asp:review
DXperience Universal
How Suite It Is
By Anand Narayanaswamy
Many companies have released a range of products rolled
into a .NET suite for Windows and Web development. These products not only
simplify programming tasks, they also provide components that can be used to
deliver cutting-edge interfaces and instantly modify the look and feel of an
entire application. DXperience Universal from Developer Express (DevExpress) is
one such product (http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/DXperience/editionUniversal.xml).
DXperience includes a plethora of components for developing highly powerful
Windows and ASP.NET applications. I reviewed the first build of the 2008 series,
which contains tons of feature enhancements, focusing mainly on the components
meant for ASP.NET applications.
I tested the product on a machine loaded with Windows XP
Service Pack 2 with 512 MB of RAM. The installation package was around 150 MB;
I downloaded it within 20 minutes using a broadband connection. DevExpress
deserves special credit as they have created a user-friendly installer with
easy to understand instructions. It automatically creates the required items on
the Start menu and adds the controls to the Visual Studio Toolbox.
DXperience ships with numerous controls that can be used
not only to develop Windows and Web-based projects, but also to include
libraries for developing applications that make use of reports and charts in
addition to IDE productivity and ORM tools CodeRush and eXpressPersistent
Objects, which I hope will be useful for advanced developers. DevExpress also provides
a product named eXpressApp Framework (http://www.devexpress.com/xaf)
that leverages and exploits their rich set of presentation and reporting
components, and allows developers to build and maintain business applications
with ease, thereby drastically reducing time to develop solutions for end
users.
The ASP.NET components are bundled into various suites:
ASPxGridView, ASPxperience, ASPxScheduler, ASPxSpell, and ASPxHTML Editor. The
ASPxperience suite includes a set of 20 controls. A notable feature is the
inclusion of a cloud/tag control, which I hope will be useful during the
development of a knowledge base or a content management application.
DXperience ships with a new rich text editor for ASP.NET
2.0, built entirely with the ASPxperience Suite with the integration of
ASPxUploadControl for embedding images. It includes the newly released AJAX-based
ASPxTreeList control, which has numerous performance optimization features. It
enables developers to render paged and hierarchical TreeLists, along with many
other options (see Figure 1). The data loads quickly because of the powerful built-in
AJAX capabilities.
Figure 1: Easily select an item
using the TreeList control.
The latest build includes improvements for the ASPxGridView,
ASPxPivotGrid, and ASPxScheduler suites, in addition to several suites oriented
for the development of Windows-based applications. A complete list of all the
new features is located at http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/DXperience/WhatsNew2008v1.
Moreover, DevExpress has made available for the entire ASP.NET product line more
than 10 popular theme styles, which I feel is a big bonus for developers, as
they can develop applications with a uniform look and feel.
I m a big fan of the GridView control, so I was eager to test
the ASPxGridView control using Visual Studio 2005. I was able to populate the
control with the data using the various options from the smart tag and
customize the look and feel of it by changing the theme without a single line
of code. Developers should learn the use of the various properties included
with each of the controls so they can make efficient use of them easily.
The column headers can now be displayed as filter dropdown
buttons with the help of the Header Filter feature included with the current
build. This feature enables a user to dynamically filter a column based on a
unique value (see Figures 2 and 3). It also reduces the search time for
locating specific data from the Grid for large databases. I was amazed to see
that I was able to implement this functionality directly from the Properties
window.
Figure 2: The ASPxGridView control before
selecting the Header Filter feature.
Figure 3: The ASPxGridView control after
selecting the Header Filter feature.
There is absolutely no need for developers to write a
single line of code for performing standard tasks. However, coding may be
required for advanced projects (depending on the nature of the application
being developed). The next component in my pipeline was Menus. I was able to
design a simple menu by making use of the various styles. A key feature is that
menu items and corresponding URLs can be directly added from within the smart
tag, and the required changes are reflected immediately.
I also tested a few other controls, and was able to work
with them very easily. DevExpress main goal was to simplify programming time; they
have achieved this through the components included in the DXperience suite.
And although my main objective was to measure the
performance of the components designed for ASP.NET, I also tested a few of the controls
oriented for Windows Forms; they all worked like a charm. As mentioned, the
product is bundled with components designed for integrating charts (http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/WinForms/XtraCharts)
and reports (http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/WinForms/XtraReports)
into ASP.NET applications.
The chart control includes a wizard you can use to
customize the look and feel. For guidance purposes, I would suggest DevExpress
include the progress of the wizard (such as Step 4 of 15) at the top of the
window. A key feature of XtraCharts is its ability to render different types of
2D and 3D charts, such as Bar, Gantt, Point, Line, Area, Pie, Radar, Polar,
Candle Stick, Stock, and Manhattan Bar. Moreover, it provides full support for
True OpenGL Rendering, Full Anti-Aliasing, Perspective Projection, Gradient
Fill, and Texture and Transparency. An interesting point to note is that the
chart demo application included with the product provides a snapshot of each
and every chart view, with the required explanation and customization features
(see Figure 4). This should help developers in making decisions during the
development stage.
Figure 4: Chart demo in action.
XtraReports comes with a full-blown designer, as well as the
ability to create subreports. It seamlessly integrates with Visual Studio, with
support for Mail Merge, Master-Detail, Data Filtering, and Grouping. It ships
with lots of native controls, such as Label, Line, BarCode, CheckBox, PageInfo,
Panel, PictureBox, PageBreak, Table, and ZipCode, along with an enhanced
RichText control and Report Explorer. XtraReports enables you to integrate your
reporting applications with the XtraReports Toolbar from within the Visual
Studio IDE, as well as preview the generated report before its distribution. A
notable feature is that it ships with a report wizard that guides you in the
report-creation activities.
DevExpress constantly provides updates and new products as
and when a new technology/framework is released. At the time of this writing they
were scheduled to release and showcase the beta of a new grid control for WPF
and Silverlight, which promises new features for these new platforms. With this
new control, developers can use the grid to develop applications powered by
Silverlight and/or WPF technology.
DevExpress provides standard controls such as Button,
Label, TextBox, RadioButton, and many more, which enables you to develop
applications completely using the product without depending on the controls
included with the .NET Framework. This enables you to develop applications with
a uniform look and feel. You also can develop and integrate your own themes if
you are an advanced developer.
I am very much impressed by the support provided by DevExpress.
They reply to all queries very systematically, depending on the severity of the
problem. In fact, they have developed a dedicated support portal (http://www.devexpress.com/Support/)
that lists all the available options, including a comprehensive knowledge base,
documentation, and online video demonstrations presented by the support team
and other product team members. They also manage a blog, from which you can
learn tips and tricks included with each product.
The entire product line is very extensive and it may take
a couple of days for a developer to become accustomed with it (depending on
their skill level). Depending on the creativity and imagination, a developer
can build any type of application, be it pure Windows-based word processing
software or an ASP.NET-based online invoicing system.
Rating:
Web Site: http://www.devexpress.com
Price: US$1,999.99
Anand Narayanaswamy,
a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), works as an independent
consultant based in Trivandrum, India. Anand also works as chief technical
editor for ASPAlliance.com. He is the author of
Community Server Quickly (http://www.packtpub.com/community-server/book).
He runs http://www.learnxpress.com, http://www.dotnetalbum.com, http://www.csharpfaq.com, http://www.computerbookreviews.org,
and http://www.devreviews.com. Find
out more about him at http://www.visualanand.net.
He can be reached at mailto:visualanand@gmail.com.