RadControls for WinForms Q3 2007 Beta

[Telerik Admin]

With a couple of months of intense development behind us, we are pleased to reveal the early Q3 2007 bits of RadControls for WinForms. The Q3 Beta includes all essential improvements we have done to the underlying framework, adds several new controls, and offers a major revision of RadPanelBar.

We are dedicated to involve the community in our progress, so please, give us your feedback on the new features, improvements, and controls we have been working on. This is the perfect time to do so: the official release is just weeks away, and we may have the time to tune up some of the new cool features upon request.

You can download the Q3 2007 Beta here: RadControlsForWinForms_Q3_2007_beta_trial.exe 
 
The new beta introduces 7 key additions to the WinForms suite, carefully selected based on your feedback:

1. RadMaskedEditBox
2. RadRotator
3. RadStatusStrip
4. RadSpinEditor
5. RadColorSelector
6. RadRadioButton
7. RadDateTimePicker

These controls take full advantage of the Telerik Presentation Framework and allow for theming, animations and full visual UI customization. Please note that this is work-in-progress and some of the features are still in development and QA.
 
The beta also brings the latest enhancements in the rest of the WinForms controls since Q2 2007:
Telerik Presentation Framework

• Significantly improved performance of the RadProperty system
• Improved theming performance
• Improved painting performance of LightVisualElement (used by RadGridView and RadCalendar)
• Right-to-Left support for the TextPrimitive
• Animated gif support for the ImagePrimitive
• The main element is now exposed in all RadControls

RadComboBox 

• Right-to-Left support

RadPanelBar

• Major refactoring – this made possible to dynamically switch between the different types of views – Outlook Style, List Bar etc, in a much more stable manner. Improved user experience powered by the greatly improved layout system.

RadChart

• New skinning mechanism implemented - now it is possible to override skin settings
• StyleTextBlock.RotationAngle is marked Obsolete, use Telerik.Charting.Styles.StyleLabel.RotationAngle instead
• Added DataXColumn support for Bar series when databinding.
• Both lines' ends now have caps. Introduced StartCap and EndCap properties. Cap property is now obsolete and redirects to EndCap
• StyleLineSeries.Visible is now obsolete, ChartSeries.Visible should be used instead
• TextProperties.Direction is marked obsolete, use ChartLabel.RotationAngle instead

RadGridView
For all of you impatiently awaiting for the new major RadGridView version: we are still working on it! The version included here is the old one from Q2 SP1, but supercharged with noticeable UI improvements in response, painting, theme loading, and scrolling. We will be very grateful if you share your thoughts on these improvements, because these play a key role in the new RadGridView version!

New features and enhancements

• Noticeable RadGridView performance boost, coming from the improved painting performance of LightVisualElement.
• Added Group level summaries (example available in the QSF)

New methods

• EnsureRowVisible
•  EnsureCellVisible

Documentation
The beta comes with the old documentation from the Q2 2007 release. Nevertheless, we have made significant improvements in this area which will be included in the official Q3 2007. You can check our progress in this forum thread.

Please, use the Beta Forum to post your feedback, comments, and suggestions. All Beta participants will be awarded with Telerik points, depending on the feedback provided, so do not be shy. ENJOY!

Yours,
The Telerik Team

[Alex Peachey]

Can we get a non-trial version in our client.net accounts like you've been doing with the Prometheus pre-releases?

[Telerik Admin]

Sure, guys, just open support tickets and we will send you the DEV download links.

Telerik