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Nightly news, 17 September 2010

Another week draws to an end and we have a bumper crop of features and fixes in the latest nightly builds. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

LightSpeed

• Added support for using the “is” operator on associated entities in LINQ queries
• Added support for using non-database-backed properties in LINQ expressions
• Added support for string concatenation in LINQ expressions on non-SQL Server databases
• Added wildcard column exclusion to lsgen command-line tool
• Provided a more meaningful error if the LockVersion field was declared incorrectly
• Added an option to have sequence allocation run up to the returned sequence value instead of behind it
• Fixed a bug with function arguments which themselves had functions applied to them
• Fix for nested Any calls in a Where clause where the nested Any doesn’t have a predicate
• Fixes for designer NoReverseAssociationAttribute support
• Added fixes for hyphenated domain names in SimpleDB
• Provided a workaround for Visual Studio 2010 Server Explorer not allowing connections to SQL Server 2000 except through OLE DB

WPF Elements

• Fix for drop-down not appearing for enum values in the property grid when displaying a weak-typed ObservableDictionary
• Added RichTextBox support to the PromptDecorator

WPF Diagramming

• Tweak to make it easier for applications to detect when diagram elements have moved

Free editions from the downloads page, retail editions from the store.

Changes to the WPF Property Grid in WPF Elements 3.0

As we’ve previously mentioned, as of WPF Elements 3.0, the WPF Property Grid is now part of the Elements suite and is no longer available separately. If you’re a WPF Property Grid customer, this means there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that we’ve made some minor changes as part of the move, which may require some updates to your code. These changes are as follows:

• The PropertyGrid control is now part of the Mindscape.WpfElements namespace. If you have code-behind which refers to the PropertyGrid type, you’ll need to update your using/Imports statements. Also, if you’ve used a clr-namespace XAML namespace instead of the http namespace, you’ll need to update your XAML.
• PropertyGrid support classes such as Node and Editor are now part of the Mindscape.WpfElements.WpfPropertyGrid namespace. Again, if you’ve got code which refers to these types, you’ll need to update your using/Imports statements.
• The implementation of the NumericUpDown and Date editors has changed to use the WPF Elements numeric and date controls. If you’ve custom styled these editor, you’ll need to update your style. See the example styles included with WPF Elements for examples.
• There’s no longer a built-in masked text editor. You can however create your own using the WPF Elements MaskedTextBox control.

If you don’t want to make these changes, of course you can carry on using the Property Grid 2.x DLL — just save it and your licence file to a private project location (such as an Assemblies or ThirdParty directory) and reference it at that location. Or if you need help making the changes, jump in on the forum and let us know what the problem is.

What about the good news? Well, the good news is that all current WPF Property Grid customers receive a free upgrade to WPF Elements 3.0, which means you now get a whole truckload of cool controls thrown in alongside the grid, from basic business controls like the CurrencyTextBox to advanced business controls like the Scheduler and controls like CoverFlow that just add a touch of glamour to your user interface! Get the full details here and download your copy from the store!

Nightly news, 30 July 2010

We’ve been busy this week nailing down the hatches on WPF Elements 3.0, but we’ve also got a bunch of stuff into the latest nightly builds. Here’s what’s new.

LightSpeed

• Now you don’t even need to leave the designer to get your database created. If the designer can’t find the database when you try to do an Update Database, it will now offer to create it for you — if you’re on SQL Server, MySQL or PostgreSQL, anyway. Let us know if you want this feature for other databases too. (Except Oracle. If you want it for Oracle… please don’t let us know.) Rumours that the next version of the designer will download and install the database software for you are greatly exaggerated.
• Fixed an error with client-side boolean literals.
• Fix for an error when projecting a property declared in a derived class when using class table inheritance.
• Fixed an issue where discriminators were not respected when joining to a derived class.
• Beta support for the SQL Server Compact 4 CTP. This requires an additional assembly reference: see here for instructions. At the moment, this is only runtime support: there’s no designer integration. Of course you can still use designer-built models with the LightSpeed runtime, you just won’t be able to do database sync or migrations.
• Ninja association support, or ‘cross-cutting composite keys’ as they are more prosaically known. We’ll post more about this later, but if you can’t wait, see here for the details.

