What's new in 2.5
Wisej 2.5 improves the designer experience using the new Edge/Chrome engine to render the pages at design time in Visual Studio, simplifies the deployment of the growing list of Wisej Extensions, and completes the DataGridView control with powerful new features.
Wisej 2.5 requires .NET Framework 4.8. This is the last supported .NET version from Microsoft. Wisej 3 will target both .NET Framework 4.8 and .NET Core 5, 6, 7, …
Wisej 2.5 is deployed as a local and online NuGet. It will not be in the /bin folder in Program Files anymore. See NuGet Deployment.
Wisej 2.5 can use the latest Edge/Chrome in the designer, introducing the following features:
- Multiple parallel rendering engines
- Use widgets based on the latest ES6 ECMAScript
- Use JavaScript arrow functions
- Accurate SVG positioning
- Faster rendering
- Visual Studio 2022 64bit
Always make sure that you have the latest WebView2 SDK installer from:
Learn more about WebView2 here:
Theme Builder now can use the latest Edge/Chrome browser to show the preview controls and to run your applications while working on the theme.
As an added bonus, now you can detach the browser tab and work with your application running on a separate window while working on the theme at the same time!
The DataGridView control now integrates and expands the SummaryRows extensions, and fully implements the frozen rows feature.
This powerful addition allows you to aggregate and style rows using the standard functions or any custom formula you may need in your code. Aggregated rows are added either above the group, below the group, or can become parent rows in a hierarchical structure.
Example of summary rows (blurred for privacy)
Wisej 2.5 consolidates several enhancements and bug fixes:
- JavaScript Optimization. We have removed all the JavaScript code that could cause the V8 engine to recompile a class improving client side speed.
- CharacterCasing Property. All controls that show a text (i.e. Label, Button, MenuItem, ...) have a new CharacterCasing property allowing an app to change the case if the text without having to alter the code.
- Design Rendering speed. Several improvements and the new parallel renderers improve the designer experience.
- New Bootstrap Theme. We have added a new bootstrap theme and the full bootstrap icon-set in a new Wisej Icon Pack.
This is a major change in the way we deploy Wisej and it prepares for the next major Wisej 3 release with support for dual framework targeting and .NET 6+.
Wisej.Framework.dll will be installed in a local NuGet repository at %ProgramFiles%/IceTeaGroup/Wisej 2.5/nuget as a NuGet package named "Wisej Local". It will not be copied to $ProgramFiles%/IceTeaGroup/Wisej 2.5/bin anymore.
This change will allow developers to switch to any Wisej version without having to run the installer again, or uninstalling and reinstalling. Simply open the NuGet Package Manager and select either "Wisej Local" or nuget.org and filter for "Wisej-2".
The new templates and existing projects will have to use the NuGet Package Manager to reference Wisej 2.5. This is important because it will allow Wisej 3 to deploy the Wisej.Framework assembly for multiple targets.
Make sure your Visual Studio is configured to use the latest NuGet syntax in .csproj or .vbproj. See Visual Studio Configuration below.
All the extensions will only be available at NuGet.org.
To add an extension simply select the package and it will be automatically downloaded and installed on your development machine. All it's components will also be automatically added to the design toolbox.
In order to use the new <PackageReference> syntax in your .csproj or .vbproj project files, instead of the old Packages.config file, make sure this option in Visual Studio is set to PackageReference:
Starting with Wisej 2.5 you will not find the Wisej components in the toolbox in Visual Studio like before. We have stopped installing the toolbox and instead rely on NuGet and Visual Studio automatic population of the toolbox.
Make sure that your Visual Studio has the "Automatically Populate Toolbox" feature turned on.
This change eliminates the common problem of the Wisej toolbox disappearing, allows us to add Wisej to multiple version of Visual Studio installed on the same machine, and gives us the flexibility to add and publish extensions more frequently.
A downside is that Microsoft still doesn't support toolbox icons for NuGet packages. If you really want to add Wisej Components with their icon to the toolbox, follow these steps:
- 1.Add a new tab to the toolbox and name it "Wisej" (don't name it Wisej 2.5 or it will be replaced by the NuGet Package).
- 2.Locate the Wisej.Framework.dll (or extension dll) and simply drag & drop it on the new toolbox tab.
Wisej is not limited to C# or VB.NET! We have tested it with other .NET languages and made sure it works also with COBOL, x# (CLIPPER, dBase, Vulcan.NET) and F#.
MicroFocus VisualCOBOL, NetCOBOL, Raincode COBOL can build single-page web apps with Wisej!
CLIPPER, dBase, Vulcan.NET, XSharp can build single-page web apps with Wisej!
Last modified 1yr ago