DevExpress ASP.NET Controls

The DevExpress Web controls are dataset based, not object based, and do not support nullable objects. (it's not our fault that they don't support objects!).  My recommendation (if you want to use DevExpress controls on the Web) is to use a few .NET Web controls such as the GridView and the DetailsView (that support object datasources) and adorn them with DevExpress Web controls.  For example, you can start with the .NET DetailsView, bind then to IdeaBlade business objects, and add DevExpress components and get a very nice looking composite control.

Which is no use if I want to use the DevExpress ASPxPivotGrid.

So in short the answer is that DevForce cannot be used in any meaningful way for [DevExpress] web applications.  Pity.








Edited by -ook - 27-Aug-2007 at 8:11pm

I did some more testing with the DevExpress web controls.  In particular, I looked at the ASPxGridControl.  Like you, I see the message on the Grid Control:  "An unhandled exception has occured.   Dataset does not support System.Nullable<>".  However, the interesting thing is that the control seems to be completely functional.  I can add and delete columns, change column widths, etc.  When I run my application,  the grid displays pretty much the same way it does when I display the .NET GridView.  Please try this and see if you can detect any loss of functionality.


Edited by davidklitzke - 27-Aug-2007 at 9:40pm

It works with the ASPxPivotGrid too! I was too negatively judgmental in my earlier post. It is still irritating to not have design time access to the DevExpress control though. Is there anything I can add to the DevForceDataSource to fool the DevExpress design time control into believing a fully supported Datasource is supplied. In other words how can I stop the 'DataSet does not support System.Nullable<>' error?

Thanks

I fixed the problem with the Designer when using DevExpress Web controls.  This capability will be available in our next release.

I'm still looking into the DevExpress support.  I do know that everything now works correctly even if I try to use nullable columns , and there are no designer errors.  However, none of the nullable columns shows up in the designer.  I fixed the Designer problem by throwing away the nullable columns in the designtime data.  What I don't know is what will happen if I tell the DevExpress GridView that the nullable columns are NOT nullable.  My intuition is that I can get the columns to show up in the designtime data (and maybe even in the list of available columns).  If this works, I also have to test the case of what the GridView will do if I try to display data that contains nulls.  I should know more about DevExpress by the end of the week.