Download The DevExpress Community Toolbar

If you're doing a lot of DevExpress searching and browsing this new toolbar is a convenient and useful tool. The toolbar is customized for many of the DevExpress resources like Search, Support, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Installation

To install the toolbar, click the ‘Free Download’ link on this web page:

Note: This toolbar supports: IE, FireFox and Safari.

Once the installer begins, click the ‘Agree’ button:

Features

Once installed, you can search DevExpress right from the toolbar:

The toolbar uses Google to search but notice that you can also select the ‘DevExpress Search’ link to use our engine.

The toolbar also features dropdown buttons for some of the most commonly used site links:

Social Media

Access to News, DevExpress Channel, Forums, Blogs and Facebook are all under the ‘RSS Feeds’ button:

There’s a button for our Twitter feed:

Toolbar Options

This handy toolbar is provided ‘Free’ from the ourtoolbar.com website. The site does collect some usage data to help improve the toolbar. If you do not want it to collect any data then go to the toolbar options from the ‘DevExpress’ button:

Then deselect the ‘Send usage statistics’ from the ‘Additional Settings’ tab and click ‘OK’:

Feedback

That’s it. You now have the toolbar installed and the popular DevExpress resources only a few clicks away.

What do you think of this toolbar? Drop me a line below with your thoughts.

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, How-To, Util

ASP.NET Scheduler: How To Implement End-User Restrictions

Check out this 2 step approach to prevent users from editing appointments in the ASPxScheduler:

Step 1: Choose Restriction

First decide which action in the ASPxScheduler you want to prevent. Here’s a list of the available ones:

• AllowAppointmentConflicts
• AllowAppointmentCopy
• AllowAppointmentCreate
• AllowAppointmentDelete
• AllowAppointmentDrag
• AllowAppointmentDragBetweenResources
• AllowAppointmentEdit
• AllowAppointmentMultiSelect
• AllowAppointmentResize
• AllowInplaceEditor

Step 2: Check User ID

Then just check the User ID of the logged in user in the ‘Allow’ operation. For example, this code below prevents the user “Sam” from dragging appointments to a new date and time:

schedulerControl1.OptionsCustomization.AllowAppointmentDrag = UsedAppointmentType.Custom;
schedulerControl1.AllowAppointmentDrag += new AppointmentOperationEventHandler
(schedulerControl1_AllowAppointmentDrag);

// ...

void schedulerControl1_AllowAppointmentDrag(object sender, AppointmentOperationEventArgs e) {
    if (user_id == "Sam") e.Allow = false;
}

To learn more, check out this code central example:

Example Details: How to prevent a user from scheduling appointments in the past

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, ASPxScheduler, Features, How-To

Tooltip Support For ASP.NET Image Controls – v2010 vol 1

Tooltip property has been added to DevExpress ASP.NET image controls!

Starting with DXperience v2010.1, all DevExpress ASP.NET image controls like the ASPxImage have a new property called: Tooltip.

What’s a tooltip? Wikipedia defines it as:

The tooltip is a common graphical user interface element. It is used in conjunction with a cursor, usually a mouse pointer. The user hovers the cursor over an item, without clicking it, and a tooltip may appear — a small "hover box" with information about the item being hovered over.

Tooltip are great way to show a subtle hint to the user when they mouse over an image.

Online CodeCentral Demo

Check out this online CodeCentral demo which shows the image tooltip property in action:

Implement the Image Tooltip Property

Click here to see the code for the demo.

Drop me a line below with your thoughts on the new tooltip property. Thanks!

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, ASPxGridView, DXperience, Features, How-To, v2010.1

ASP.NET Pivot Grid: How To Enable Compact Layout Feature

Check out this short ASPxPivotGrid video that shows you how to enable the new compact layout mode:

The new compact layout mode helps you save space. And it’s easy to setup.

Watch the short ASPxPivotGrid Compact Layout video and then drop me a line here with your thoughts. Thanks.

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, ASPxPivotGrid, Features, How-To, screencast, v2010.1, Video, VS2010)

ASP.NET Pivot Grid: How To Enable Horizontal Scrolling Feature

Check out this short 3 minute ASPxPivotGrid video that shows you how to enable a very useful feature, horizontal scrolling:

Horizontal scrolling can help you better design your web sites because the ASPxPivotGrid will not automatically expand if there are too many columns.

