Silverlight Controls New Features – 2011 Volume 1

Achieve Visual Studio 2010-style docking and layout management within your Silverlight applications, and much more. In NetAdvantage® for Silverlight Line of Business 2011 Volume 1, we deliver the most comprehensive support on the market for building Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) that integrate into your Microsoft® Office®-centric solutions. We have added the ability to export Silverlight grid data to this WordML (.docx) file format. Our Outlook® 2010-style scheduling solutions are built upon our Silverlight scheduling controls with Community Technology Preview (CTP) functionality that allows you limited WCF connectivity with your existing scheduling data housed in Microsoft Exchange Server.  We also have added a consistent, visual theme that you can apply across all of our Silverlight controls in the IG Theme with this release.

 

Export Our Silverlight Grid to Word Documents - NEW!

We include the Silverlight Grid Word Writer, a new lightweight control that enables you to efficiently stream our Silverlight grid control to a WordML (.docx file format) document.  With only a few simple lines of code, you can make it so that your Silverlight application's end users can take the data from our existing Silverlight data grids with them, or share with co-workers in this widely supported document format.

 

Silverlight Grid - Enhanced!

While our Silverlight Grid control is already the fastest data grid on the market today, we're now making it the most feature rich, too! This volume release includes a number of new features for everything from simplifying the entry of new data records to improving the data grid's RIA Services integration.

Merged Cells - NEW!

Merged cells enable you to present like-valued data in a given column so that it appears merged together with the adjoining cells into a single cell.

Merged Cells

Data Annotations - NEW!

Our Silverlight grid control honors data annotations through the DisplayAttribute, EditableAttribute, DisplayFormatAttribute and TimestampAttribute so you can integrate better with RIA Services.

ComboBox Column - NEW!

A ComboBox column makes it simple for you to embed the Silverlight ComboBox control into our Silverlight grid control's cells.

11.1 - xamGrid ComboBox Column

Active Item - NEW!

When you are using a Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) architecture, you can now easily access the currently active data item (related to the currently ActiveCell) from your root-level ColumnLayout.

xamGrid_ActiveItem_JP

Selected Date Format - NEW!

You can now set the SelectedDateFormat string for the embedded date picker control that appears in the DateColumn.

11.1 - xamGrid Selected Date Format

Add New Row Template - NEW!

The element tree within the Add New Row area can now be fully customized, so that you can create the appearance you want for this area of our Silverlight grid control where your application's end users enter new data records.  We have included two new templates associated with Add New Row.  These templates allow you to customize the default view and include: AddNewRowEditorTemplate and AddNewRowItemTemplate.

11.1 - xamGrid - Add New Row Template

 

Silverlight Schedule Controls - Enhanced!

We have added new elements and enhancements to our suite of Silverlight scheduling controls to improve the Microsoft Outlook® 2010-style user experience that you can now deliver to your Silverlight Line of Business application's end users.

Silverlight Date Navigator Control - NEW!

We've added a new and compact date navigator control that operates within the scheduling infrastructure of our other Silverlight scheduling controls, and that is light enough to use in your Silverlight Line of Business applications to enable quick and easy date navigation by your application's end users.

11.1 - xamSchedule Date Navigator

 

Outlook Calendar View - NEW!

We are introducing a new control that synchronizes selection and activation across any combination of Silverlight day view, Silverlight month view and Silverlight schedule view controls to simulate the look and behavior of the Microsoft Outlook® calendar view.

11.1 - Outlook Calendar View

 

Microsoft Exchange Data Connector  - CTP!

In this preview release, we have added a Microsoft Exchange® Data Connector for Silverlight that gives you limited WCF connectivity to tap the vast repository of activity, resource and calendar information you have in your Microsoft Exchange implementation.

Additional Microsoft Outlook-Style Dialogs - NEW!

In this release we have added new dialogs that allow you to better mimic the Microsoft Outlook 2010-style user experience for Task and Journal entries.

xamSchedule_JournalDialog_JP

 

Miscellaneous Features

We have continued to enhance our Silverlight scheduling controls so that it continues to be your full-featured scheduling solution, with a number of additional features that include:

  • Resize Day View Headers - This feature allows for the Silverlight Day View's header to have an area that is resizable and scrollable.
  • Resize Schedule View Headers - This feature allows for the Silverlight Schedule View's header to have an area that is resizable and scrollable.
  • Activity Categories - Add activity categories to the Silverlight scheduling controls to let users categorize groups of activities through color coding and descriptive text.
  • Calendar Group Resizing and Scrolling - Where the Silverlight scheduling controls allows the ability to display multiple groups of calendars; all groups are of equal size.  We've enhanced this so that you can now resize the calendars, or scroll different groups of calendars into and out-of-view.

Silverlight Scheduling Controls

 

Windows 7-Style Silverlight Calendar - NEW!

This new Windows® 7-style Silverlight calendar control features single and multiple selection, and gives you a 100% XAML compatible calendar control that mimics the look and feel end users are accustomed to when using the system calendar from the Windows 7 OS. Since it has been based upon our Unified XAML Product Strategy, you can easily take your XAML with you should you later decide to move your application to WPF.

Silverlight Windows 7 Style Calendar Control

 

Silverlight Dock Manager - NEW!

Our new Silverlight docking control offers you the ability to build highly flexible layout experiences into your Silverlight RIAs. Mimic the power and versatility provided by the Visual Studio 2010 environment, by giving your application's users the Silverlight user interface in which they want to work. With the flexibility to customize the arrangement and docking of content panes, users of your Silverlight applications will have optimal control over their user interface's layout.

The Silverlight docking manager provides users the flexibility to customize the layout of their content panes.

 

Infragistics Theme - NEW!

We designed the Infragistics Theme to allow you to apply a consistent and complete visual theme across all of our Silverlight controls. Now you can have a professionally-designed, modern application design without necessarily having to rely on the look and feel of a Microsoft Office application.

IG Theme

 

Localization Support - NEW!

We now support localized resource files for all of our NetAdvantage for Silverlight Line of Business controls. Now you can easily localize your Silverlight applications for specific cultures, locales, or languages.

French and Spanish Runtime Localization

Additionally, we have added string resource translations of end-user error messages in the French and Spanish languages (this does not include developer-focused exception messages).

 

See What's New in Prior Releases

Every release of Silverlight controls for line of business application development adds value and features onto the release that came before. You can find out more about what was new in previous volume releases here, or by consulting the "What's New" page in the accompanying documentation.