WPF New Features - 2007 Volume 2

NetAdvantage® for WPF 2007 Volume 2 adds several powerful new controls that empower your Windows® Presentation Foundation (WPF) applications to rise to increasing user demands. With these new controls, you can develop data visualization applications that condense volumes of data into crystal clear graphics and organize all of your application's functionality compactly and intuitively using new innovations like the ribbon introduced in Office® 2007. Many other improvements to enhance and extend the user experience your applications can deliver round out the features added to the WPF controls in this, it's second, release.

 

xamChart™ - Stunning New WPF Charting Control!

The xamChart is a new visual WPF control that presents your heavy-duty data using graphics to enable users to more quickly analyze and understand its relevance. This WPF chart control displays values using columns, pie wedges, cylinders and more using the advanced graphics rendering capabilities inherent in the WPF platform.

Chart Types

The xamChart control supports 25 different chart types, which will allow you to select the perfect look to accent the data in your application.

The horizontal bar chart is one of many chart types included in the xamChart control.
The pie chart is one of many chart types included in the xamChart control.

xamChart includes all of the following chart types:

  • Area chart
  • Bar chart
  • Bubble chart
  • Candle chart
  • Column chart
  • Cylinder bar chart
  • Cylinder chart
  • Doughnut chart
  • Line chart
  • Pie chart
  • Point chart
  • Scatter chart
  • Scatter line chart
  • Spline chart
  • Stacked 100% area chart
  • Stacked 100% bar chart
  • Stacked 100% column chart
  • Stacked 100% cylinder bar chart
  • Stacked 100% cylinder chart
  • Stacked area chart
  • Stacked bar chart
  • Stacked column chart
  • Stacked cylinder bar chart
  • Stacked cylinder chart
  • Stock chart (OHLC bar)


3D Rendering

3D graphics rendering can be turned on for many chart types nearly doubling the number of chart types possible to display stunning visualizations that jump out at your users. Control the perspective, texture and lighting to make an affective display that impresses while it also informs.

The 3D bubble chart is one of many chart types included in the xamChart control.
The 3D cylinder chart is one of many chart types included in the xamChart control.
The 3D doughnut chart is one of many chart types included in the xamChart control.
The 3D stacked cylinder chart is one of many chart types included in the xamChart control.


Composite Charts

For optimal extensibility, xamChart is a WPF chart for your applications that was built with enabling composite chart creation in mind. The creation of composite charts has never been so easy. Simply add a couple series to the xamChart control and bind them to your data. By making each series render using a different chart type you can create complex composite charts that combine all the points of view that you need to best describe the data's importance.

Display multiple point of view, in one chart, with the composite charting feature in the WPF xamChart.

 

xamRibbon - New Office 2007 ribbon UI for every WPF application!

The xamRibbon™ control is a menu control that replicates the Microsoft® Office® 2007 Ribbon functionality in a Microsoft® Windows® Presentation Foundation (WPF) application. Instead of using the plain, default, drop-down menu of decades past, you can use xamRibbon to give your application a stylish look and feel. Not only can you improve your application's look and feel, you can also improve usability by using xamRibbon's many features.

Application Menu

The application menu is the main menu of the application. The application menu is divided into three separate areas:

  • The left area displays buttons intended for file operations.
  • The right area displays buttons similarly to the left area. Another use for the right area might be a most recently used list.
  • The bottom area displays buttons such as application options or an exit button.
Application menu divided into 2 areas - file operations, most recent list, and application options.
 


Quick Access Toolbar

The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) is a small, user-configurable toolbar that is always visible either above (default) or below the Ribbon control. The QAT's versatility is shown when adding any of the Ribbon tools to it; in fact, you can add an entire Ribbon group to the QAT with ease.

Quick access toolbar is either always displayed above or below the ribbon control.

 

Quick Access toolbar displays an additional option menu.

 


Tabs and Tab Groups

If you have ever used a Tab in an application, xamRibbon's object model will quickly become familiar to you. The xamRibbon control includes a collection of tabs, each with a collection of groups, each group with a collection of tools. This structure allows you to organize tools into functionally-related application tasks that your end users can easily discover.

Ribbon displaying multiple tab options for users. Each tab option contains a collection of groups and the groups contain a collection of tools.

 

xamComboEditor™ - New Combo Box Control Added to xamEditors™

The xamComboEditor is an editor control that provides a drop-down list from which your users can select an item. As with the other xamEditors, the xamComboEditor can be plugged in to the xamDataGrid™ for use as an inline data editor with drop-down list capabilities. Now it's easy for your users to edit the value of a data grid or data presenter cell from an enumerable collection. This can help make your WPF data-driven applications more user friendly, and decrease the risk of typographic errors during data entry.

xamComboEditor drop-down list function.