And it’s very easy to setup. Watch the short ASPxPivotGrid Horizontal Scrolling video to see how simple it is.

Then drop me a line here with your thoughts and/or comments.

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, ASPxPivotGrid, How-To, screencast, v2010.1, Video, VS2010)

Video: How To Enable JavaScript IntelliSense

Check out this ‘How-to Enable JavaScript IntelliSense with DevExpress ASP.NET Clientside objects’ video:

The video walks you through few simple steps it takes to get IntelliSense support for the Clientside objects of our ASP.NET controls. If you’d like to see a written version, check out this detailed blog post.

Watch the how-to video and then drop me a line below with your thoughts on this excellent feature.

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, How-To, screencast, v2010.1, Video, VS2010)

New DevExpress Web.Config Settings

Starting with DXperience v2010.1, we’re making a small and useful change. We’re adding a new section to the web.config file for settings used by DevExpress ASP.NET controls.

New Section

Here’s the default section that you’ll find at the bottom of a new web project using DXperience v2010.1 release:

<devExpress>
  <compression enableHtmlCompression="false"  
               enableCallbackCompression="true" 
               enableResourceCompression="true"  
               enableResourceMerging="false" />
  <themes enableThemesAssembly="true" />
  <errors callbackErrorRedirectUrl="" />
</devExpress>

Upgrading Simplified

Your current website will not break due to this new section. We’ve added backward compatibility for our previous settings. Therefore, if there are any old DX appsettings in your web.config file:

1. They will work without any issues.
2. They will be replaced/updated with our new config section when you open your ASPX page in designer mode. Of course, your previous settings and values will not change, they will be simply moved to the new section.

Even with backwards compatibility, I recommend updating to the newer settings. This can be done easily by opening one of your ASPX pages in the designer mode.

Settings Explained

The <compression> settings relate to the 4 settings introduced last year that help increase your website’s performance:

From 4 Settings To Improve DevExpress ASP.NET Performance blog post:

• enableHtmlCompression – Compresses HTML output to the client browser including AJAX callbacks (false by default)
  • To compress individual pages, use the DevExpress.Web.ASPxClasses.ASPxWebControl.MakeResponseCompressed() method.
• enableCallbackCompression – Compresses AJAX callbacks (true by default)
• enableResourceCompression – Compresses scripts and CSS files (true by default)
• enableResourceMerging – Combines all scripts in one file (from different assemblies) and merge all CSS-files in one file. Reduces server requests. (false by default)

The <themes enableThemesAssembly=”true” /> setting means that you’ll get better performance from our enhanced ASP.NET Themes DLL.

The <errors callbackErrorRedirectUrl=””> helps you to redirect to another URL when an error occurs within a callback. To learn more, check out the “Redirect Callback using an ASPxHttpHandler Module” video.

Why The Change?

To ensure that DevExpress settings are not confused with standard Visual Studio web.config settings, we’ve decided to separate the settings into our own section.

Also, many of the above settings relate to our special ASP.NET HttpHandler module, the ASPxHttpHandlerModule. This section also contains other settings like the callbackErrorRedirectUrl. And we have plans to use this section for other settings in the future.

Having our own IntelliSense support in the web.config would help to avoid typos, which is why we’ll be adding IntelliSense for our web.config settings in a future release. Unfortunately, there’s a bug in VS2010 that prevents us from adding it but we’ll add it as soon as the bug is resolved.

Your Feedback Matters

Of course, this was originally a customer suggestion, so thanks for the feedback, Crono.

To recap:

• New ASP.NET projects using DXperience v2010.1 and beyond will use the new <devexpress> web.config section to manage global settings of your web sites and applications.
• The change should be seamless on new projects.
• Our older web.config settings are backwards compatible.
• You can easily upgrade our older settings by opening one of your project’s ASPX files in the Visual Studio designer mode.

Drop me a line below with your thoughts on this change?

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, DXperience, Features, How-To, performance, v2010.1

ASP.NET Reports: How To Setup A Master Detail Report

Check out this ‘How-to Setup An ASP.NET Master-Detail Report’ video. The screencast shows easy it is to add master-detail information using the ASP.NET XtraReports Suite:

The video pace is not too fast and covers what you need to build your first ‘master-detail’ report. The video also builds on the previous ‘ASP.NET Data-Aware Report’. But don’t worry, I cover that in the video too.

