With every version of Spread.NET, we strive to bring it closer to full parity with Excel. Spread.NET 12 includes major features like format dialogs, cell styles, document properties, and more.
Built-in cell styles
The new API has enabled us to add an assortment of new Excel features, further enhancing the familiar experience of a Spread.NET app.
All of Excel's built-in cell styles are now available to the user, including good, bad, neutral; data and model; titles and headings; etc:
Implement Excel-like Format Dialog for numbers and fills
Excel's Format Dialog is now available in Spread Designer and can be applied in your apps, as well. The complete Excel-like experience includes alignment, text rotation, and borders with diagonal line support. Cells using the new default cell type support all Excel number formats, including accounting and custom formats. You can import, export, and apply all Excel number formats in design time using the Spread Designer, and in runtime using the new APIs.
Default cell types also support gradient and pattern fill, with the same import, export, and implementation ease as the number formatting.
Add Excel-like enhanced sort and filtering on a cell range
Each worksheet can now contain one cell range that is filtered and/or sorted using the Excel-like enhanced sort and filter user interface. Workbooks can import, export, and modify the sheet-level sort/filter available to the end-user, and the new V12 API makes is very easy to create and apply the sheet-level sort or filter on the range using the new AutoFilter method:
IWorkbook workbook = fpSpread1.AsWorkbook();
workbook.ActiveSheet.Cells["A1:D1200"].AutoFilter();
Import, export, and modify Office document properties
Workbooks can import, export, and modify the Office document properties associated with the spreadsheet file, including advanced custom properties, using the new built-in Document Properties dialog. It's available in design time using the Spread Designer tool, or in run-time using new APIs.
New default behaviors for Excel-like features
This major release includes some big changes to the control's default behavior in new instances. New default instances of Spread.NET Windows Forms 12 support:
- Drag-drop cell ranges
- Drag-fill cell ranges
- Moving sheet tabs in the tab strip
- Selecting multiple ranges
- Typing formulas into cells
- Automatically resizing rows as in Excel
- Calculating formulas as in Excel (Date-related functions return double values)
- Collapsing cell borders to render the border lines like Excel
- New core-style integration and DefaultCellType rendering for enhanced cell styles
- Protect setting for worksheets initialized to false, and Locked setting for all cells initialized to True, as in Excel
- Hidden rows and columns with the zero-size indicator as in Excel
- Tab strip always as in Excel
- Enhanced filter user interface for sheets and tables as in Excel
- New keyboard mappings with more built-in actions such as the new AutoSum action [Alt]+[=]
To make these changes, we've changed the default values of many properties for new instances created using version 12.
For more details about how these changes affect upgraded projects, please read more about the new Excel-like features and backwards compatibility.
Sean Lawyer