First, I have to admit CSS and Javascript are not my stronger points. With that out of the way, some times a simple change makes a big difference in the appearance of your app.

Well, let’s change the color of the header bar in our XAF Web application.

public class AddStyleController : ViewController
    {

        protected override void OnViewControlsCreated()
        {
            base.OnViewControlsCreated();

            LiteralControl style = new LiteralControl();
            style.Text = "<style type='text/css' scoped>.white { background-color: palegreen; }</style>";
            ((Control)View.Control).Controls.Add(style);


        }
    }

And good to go:

Source Code: https://github.com/jjcolumb/BlogDemo

Until next time, XAF out!

Well, this was easier than I thought.

The idea here is not load any data in the ListView until the user actually does a search (using the Full Text Search action).

Not loading  data, that is easy, just pass a Criteria you know won’t apply.

Now it comes the neat part.

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I got a request for a small feature that I believe it is really handy. The idea is from the LookupListView to have an action (a pencil icon) that when executed open the object DetailView where then it can be modified.

Ok, let’s see the code and the end result:

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I am really excited to say I was invited to speak at CodeCampSDQ. My talk would be about Real world experiences using advanced ORMs in the mobile ecosystem. Translation: I will be talking about XPO and Xamarin.

Abstract: In this talk, I will guide you on why and how to choose an ORM that reduces the cost of development, makes your model database-agnostic while keeping a consistent performance.

Date is May 30 so I hope to see a few of you over there 🙂

Update: Conference has been postponed due to COVID-19. There is not new date set yet so I will update it here as soon as I have more information.

Can’t wait!

See you next time. XAF out!

When talking about actions placement we have a lot of choices. We can change the action container in the model or if doing it by code:

public class MyViewController : ViewController {
    public MyViewController() {
        SimpleAction myAction = new SimpleAction(this, "MyAction", "View");
        myAction.ImageName = "Action_SimpleAction";
    }
}

Here we can change the category (“View”) that map to that action container and that will be enough. We can also change the index inside the action container if we need a specific order. We can create a new Ribbon Template like shown here. A little cumbersome right? But what do we do if we want to have our action in a separate RibbonGroup and/or RibbonPage?

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Following last post about grouping selection in a ListView this time we will focus on adding an image to display when grouping. (if my words don’t paint a complete picture refer to the image above).

This can be useful for example for products and categories. You can display a picture of the Category certain products belong and show those products when expanding the group. Let’s take a look:

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This was a small request coming from a friend but I had the same question asked a few more times in the past so I decided to do a quick post, that way if it comes up again I can just send them this link.

OK, to the point: How do we make a XAF Web ListView selectable by groups?

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Reading the support tickets daily it has become one of my most rewarding morning routines. Besides the constant learning factor, I am all the time running into some amazing questions / implementations/ samples that I can put in practice right away.

I have said it before but I will reiterate here:

When presented with a XAF challenge the first thing I do it is a quick search trough the support tickets to see if there is already an implementation that I can adapt to my needs. Most of the time I find something that I can use, but also most of the time I have to actually code it and run it to see if it is exactly what I need it.

If you are like me, you would love to have a visual before getting to deep and realizing I am on the wrong path. I also realize DevExpress receives tons of tickets daily so this is not feasible for them.

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OBSOLETE: Please use the Xpand.XAF.ModelEditor package that contains a standalone version of XAF Model Editor, designed to integrate with Visual Studio, Rider, Explore.

Also coming soon is the Model Editor for .NET Core and .NET Standard Projects. Read the announcement here.

If you’ve  unloaded your csproj and take a look you’ve seen how cumbersome they can be and  you must probably know how much simpler, leaner the new sdk project is. In Hanselman words:

“It lets you manage all project dependencies in one place and gives you and uncluttered view of top-level dependencies.”

And that statement above it is crucial for a smooth CI/CD flow.

We also won’t be needing to have DevExpress assemblies installed in the GAC we could use Nugets and have our projects in as many different versions as we want.

One really neat tool that help you with the migration is CsprojToVs2017 or if you prefer to do it manually you can follow this post.

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