Xceed is embracing Microsoft's latest technology with the release of Xceed Upload for Silverlight! The product is available now for purchase or as a fully functional 45-day trial on Xceed’s website.

Xceed Upload for Silverlight lets you quickly and easily add upload capabilities to any Silverlight 2 Beta 1 application. All of this new product's upload operations are asynchronous. As a result, the Web page hosting your application remains perfectly responsive and usable for the entire transfer.

Xceed Upload for Silverlight gives applications the ability to upload multiple files in a single transaction, and also solves a problem inherent in the current version of Microsoft’s Silverlight technology by gathering field contents in a Silverlight form. The data is then formatted into a standard request that any modern Web server can understand for subsequent processing.

Of course, because it’s based on Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, Xceed Upload for Silverlight allows you to seamlessly integrate the product’s upload capabilities into the beautiful and compelling end-user experience that Silverlight is all about, one that will run in multiple browser types on multiple OS types.

The product provides a rich set of events that lets your application monitor and control every step of an upload operation, as well as options for GZip and Deflate compression, customizing the HTTP request it will send, and Base64 encoding to support Web browsers that do not upload non-ASCII data.

Also included is Xceed Http Server Tools for ASP.NET, which gives you classes that make handling compressed/encoded files as easy as working with regular files, decompressing/decoding them automatically. Working with uploaded strings is similarly simplified. But if you choose not to use compression/encoding in your Silverlight application, the component then provides 100% client-side execution.

Xceed Upload for Silverlight comes with comprehensive documentation that fully integrates into Visual Studio, in addition to a variety of C#, VB.NET, and JavaScript sample applications. A Blueprint Edition is available, which gives you the full source code of the product’s assemblies. Finally, a Vanguard subscription provides a full year of priority support and upgrades.

The product supports Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 (except IA-64), and runs in Internet Explorer 7 and 6, Firefox 2 and 1.5, and Safari (Mac OS 10.4.8+ only). Note: Some OS/browser combinations are not supported by Silverlight.

The most powerful datagrid control for the Windows Presentation Foundation platform, and the first of its kind to hit the market, is unstoppable. Sixteen upgrades since its initial release in January 2007 have given Xceed DataGrid for WPF the maturity, stability, and rich feature-set that have made it the choice of the industry. The new features and performance improvements slated for the remaining quarters of 2008 will guarantee its continued dominance of the market.

Scheduled for the summer of 2008, version 2.1 will pack a mighty punch:

• Performance improvements (display, scrolling, memory, etc.)
• Data virtualization (also known as "virtual mode" or "paging")
• True 3D interactive views (album cover, carousel)
• Multi-templated cards
• Column auto-sizing and last-column fill
• Rich support for XML data sources
• Improved validation, including IDataErrorInfo support
• Inserting even in non-IBindingList sources
• Custom sorting
• Snippet Explorer application
• Targeting only .NET 3.5 and up

Version 2.2, scheduled for release later in 2008 (Q3 or Q4), will bring the following features:

• UI automation, QTP support
• Export to Excel
• Ability to persist and reapply user settings
• More user-requested features (requests posted in Xceed's DataGrid forum are greatly appreciated!)

Xceed is pleased to announce that it has launched the Xceed Community site. The site serves as a place for developers expert and novice alike to share their knowledge and insight. Its threads numbering in the thousands and its active members, some of whom are Xceed staff members, will help you find answers to your most difficult questions. The site will allow members to exchange ideas, share photos and files, and blog about their day-to-day development adventures.

The DataGrid User on Twitter reached 100 followers mid-April, and as announced, Xceed offered those followers a $350 discount on any Xceed product!

If you’re not already a “tweeter”, why not join in on the fun: once we reach 250, Xceed will announce another great prize or promotional offer for its followers. In addition to that, the DataGrid Twitter User is the place to get real-time updates of the latest news concerning Xceed DataGrid for WPF, such as the roadmap for versions 2.1 and 2.2 above.

So come “tweet” about Xceed DataGrid for WPF, WPF in general, or our upcoming DataGrid for Silverlight!