Watch the ‘How-to Setup An ASP.NET Master-Detail Report’ video and then drop me a line below with your thoughts. Thanks!

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, How-To, screencast, v2010.1, Video, VS2010), XtraReports

How To Get JavaScript IntelliSense With DevExpress Client-Side Objects – v2010 vol 1

Check out this how-to guide that helps you get IntelliSense support for DevExpress client-side objects in Visual Studio.

Add IntelliSense Support

Follow these 3 easy steps to add IntelliSense support to your project:

1) Install the latest DXperience v2010.1 release. (Currently, the DXperience v2010.1 beta is available to DXperience subscription license holders).

2) Click the ‘Add Existing Item’ in your project menu. Then add the ASPxScriptIntelliSense.js file to your project which should be located in the following folder:

%DevExpress Install Folder %\DevExpress2010.1\Components\Sources\DevExpress.Web.ASPxScriptIntellisense\ASPxScriptIntelliSense.js

For example, on my local machine the ASPxScriptIntelliSense.js file is located here:

C:\Program Files\DevExpress 2010.1\Components\Sources\DevExpress.Web.ASPxScriptIntellisense\ASPxScriptIntellisense.js

3) Type the following code in the page <body> section in the page that you want to enable JavaScript IntelliSense:

Note: It's important to check the “if(DesignMode)” statement because it helps to avoid additional round trips to the server for the ASPxScriptIntelliSense.js file. It also helps to prevent mixing up the IntelliSense schema classes and production scripts classes.

That's it - you now have full IntelliSense support for DevExpress client controls in BLOCKED SCRIPT

New Cast Methods

We’ve also added special static Cast methods which enable you to cast the DevExpress control's client object and then get the client object’s properties, methods and events via IntelliSense.

(e.g. ASPxClientButton.Cast(obj), ASPxClientTreeList.Cast(obj), etc.). You can use these methods with event arguments:

These new cast methods also accept the ClientInstanceName of the client object. Therefore, to get a client object with IntelliSense support, simply pass the ClientInstanceName as a string to the Cast method:

Cast Sender Object

You also get JavaScript IntelliSense for the gridInstance variable. For example, this method shows how you can cast the sender object and get JavaScript IntelliSense:

Fig.1:

Fig.2:

Fig.3:

Standalone JavaScript File Support

If you want to enable IntelliSense for our controls in a standalone JavaScript file then simply add a reference to our ASPxScriptIntelliSense file at the top:

Please note that this feature is only available in Visual Studio 2008 and 2010.

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, Client-side, DXperience, Features, How-To, v2010.1, VS2008), VS2010)

Installer Preview: Smarter, Faster And Sexier – v2010 vol 1

Check out the images below of the updated DXperience v2010.1 Unified .NET Installer. First let’s review some of the changes:

Smarter

• This installer will work for both Visual Studio 2008 and 2010. Because some of the features and products will only work in VS2010, the installer will automatically enable and disable the products based on the IDE and .NET frameworks installed. More on this below.
• The installer now uses Visual Studio’s built-in “ASP.NET Development Server” to simplify using our ASP.NET demos.

Smaller

The installer size has been reduced! The latest DXperience beta build that I got my hands on is v2010.1.2 and it includes:

• All .NET binaries for our products
• Source code (if you have the paid option)
• And no documentation.

For example, this latest DXperience beta build is now approximately 193mb.

Faster

Because documentation files were moved to a separate installer, the time to install is also reduced.

Sexier

Check out this walkthrough of installing DXperience v2010.1 in to my local development virtual machine. Click any image to see a larger version:

Step 1 – Launch the installer, enter my Client Center credentials and Verify the login details:

Step 2 – Select the DevExpress products you wish to install:

Step 3 – Agree to the EULA:

Step 4 – Select destination folder:

Step 5 – Wait a few minutes for the installer to extract and install the necessary files:

Step 5 – Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed the installation!

Optional step 6 – If the ‘Launch DemoCenter’ check box was left checked then you’ll see our slick DemoCenter application popup. It’s a very handy way to see all the new demos and highlighted features of our products:

And that’s it! You’re now installed DXperience v2010 volume 1.

Happy Coding!

Tags: - Virtualization, Application Packaging, DXperience, Features, How-To, v2010.1, VS2008), VS2010)