ComponentOne a division of GrapeCity, the largest component solution provider in the Microsoft Visual Studio Partner Ecosystem, today announced the second release of 2013 for its Spread product line. ComponentOne Spread Studio 7 v2 is a solution that allows developers to create feature-rich user interfaces by embedding the functionality found in Microsoft® Excel® into their .NET applications.
“In this release we are providing the industry’s first set of touch-enabled spreadsheet controls that mimic the touch UI and behavior found in Microsoft Excel 2013,” said Eric Peng, product manager at ComponentOne. “Developers working in any of the platforms supported by Spread, including Windows Client, ASP.NET, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Silverlight, and WinRT, may now create applications that will support touch on an array of enabled devices.”
When it comes to performance, users will experience significant improvements in the areas of Excel file import and output and formula calculation. “Windows users may see performance increases up to 50% and XAML users as much as 200% faster when performing Excel import/export and formula calculations,” said Peng. These speed enhancements are particularly visible when loading a large Excel file on a multi-core CPU PC or when calculating complex formulas.
The WinRT, WPF, and Silverlight platforms include numerous additional enhancements. With 30+ (WinRT and Silverlight) and 40+ (WPF) new chart types, users can create expressive 2D and 3D charts within their spreadsheets to provide the richest data user interface imaginable. The Spread Designer lets users add charts at design time or import from an existing Excel file.
By placing the new Spread Formula Textbox control anywhere on a form, developers give the end users the ability to edit formulas easily and quickly. The Formula TextBox control provides Excel-like formula editing and is enabled by selecting a range reference while entering a formula.
“The combination of Spread’s integrated charting engine, data visualizations for informative and effective business dashboards, and comprehensive Excel document support for information sharing across the enterprise, sets Spread 7 apart in the industry,” said Peng. “We are excited for developers to take their line-of-business and data visualization applications to the next level by using Spread Studio 7 v2. There are so many other new features in this release that will add powerful functionality to an application while helping speed the development process.”