The DevExpress 2011 Roadmap

Silverlight

Our goals for Silverlight in 2011 include the completion of our designer support in Visual Studio 2010 and in Expression Blend 4, better theme support, and continual improvements in performance. Of course we shall continue with our efforts to synchronize our Silverlight and WPF offerings under the XPF umbrella.

For DXGrid in v2011 vol.1, the design-time features will be ported to Silverlight from WPF. We shall also provide smooth scrolling, an asynchronous server mode (also known as Instant Feedback™ UI Server Mode), full RIA Services support and a search panel. We shall also update the grid UI by providing a close button for a grouped column header, keeping the group row visible over the grid table, providing more built-in animations and so on. For vol.2, we’ll provide master-detail, a banded (or layout) view, and a date column filter. We shall also port CardView to Silverlight. Also this year we shall be improving our MVVM support with the DXGrid. In v2011 vol 1 we will also provide a tree list control.

With regard to the editor controls in Silverlight, the first major release will contain the progress bar from WPF, improved usability and consistency of the editors, a Grid Search lookup control. In the second release, you’ll see a FontComboBoxEdit, a HyperLinkEdit, a Time/DateTime Edit, further overall improvements and enhancements to editors, and we will research a MRU-Lookup Grid.

For DXDocking, we’ll aim for feature parity for the docking control between WPF and Silverlight as well as design-time support and MDI support in the first release. DXLayoutControl will see the addition of the DataLayoutItem and DataLayoutControl (which have the ability to bind to data without specifying an editor), and a Close button for both the GroupBox and the LayoutGroup (the ability to hide groups in other words).

For version v2011.1 the DXRibbon will gain the ribbon style from Microsoft Office for the Mac, BackStageView, and we’ll be providing an MVVM demo which not only shows off the ribbon but also the DXNavBar. The Gallery control will gain horizontal orientation.

With v2011.2 we shall be further enhancing DXDocking, DXLayoutControl, DXRibbon, and so on.

For the first major release of the year we shall provide the first version of a Silverlight scheduler control. The following release will see a DateNavigator control for the scheduler and a year view.

With regard to the rich-text edit control, we are considering providing a Document Server component to perform mail-merge and output to different formats; improving mail-merge with custom fields, field-related customization, and so on; providing better table support, supporting the .doc format, and providing new built-in dialogs in the first major release. The second release will contain auto correct and hyperlink detection as you type, and section and paragraph borders.

WPF

Our goals for WPF are pretty much the same as for Silverlight (including the tree list), especially considering the desire to achieve equivalence between our XPF products. In essence, by the end of the year, the functionality of DXGrid, DXEditors, DXDocking, and DXRibbon will be the same across both platforms.

The new features for the scheduler will include a DateNavigator control and a new year view. Given the amount of work needed for the Silverlight scheduler control, these new features are more likely to be in the later release than the earlier one.

The rich text edit control will be improved with the same features described in the Silverlight section.

ASP.NET

Taking web programming as a whole, our aims are to investigate the new technologies and platforms (HTML5 will come into its own this year), provide new controls, and further improve our current controls.

In v2011 vol.1 we will provide a Theme Builder tool, a docking control, new features and extensions for ASP.NET MVC, multi-header columns for the ASPxGridView, a three-state check box, and import/export for the HTML editor. It’s likely that theme support will be added to the Upload control in this release. In addition we shall be spending some time investigating HTML5 and CSS3 to see how we can support them better and we shall also be researching mobile web technology.

In v2011 vol.2, we shall provide a Trackbar control, an Image Gallery control, and an advanced Tooltip control. We’ll be improving the upload control with multiple file selection and large file support. We’ll also provide vertical scrolling with the TreeList. It’s also likely that we’ll be writing a couple of large example apps for both WebForms and ASP.NET MVC to provide guidance on using our controls.

For the scheduler the main feature will be the year view. It is likely that this will be in the later release rather than the earlier one.

With regard to the pivot grid for ASP.NET, please see the new section for DXperience Analytics.

Windows Forms

With regard to the Windows Forms controls, it is most likely that there will be a large number of smaller enhancements and new features rather than any large complex new control. The reason for this is simple: we believe that our offerings for this platform are very mature and robust. That’s not to say that our premier controls like the grid are in any shape or form “complete”, but we recognize that more benefits will come from performance improvements, usability improvements, and simplification of the APIs than by adding major features. Nevertheless, we welcome any thoughts and feedback you may have regarding features and functionality for our WinForms controls.

