Ext.NET 7.0 Preview3 for ASP.NET Core

Posted on by Geoffrey McGill in News

The third preview release of Ext.NET for ASP.NET Core is now available. See also the preview1 and preview2 announcements for additional details on the earlier preview releases.

Key new features in for the preview3 release include:

  • New dotnet Templates
  • New VSIX Visual Studio Extension
  • Road map
  • Localization

New dotnet Templates

Within a Command-Line or Mac OS Terminal window, run the following command to install the Ext.NET Templates:


dotnet new --install Ext.NET.Templates

Two new project templates will be installed, extnet and extnet-mvc.

The extnet template will create a basic Razor Pages project with Ext.NET installed. The extnet-mvc template creates the same Ext.NET application but with a ASP.NET MVC (Model-View-Controller) project layout. 


Templates                      Short Name    Language    Tags
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ext.NET MVC Web App            extnet-mvc    [C#]        Ext.NET/Web/MVC
Ext.NET Razor Pages Web App    extnet        [C#]        Ext.NET/Web/Razor Pages

The next step is to create a new folder for your project and move into that folder:


mkdir Demo1
cd Demo1

With those few simple commands, we're now ready to create a new Ext.NET web app from our newly installed templates and open the app in a web browser.


dotnet new extnet
dotnet watch run

Your new Ext.NET project is now created and up and running.

The above dotnet watch run command will start a local webserver at http://localhost:5000. You can now view the app in a web browser and confirm the Ext.NET web app is working correctly.

To view the new project source code, open the project in Visual Studio, or run the code . command to open with Visual Studio Code. 


code .

New VSIX Visual Studio Extension

Along with the dotnet new templates, a new VSIX project template installer is available from the Ext.NET download page or the Visual Studio Marketplace. Running the installer will add the two Ext.NET project templates into your Visual Studio File > New > Project... menu.

Once installed, two new Project templates will be available in Visual Studio:

The Visual Studio project templates can also be installed from within Visual Studio using Extensions > Manage Extensions, then searching for Ext.NET.

Road map

Development on the next preview release (7.0.0-preview4) is well underway and we're anticipating a public release in early June 2020. The primary feature of preview4 will feature the inclusion of the entire Charting API. Progress can be tracked by following the Ext.NET Project on GitHub.

Currently, we're working off the following schedule as we move towards the general availability of Ext.NET 7.0.0 for ASP.NET Core.

It goes without saying, the schedule is subject to change, although we're working hard to hit the scheduled release dates.

Localization

The automatic localization of UI components is now available.

Localization files are embedded resources and enabling the functionality is configured within your projects Startup.cs by adding the app.UseExtNetResources(); middleware invocation.


public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
    // ...

    // 1. Enable hosting of Ext.NET resources
    app.UseExtNetResources();

    // 2. Enable Ext.NET localization
    app.UseExtNetLocalization();

    // ...
}

Localization can also be configured on a per page bases by setting the locale property on the <ext-resourceManager> tag helper. For instance, the following sample demonstrating setting the locale to French.


<head>
    <ext-resourceManager locale="fr" />
</head>

Several other options for configuring the Localizations are available, including passing the lang as a querystring value, or binding to a Model. See docs for options.

Feedback

Please keep in mind, this current release is a preview and there are still some rough edges.

Development on the all-new Ext.NET 7.0 is iterating quickly and we anticipate fresh new releases every few weeks.

Feel free to contact us anytime on the Ext.NET Forums, Twitter, or email us at hello@object.net.

If you have technical support questions, the best way to get in touch is by posting your questions in the Ext.NET Forums. The forums are an excellent knowledge base containing 12+ years of conversations. Posting questions in the public forum ensures other community members can participate and benefit from the public discussion in the future.

Thanks!