WPF Property Grid

• Fix for an exception when editing a subnode in a collection when the collection contains expandable structs.

Don’t forget the WPF Elements 3.0 beta is now available to existing property grid customers. This contains some changes to the property grid so check it out sooner rather than later!

WPF Flow Diagrams

• We’ve added some hooks to make it easier to serialise custom connections. Here’s a sample.

All these features and fixes are available in current nightly builds — get free and trial editions from the downloads page, or retail versions from the store.

WPF Elements 3.0 beta

We’re pleased to announce that a beta build of WPF Elements 3.0 is now available to existing WPF Elements, WPF Property Grid and WPF Themes customers.

WPF Elements is our suite of controls for Windows Presentation Foundation and in 3.0 we’re not only bundling in the popular Property Grid control and our stylish WPF themes, we’re also adding a whole load of new controls:

• Scheduler – Outlook-style calendar display
• DualProgressBar – display operation and sub-operation progress
• DualSlider – a handy and visual way for users to select a range
• OutlookBar – an attractive and compact tab control
• PaletteColorPicker – help your users select colors that work well together
• SplitButton – it’s a button! It’s a menu! No, it’s a benu! Or possibly a menton
• TimePicker – for selecting a time of day
• TimeSpanPicker – for selecting a duration
• RichTextToolBar – a convenient and familiar UI for formatting the WPF RichTextBox

The PropertyGrid control has also been enhanced with new themes, and WPF Themes extends these to the built-in WPF controls.

The WPF Elements 3.0 beta is in the store now and is free to current WPF Elements, WPF Property Grid and WPF Themes customers. Take it for a spin and if you run into any issues, let us know!

WPF Elements 3.0 – Important notice for WPF customers

In the next couple of weeks we will be shipping WPF Elements 3.0, it will be the largest shake up to our WPF product line up to date and is great news for all our WPF Elements, WPF Property Grid and WPF Themes customers. Personally, I can’t wait to see this update come out and see some of the great applications that people will build with all the upgraded offering! :-)

Some important notes about the new release that all WPF customers should be aware of:

WPF Property Grid

We will be merging our WPF Property Grid control into the WPF Elements family. It will no longer be a stand alone product to purchase from our store. It’s interesting and a little sad to see it go as its own standalone product as it was Mindscape’s second product that was released to market but it’s also an important step in continuing maturity of our WPF offering.

What does this mean for existing customers? If you own the WPF Property Grid product you will automatically be migrated to owning WPF Elements 3.0 as part of your active subscription for free.

WPF Themes

We released a WPF Themes product that included 5 themes for all the built in WPF controls. We’ve decided that this would be better bundled up with WPF Elements 3.0 as well and will also be discontinuing the WPF Themes individual product when WPF Elements 3.0 is released.

What does this mean for existing customers? If you own the WPF Themes product you will automatically be migrated to owning WPF Elements 3.0 as part of your active subscription for free.

WPF Elements 3.0

Beyond doing the product line up tango, WPF Elements will also get a big upgrade by way of new features in existing controls and new control additions. We’ve received wonderful feedback from customers about what they would like to see added (for example, a WPF Scheduler control like the Outlook calendar) and I’m looking forward to seeing how customers make use of them.

Price changes – the call-to-action part of this post!

With WPF Elements 3.0 we will be increasing the price of the product which is why we’re making this announcement now. If you are currently evaluating any of our WPF products then it would be a very good idea to purchase a 12 month subscription today and lock in the current pricing for the next 12 months. If you already have a subscription, you may wish to extend it for another 12 months now. This will represent a substantial saving over buying the products or renewing them once WPF Elements 3.0 is released. Also, note that if you have an inactive subscription, you can still re-activate it and renew for 12 months at a reduced amount from your account page.

Existing customers can extend their subscriptions here
Cannot-wait-to-be-customers can purchase from the store here

We hope that you’ll love the new WPF Elements when we launch it later in July.

Happy coding!