The scheduler will be enhanced with the year view. It is likely that this will be in the later release rather than the earlier one.

The rich text edit control will be improved with the same features described in the Silverlight section.

Reporting

Unlike previous years where I’d describe our roadmap for reporting as part of our platform strategies, I’m splitting out XtraReports into its own section. This reflects the importance we feel reporting can provide to our overall company goals. Our aim for 2011 is to make it easier for developers to create and share reports, and easier for end-users to view, export, and use reports.

In the first major version of 2011, we shall be implementing the first iteration of a Report Designer for XPF, our common XAML codebase (in all probability, the Silverlight version). We shall also provide ASP.NET document map and parameter support, an ASP.NET MVC toolbar and viewer, a WinForms Report Wizard, and provide our report definition and style files as XML.

The next major version will see many GDI improvements, the removal of GDI+ calls to provide better support for Azure, the completion of our XPF Report Designer (mainly WPF, this time), and the provision of a Live Preview control. We may even get to the point of implementing SVG export, something that has been requested by customers.

Charting

Like reporting, we are going to separate our charting products under their own umbrella. Again, like reporting, charting is a product line that’s becoming more important to our company goals. To summarize our objectives for 2011, we shall be broadening the range of chart types across all supported platforms, and strive for feature parity between the traditional (XtraCharts) and the new platforms (DXCharts).

For the first major release of XtraCharts, we shall provide an ASP.NET MVC charting product, support for our standard skinning engine and skins, various pie chart improvements (for example, the positioning of labels), some new chart types (Step Area, Stacked Line, Range Area, Range Spline Area), and make algorithmic changes to remove overlapping axis labels. Later in the year, we’ll provide support for axis groups, add multiple legends, add some more chart types (3D scatter plot, 3D mesh surface, and possibly a heat map), and include some more financial chart indicators.

For v2011 vol.1, our DXCharts products for WPF and Silverlight will see scrolling & zooming, new chart types (Gantt, Range Bars, Radar, Polar and Splines, Step Area, Stacked Line, Range Area, Range Spline Area), printing and export support, improvements with pivot grid integration, resolution of overlapping axes labels, pie chart improvements (e.g. label positions), and logarithmic scales. For vol.2, we shall add support for multiple panes, hot tracking and selection (both declarative in XAML and programmatic in C#/VB), declarative tooltips, Swift Plot, and multiple legends for side-by-side pie charts and panes. We shall also start on an XPF chart wizard.

Analytics

For some time now we’ve been of the opinion that an analytics package would fill a missing hole in our line-up of products. Sure, we have the individual pieces but, unless you purchase DXperience Enterprise, you’d find it hard to accumulate them all.

So, as part of our roadmap for 2011, we’re announcing that we will be producing a DXperience Analytics package. This new package will comprise those analytical controls we already have, adding some more, and improving existing controls. In essence DXperience Analytics will comprise reporting, charting, gauges, and the pivot grid; essentially all you would need to create a dashboard type application.

For the first release of 2011, we shall be improving the performance of ASPxPivotGrid as well as adding ADOMD.NET support and a group filter. Similarly we shall be improving the performance of the DXPivotGrid for WPF and making a start on a DXPivotGrid for Silverlight. It is at this time that the DXperience Analytics package will be created.

The second release of the year will see the completion of the pivot grid control for Silverlight, the improvement of end-user capabilities of the pivot grids, the addition of complete OLAP support, and filtering by summaries. We also hope to be able to flesh out our gauges by moving them to our XPF platform.

Business Frameworks

Our business frameworks are XPO (eXpress Persistent Objects) and XAF (eXpressApp Framework), the latter only available with the DXperience Universal package. Our overarching goals here are to simplify, to enhance, and to educate.

For XPO’s first major release, we shall be providing Instant Feedback support for DXGrids; what might be called a “lite” LINQ server mode (some data sources like OData and RIA Services have limited support for LINQ) and improve the developer story for using such data sources; complete the Silverlight data layer that we’ve been working on; and refine and merge the OData provider for XPO. The second release depends mainly on XAF since we’ll be providing as much as is necessary to support a Silverlight app target in XAF.

