Developer Advantages
- Extends object model of existing standard or 3rd party controls and gives them new attributes and features
- No need to change existing controls with new ones which saves time. EntrySet Extenders lower costs needed for UI modernization and preserves existing investment
- Easy to use and understand object model which it is possible to start using even without reading product documentation
VisualExtender Component
VisualExtender is like a painter, using colors transforms old unfashionable application into a new attractive one. Within seconds your forms look significantly nicer to look at, are better arranged and easier to use. Any control, including but not limited to TextBox or ComboBox etc, is enriched with painting of captions, shapes, titles, backgrounds, flags and more.
Main Features
- Rich and pixel perfect painting brings attractive look & feel to your apps
- Visual Editors for simple and effective style settings
- Event handling aggregation for mouse and focus entries
VisualExtender is a special component, which can extend the functionality of other components about new visual functions. How does it work? You insert VisualExtender into Form and all components, which occur in Form, are extended about new properties, including Form. VisualExtender uses for this function Extender Provider from .NET Framework. VisualExtender distinguishes between two types of components - Containers and Controls. Each type has different visual possibilities.
Features
- Background: Background consists of three parts: Background Fill, Watermark and Image
- Title and subtitle: Two lines of text - Title and Subtitle in top, center or bottom part of a component. Can have special background titlestrip effect as well
- Caption and shape: Aligns caption text with a control and can render shaped area around the control
- Hyperlink: Caption text can be active as hyperlink, can have some action associated with the hyperlink click
- RequiredSign: Identifies that a control is required and/or requires attention of a user
- Flag: Flag object painted next to a control, can have an action associated with a click of the flag
- Shadow: Renders colored shadow around the control
- StyleSource: Identifies style source for a control, whether it is taken from the control directly, or parent control or extender
- Event Handling: Aggregated event handling for controls on a form. This includes mouse events, focus events, action events like HyperlinkClicked, FlagClicked and custom painting for custom shapes for flags and required signs
- Design time integration: We know that simple and easy WYSIWYG editing features gives comfort and ease of use. Therefore we have implemented state-of-the-art Visual Editors, custom type editors and have integrated context menu commands for extended controls as well
ValidationExtender Component
ValidationExtender helps developers with data entry validation. For any control on a form validation can be defined, which can consist of one or any number and combination of so called Validators. Next to typical validators for value comparison, datatype checks, regular expression etc there is special Condition validator that is able to validate value based on a formula and values from other controls.
Main Features
- Validation functions are logically divided into several validators that can be combined
- It is possible to do validations based on values from other items, like: [MonthBudget]>=[Price]*[Quantity]
- Rich event model ensures full control over the validation process
ValidationExtender adds to edit controls validation functions. Once ValidationExtender is placed on a form with textboxes on it for example, then these textboxes receives new properties, Validators which are used to set validation conditions. ValidationExtender works with virtually any editing type such as ListBox, ComboBox and or Checkbox. To validate values there are two modes - Automatic and Manual. In Automatic mode validation is done on the fly while user is typing values into a control. In Manual mode validation must be done using Validate() method of ValidationExtender. To indicate invalid value there are following possibilities to choose from - ErrorProvider, MessageBox or AlertBox.
Features
- Compare Validator: Compares two controls' values or value in a control with a specific value
- Condition Validator: Checks whether a formula condition is valid. For example [MonthBudget]>=[Price]*[Quantity] where MonthBudget, Price, Quantity are Ids of items on a form
- DataType Validator: Checks the data type validity of a value entered, for example that value is type of Date
- Expression Validator: Checks value against the regular expression
- Length Validator: Validates length of entered value
- List Validator: Checks whether entered value is within a specified list of values
- Range Validator: Validates that entered value is within a specific range of values
- Required Validator: identifies that a value is required or not
- Event Handling: There are three events available for you to control and modify the validation process - ControlValidating, ControlValidated and ValidateControlError
ItemBindingExtender Component
ItemBindingExtender is effective way how to manipulate controls on a form. You can easily set properties, bind values from data objects and collections. Every control can be accessed via its Id and if it is the same as field in database for example, with single line of code you can show records on the form.
Main Features
- Simple value binding of business objects and collections to form's controls
- To display data from DataReader requires just single line of code
- Control properties manipulation with an Id
ItemBindingExtender is component that helps you easily manipulate with controls on data entry forms. Basic principle of ItemBindingExtender is that you work with controls using newly introduced Id ("Company" for example) instead of their instance name (like TextBox1 for example). Id can be the very same as a field name in the database ("Company"). This Id property and several others are appended to set of properties for each control on the form. Code shows how to set a value to a control with Id:
ItemBindingExtender1.SetItemText("Company", "PureComponents")
ItemBindingExtender can work with all items at once. For example if you wish to show data from Customers table for a specific record, it can be done by single line of code:
ItemBindingExtender1.SetItemValues(CustomerDataRow)
Features
- DataReader: ItemBindingExtender is first component that brings easy data access from SqlDataReader. With single line of code you can display data from a reader into form's controls
- Objects: Any object with properties can be assigned to ItemBindingExtender. If a form's control has same Id as name of a property, then the value from the property is being shown in the control
- Hashtables and named values: Keys from named lists and hashtables are used to associate collection values with controls on a form. Displaying application configuration is then question of few moments
- DataRow: As with the other scenarios, binding a datarow to controls using ItemBindingExtender is a snap
- Event Handling: To get full control over the item binding process use ItemChanging and ItemChanged events. ItemChanging event allows you to cancel the binding and ItemChanged is called once the value has been changed
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