The next release of Visual WebGui will include some exciting new features that considering the amount of developers that requested these features will defiantly be some thing to look for.
We have added data binding support enabling binding of collections and datasets to list boxes and combo boxes and binding controls to a currency manager that provides synchronization between controls just as WinForms does. All the features of the data binding mechanism are available more and more controls will support data binding interactions in the next versions including the new DataGridView controls that is in work as these words are written.
Another new existing feature the next version will include is PropertyGrid support that has all the capabilities of the WinForms PropertyGrid. Most of the declarative attributes remained the same except for UI related attributes (UITypeEditor, IUIEditorService). These attributes map types to editors that can interact with the PropertyGrid through the IUIEditorService. To avoid conflict between the WinForms attributes and the Visual WebGui attributes a new attribute is introduced called WebUITypeEditor that defines how a property is edited when displayed via web while the UITypeEditor keeps on working the same way it did. From with in the WebUITypeEditor you can call GetService to retrieve the IWebUIEditorService and display a form as a dialog of a specific property or as a dropdown of a specific property. Other from these UI related issues all other attributes are applied to the Visual WebGui PropertyGrid including the type converter and all other design related attributes that developers are familiar with in WinForms. The Visual WebGui next release contains two built-in PropertyGrid editors for editing Color types and Font types the same way WinForms does while all other types are currently text based editing.
Here are some screen shots showing the new PropertyGrid:
Category sorted PropertyGrid:
Alphabetic sorted PropertyGrid:
Color type PropertyGrid editor:
This control uses a new ColorListBox control added in the new Visual WebGui release. This control has the same interface like the standard ListBox but expects its items to be typed Color. It displays its items with a color preview icon.
Font type PropertyGrid editor:
This editor uses a new dialog introduced in the next version that implements the WinForms FontDialog via Viasual WebGui. The only difference the Visual WebGui dialog has is that user response should be retrieved from a callback event handler as Visual WebGui dialogs are only modal on the client. Attaching to the closed event allows developers to check an IsCompleted property to find out if the user has completed the dialog using the OK button.
