and your end-users will appreciate. Let's take a look.

UX Improvements

The DevExpress ASP.NET Rich Edit now ships with a number of improved UX elements including:

1. Built-in spellchecker

We've extended the capabilities of our ASP.NET Rich Text Editor with spell check support which includes type-as-you-go error detection. End-users can activate the ASP.NET Spell Checker via the integrated context menu or a standard dialog:

And this new feature uses the excellent DevExpress ASP.NET Spell Checker control to provide other benefits like custom dictionaries.

2. Find and Replace functionality

Much like Microsoft Word, the ASP.NET Rich Text Editor's new Find and Replace dialog allows end-users to locate and modify text within an open document. Unlike the browser's built-in "search within a webpage function," the entire document is available for all Find-Replace operations.

3. Predefined character and paragraph styles

To help improve content formatting within the ASP.NET Rich Text Editor, this release includes a new set of predefined styles for paragraphs, characters and tables:

4. Tables support improvements

We've also improved support for tables in this release. First, we've added a bunch of great new styles for tables:

And second, we've improved mouse support with tables. End-users can adjust the table size using the mouse. And they can also drag the cell borders to change the column width or row height. Column sizing can also be done using ruler markers. End-users can also use the keyboard to navigate and select table cells. To navigate through cells, use the arrow keys, or Tab and Tab+Shift. To select cells, use Shift together with the arrow keys.

5. Keyboard support in built-in ribbon

With this release, you can now interact with the DevExpress ASP.NET Ribbon Control (tabs, groups, items) via the keyboard:

New API For Developers

Recently, many customers had interesting scenarios where they needed to interact with the DevExpress ASP.NET Rich Text Editor from the client-side. Good news, we've now exposed client-side API for the DevExpress ASP.NET Rich Text Editor.

This new API allows you to obtain the current state of document elements (such as sections, paragraphs, tables) and perform the appropriate actions by executing commands. The available client side API is exposed through the following properties:

• document - Provides access to structures allowing you to obtain the current information about certain document structural elements (such as sections, active sub-document, styles for characters, paragraphs and tables, and etc).
• selection - Provides access to a set of methods allowing you to position the cursor within a document and to select document content elements.
• commands - Provides access to client commands allowing you to programmatically accomplish virtually any task within a document (such as inserting characters, paragraphs, tables and pictures, changing element formatting, creating numbered lists, etc).

Azure Web Farms support

With this release, both the DevExpress ASP.NET Spreadsheet and Rich Text Edit controls can be used in web applications running on multiple Azure application servers.

What do you think about the DevExpress ASP.NET Rich Text Editor's new features? Drop me a line below. Thanks!