Moving onto XAF, there are many new features and enhancements coming. In the first release of the year, we’ll have: a security system on the data layer level; workflow integration with Workflow Foundation; various improvements to the ASP.NET UI (more AJAX, better performance); performance improvements across the board (we aim to halve the startup time, work faster with large detail collections); better filtering support (filter by form, etc); support for a multi-step UI (that is, wizards). We’ll also fully release the Domain Components support we’ve been working on in 2010. The second release will include improvements to the reporting and scheduler modules, easy calculated fields, grid list editor improvements (master-detail, more view support), and various design time improvements (Easy Test, designers, item templates, etc.). Finally we shall be releasing SilverLight & WPF UI support.

VCL

As stated in the roadmap preamble, one of our main goals for the VCL products is to change the release schedule. Along with this we’re going to change the sales and distribution model, create evaluation versions, and provide more content in the form of tutorial videos, webinars, and blog posts.

In 2011, we shall move our VCL products to a simple subscription model with three levels of packages. Individual controls will no longer be provided. We will offer three suites. We’ll beef up the ExpressQuantumPack suite with printing and skins. We’ll add a new pack, the ExpressGridPack to contain the grid, tree-list, pivot grid and printing. And then there will be the usual full VCL subscription.

Along with this change, we are going to move to a biannual release cycle for major releases with intermediary minor bug-fix releases released every month or so. In essence, the VCL packages will be following the DXperience release cycle, and for reasons of efficiency with sales and support will precede our .NET release dates by a month or so. The major releases next year will be dubbed v2011 vol.1 and v2011 vol.2 (or 11.1 and 11.2 for short) and will appear in quarter 2 (say April) and in quarter 4 (say October).

The next big change is that we are going to restrict which Delphi/C++Builder/RADStudio IDEs we will officially support. For Delphi these are Delphi 7 (we know a lot of you are still using it), Delphi 2007 (it’s the last ANSI string version), Delphi 2010, and Delphi XE. For C++Builder, it’s C++Builder 2007, C++Builder 2010, and C++Builder XE. (Of course, these include the equivalent RADStudio versions.)

In v2011 vol.1, we will provide the first evaluation version of our VCL components, for RADStudio XE. With regard to the controls, ExpressPivotGrid will support the compact layout for hierarchical row values (like the WinForms XtraPivotGrid in v2010.1); extend the number of summary types (for example, count unique values); add the end-user capability to easily change the SummaryType of data fields; improve the export to Excel functionality to make it possible to export data in a simplified layout to support further data analysis; and improve OLAP support. For the ExpressScheduler, we will increase performance by redesigning the data store; add an agenda view; add task groups and subtasks for the Gantt view; add milestone indicators for the Gantt view; implement a treeview-like hierarchy for events and tasks in the Gantt view; and add iCal support. The ExpressQuantumGrid won’t be without its enhancements either: we’ll add a grid design wizard; improve data controller performance; and add more chart views such as splines. For ExpressBars, expect to see an implementation of the Visual Studio 2005+ docking indicators to the Docking manager and an Office-like color selection dropdown.

In v2011 vol.2, we will add server mode to the ExpressQuantumGrid, that is, the ability of the grid to only request data from the database server that can be displayed. ExpressEditors will get several improvements. The date edit control will allow you to provide a way to specify edit mask/display format; the scrollbar control will be usable standalone; the buttons will gain access to an image list; the rich text editor will gain extra functionality; and we’ll add a Windows Explorer breadcrumb editor. The scheduler will get an agenda view. We shall also be adding new functionality and improving the tree list, the vertical grid, and the spell checker.

CodeRush

We’ll continue our efforts to keep CodeRush number one in performance, stability, and lean memory use. With that in mind, we shall provide new features supporting new technologies and new language enhancements. Existing features will be improved to be more intelligent and even more efficient.

For the first major release of 2011, we intend to improve our ASP.NET MVC 3 support in the form of templates and the like, as well as ship a parser for Razor to provide first-class support for the new style of templates. As CTP and beta drops of the new C# 5.0 / VB 11 compilers become available, expect CodeRush to be updated in sync with support for the new language features, like the async and await keywords. We’ll deliver code formatting and code clean-up. Consume-first declaration will be smarter and more extensive, creating more intelligent declarations based on a deeper understanding of the surrounding code. Code issue detection will gain new issues and there will be more refactorings, including Inline Method and Extract to Helper Class. The fastest test runner for .NET will gain MSpec support, and we’ll add features to make it easier to work with and refactor legacy code.

For the second major release, the team will improve functionality across the board: more refactorings, mode code issues, more code generation, more legacy code support, and better JavaScript, MVC, HTML, and ASP.NET support.