Xceed is pleased to announce the first commercially released data manipulation library for Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation, for a wide variety of Zip/compression and FTP needs: Xceed Activities for WF.

Windows Workflow Foundation is Microsoft’s technology for creating, running, and managing “workflows,” which are made up of “activities,” and which are typically used to represent business logic or processes. This technology is part of .NET Framework 3.0 for use with Visual Studio 2005.

Xceed Activities for WF provides activities that let developers quickly and easily integrate the most important data manipulation operations into their workflows. Provided are 15 activities for Zip, secure FTP, Tar, and GZip operations. With activities for zipping/unzipping, compressing, decompressing, archiving, sending/receiving (FTP), and deleting, developers can model business logic that needs to manipulate data.

Each activity provides a rich set of properties for total control over the operation, while events provide detailed information throughout its execution. Automatic validation of required properties is performed in all activities.

In addition to the activities, Xceed Activities for WF provides full access to the Xceed FileSystem Core object model and to Xceed Zip for .NET and Xceed FTP for .NET. This means programmers have literally hundreds of additional features at their disposal. Files of any type can consequently be handled—whether they are remote (FTP) or local, or on disk drives, in memory, in Zip, Tar, or GZip files—as easily as if they were local files.

Xceed Grid for .NET v3.6, Xceed's Windows Forms datagrid control, features cell UI virtualization. This can greatly shorten load times and decrease memory usage in data-heavy Grid-enabled applications: the more data a grid contains, the greater the optimization will be, because cells are only created when they are needed!

For example, with a reference grid containing 10 columns and 100,000 data rows, load time is 3.3 times faster, and the grid uses 55% less memory, as compared to previous versions of Xceed Grid for .NET.

Furthermore, delayed data-bound data row load with collapsed detail grids can mean substantial performance increases: with a reference grid containing multiple detail grids, load time is now 15.75 times faster.

With its built-in report generator and the controls from Xceed Editors for .NET used as its default editors (also usable outside the grid), Xceed Grid for .NET is a multi-talented component that lets developers work in multiple areas and build the most solid, feature-packed applications around. In fact, Microsoft uses it to provide powerful reporting capabilities and handle data visualization in Microsoft Office 2007 (see our online demo of Small Business Accounting 2006 in Office). Considering Office has an estimated user-base of over 400 million worldwide, one question comes to mind: if Microsoft trusts our grid this much, shouldn’t you?

Xceed Zip for .NET and Xceed Zip for .NET CF v3.4 introduce support for BZip2 for improved compatibility with WinZip and greater compression ratios and BWT, for when speed is less crucial.

BZip2, a BWT-based block-sorting algorithm, can provide superior compression compared to the Deflate and Deflate64 compression methods. It is used in Zip files created with WinZip 11.0 and up. A second compression method using raw BWT block-sorting algorithm has also been added to Xceed’s .NET data compression libraries, which can provide even greater compression ratios, but which is not compatible with WinZip; however, the resulting compressed Zip files are compatible with files created using the BWT compression method in Xceed Zip Compression Library.

Xceed Zip for .NET is an industry-leading data compression component for .NET and ASP.NET, designed to fulfill every compression-related need. It is the only managed library to offer advanced Zip features such as split files, customizable self-extracting Zip files, and 64-bit Zip file compatibility. Its Compact Framework counterpart—Xceed Zip for .NET CF—provides the same features and is for developing mobile applications.

Built to run natively on x86-64 processors running a 64-bit version of Windows, Xceed Zip for x64 is a high-performance Zip/Unzip data compression library. It lets applications create and manipulate 100% PKZip 2.04g and 4.5 compatible Zip files as well as compress/uncompress data directly in memory.

Designed to offer maximum flexibility while being the easiest to use product of its kind, it includes a state-of-the-art, impeccably documented ActiveX component that provides the industry's most complete feature set and the fastest multi-threaded compression engine. It offers AES strong encryption, the Zip64 file format, as well as the Deflate, Deflate64, BZip2, and BWT compression methods.

A version for the IA-64 (Itanium) processor architecture, Xceed Zip for IA-64, is also available. Please contact Xceed’s sales department for details on this version.

Proof that Xceed is serious about its commitment to Xceed DataGrid for WPF, we are pleased to announce the release of the second update to our free WPF grid control since its release in January 2007. Also, version 1.1 of Xceed DataGrid for WPF is coming soon, and is scheduled to feature fixed columns, improved performance, and new themes, and more.

Xceed DataGrid for WPF is the world’s first datagrid control for Microsoft’s dynamic new platform, Windows Presentation Foundation. With Xceed’s WPF grid control, you can develop software that presents and lets end-users edit data in any 2D or 3D layout imaginable, such as 3D rolodex, carousel or timeline views. Traditional Outlook-style table and card views are included with the product.

Designed and developed entirely for WPF and .NET 3.0, this professional-quality component is a true lookless, 100% stylable control. It features rich in-place editing, configurable keyboard/mouse edit commands, and Excel-like default key bindings. UI virtualization reduces load time and memory usage. Production-quality table and card views with all Windows OS themes are provided. And its flexible and extensible object model means that you can adapt the grid to your needs. It more than fills the void left by the “missing” datagrid component in WPF!

Xceed proudly presents WPFwiki.com and the WPF FAQ. Following on the release of Xceed DataGrid for WPF—entirely for free—Xceed is pursuing its contributions to the WPF developer community with the launch of the largest Windows Presentation Foundation FAQ available anywhere.

The idea for the site started in 2003, when the lead developers of Xceed DataGrid for WPF were beginning to work with WPF. Every question of common interest was noted, and as each answer was found, entries were added to a database. In March 2007, the WPF FAQ on WPFwiki.com was launched with over 100 initial questions and answers—in Wiki form—for the benefit of developers working with WPF.

Because it’s a wiki, developers can contribute by creating new pages or editing the pages contained within to add and improve the contents, as long as potential contributors register first and agree to the contribution policy.