ComponentOne, a division of GrapeCity, the largest component solution provider in the Microsoft Visual Studio Partner Ecosystem, today announced a major version release for its Spread product line. ComponentOne Spread Studio 8 is a spreadsheet solution that allows developers to embed powerful spreadsheet functionality similar to Microsoft® Excel® into their .NET applications without any Excel dependencies.  The studio collection includes spreadsheet controls for Windows, Web and XAML platforms.

“With the release of Spread Studio 8, we have taken our #1 selling spreadsheet component and enhanced it so that the ASP.NET controls now fully support Chrome and Firefox,” said Sean Lawyer, product manager at ComponentOne.  “Throughout the platforms supported by Spread Studio 8 we deliver an integrated charting engine, data visualizations for informative and effective business dashboards, and comprehensive Excel document support for information sharing across the enterprise,” said Lawyer.

When developing WinForms applications, Spread Studio 8 now includes a powerful Table feature which shows cell ranges as a table. “With the Spread Studio 8 Table control users may manage and analyze data within a defined sheet and this may be completed independently of data in non-selected rows,” said Lawyer.

Beyond the Table control, Spread Studio 8 WinForms controls contain new skins for changing the appearance of controls, including a predefined skin which matches Microsoft Excel 2013.

The new skins extend to the ASP.NET Spread Studio 8 controls and change the default appearance of the controls to a flat style, removing any stylistic choices that give the illusion of 3D (such as drop shadows and gradients). “We understood and focused on a minimalist use of simple elements, typography and flat colors, “said Lawyer. “It is pure, simple, elegant and neat. Spread Studio 8 users will also benefit from being able to use the controls in MVC5 projects and the newly add support for jQuery.”

For developers working in XAML, Spread Studio 8 now provides Print and Print Preview, Structured reference support, and a new control appearance. With the Print feature users may call a method to print an entire or partial worksheet or workbook. Plus, users can now print to a file instead of to a printer. This is useful when a user needs to print a workbook on a different type of printer from the one that he/she originally used to print.

When looking for a smooth UI experience for Excel importing, Spread Studio 8 can now import Excel files asynchronously and load data on demand for UI display. The end user sees the data displaying quickly, and UI is still responsive during loading time.

ComponentOne’s Spread product line is known for providing a flexible and familiar spreadsheet/grid architecture. From advanced charting to its powerful formula library, Spread Studio 8 users can create financial modeling, risk analysis, budgeting, insurance, scientific, and many other applications for WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT.

Availability
The company offers no-charge, limited day trials of its Spread products, which may be downloaded at www.componentone.com/Downloads. Online visitors may also access tutorials, forums, documentation, and videos as part of the ComponentOne experience.