Coming Soon: WebUI Studio.NET 2007 R2 SP1

G’ day all,

As planned, we are going to release the first service pack of WebUI Studio.NET 2007 R2 very soon (probably by next week). This first service pack which comes 2 months after the initial release, contains dozens of nice new features in addition of lots of stability fixes as usual.

I’m going to share some of the nice new features that we have in SP1 so you guys can be aware of it and to take advantage of it.

The first is the automatic parent’s key values assignment in WebGrid 6. With this feature, you can now hide unnecessary columns in the child table, while having the “Add Child Row” to work flawlessly when bound to datasource control. When the Add Child Row is performed, the client does no longer require the parent’s contraints. WebGrid will automatically detect the parent’s contraints in the server side while the child row is being added.

Many of you have asked why we don’t support other third party controls to be updated using our WebFlyPostBackManager control (which is our proprietary AJAX Manager). Some of the reasons behind this are because we used our specific architecture and functions already embedded in our Framework – which other third party controls don’t have. In this SP1, we have introduced a way to support third party controls scenario in our AJAX Manager. This is going to be an exciting new capability for you who don’t want to use ASP.NET AJAX.

In the following sample, I will show how to implement the FlyPostBack support for DotnetCharting control. The first important step is to inherit the main Chart class in order to implement the interface required by the FlyPostBack, then implement the RenderControl method. You usually do this in a new Class Library project with the third party control referenced to it. Here’s some snippet codes:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;

using ISNet.WebUI;
using dotnetCHARTING;

namespace MyChart
{
    public class MyChart : Chart, ISupportFlyPostBack
    {
        public MyChart()
            : base()
        {
            //
            // TODO: Add constructor logic here
            //
        }

        private bool _requiresUIRefresh = false;

        #region ISupportFlyPostBack Members

        void ISupportFlyPostBack.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter textWriter)
        {
            base.RenderControl(textWriter);
        }

        public bool RequiresUIRefresh
        {
            get
            {
                return _requiresUIRefresh;
            }
            set
            {
                _requiresUIRefresh = value;
            }
        }

        #endregion
    }
}

As you can see, the implementation is very straightforward and quick. The ISupportFlyPostback interface requires you to implement 2 members only, which is the RequiresUIRefresh property and the RenderControl method.

Later when you need to update the Chart control during the AJAX context, you simply call “myChart.RequiresUIRefresh = true”. FlyPostBackManager would be able to automatically detect and include the control to be updated to the client.

There are also numerous nice enhancements made to the Pivot Charting in WebGrid 6 and better dual monitor support in WebContextMenu and WebMenuBar.

In addition, we also have improved our XmlCompression feature which can now be used perfectly along with FlyPostBackManager and other scenarios in WebGrid.

For more details about the fixes and other enhancements, check out the Version History in our Support Site when the SP1 becomes available.

All the best,
Jimmy.