HTML Property Editor Module

• Oct 18, 2018
• 3 minutes to read

Important

The HTML Property Editor Windows Forms Module is required for compatibility with legacy WinForms XAF applications. If you create a new application, use the Office Module instead. With this module, you can edit HTML-formatted text in WinForms applications. It also supports RTF and DOCX formats. Refer to the Use Rich Text Documents in Business Objects topic for more information.

The HTML Property Editor Module contains Property Editors which allow end-users to visually format string property values using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). This topic describes this module’s structure.

The Property Editors described here are demonstrated in the Feature Center Demo’s Property Editors section (installed with XAF). The Feature Center demo is installed in %PUBLIC%\Documents\DevExpress Demos 19.1\Components\eXpressApp Framework\FeatureCenter by default. The ASP.NET version of this demo is available online at https://demos.devexpress.com/XAF/FeatureCenter/.

HTML Property Editor Module Components

The HTML Property Editor Module provides the following platform-specific components:

• HtmlPropertyEditorWindowsFormsModule

  You can add this module to your WinForms module project in the Module Designer or the WinForms application project in the Application Designer to use a WinForms-specific HTML Property Editor. This class requires a reference to the DevExpress.ExpressApp.HtmlPropertyEditor.Win.v19.1.dll assembly.

• HtmlPropertyEditorAspNetModule

  You can add this module to your ASP.NET module project in the Module Designer or the WinForms application project in the Application Designer to use an ASP.NET-specific HTML Property Editor. This class requires a reference to the DevExpress.ExpressApp.HtmlPropertyEditor.Web.v19.1.dll assembly.

Note

• You can add modules to your application when you create a new XAF solution using the Solution Wizard. To do this, select modules in the Choose Extra Modules step.

• To add an extra module in code, add it to the XafApplication.Modules or ModuleBase.RequiredModuleTypes list (adding a reference to the module assembly is insufficient).
• When using the HtmlPropertyEditorWindowsFormsModule in your application, ensure that the Microsoft.mshtml.dll primary interop assembly is installed on the end user’s computer. To deploy this assembly, use the vs_piaredist.exe package in the %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\Common Files\Merge Modules folder (default). If the package does not exist in this folder, download the PIARedist.exe file from the Microsoft site.

Property Editors Provided by the HTML Property Editor Module

This Module provides the following platform-specific Property Editors:

Platform	Property Editor	Description
Win	HtmlPropertyEditor	WinForms applications’ Property Editor has two tabs: the Design tab has an instrument panel which allows you to format a string using HTML tags; the HTML tab displays plain HTML code.
Web	ASPxHtmlPropertyEditor	The ASPxHtmlPropertyEditor Property Editor uses the ASPxHtmlEditor control which has a Design and HTML tab, as well as a Preview tab that displays the rendered HTML.

The Property Editors this Module provides are intended for String Properties and should be used in Detail Views only. To use it in a specific Detail View, invoke the Model Editor for the WinForms or ASP.NET application project and set the required Views | <DetailView> | Items | <PropertyEditor> node’s PropertyEditorType property to DevExpress.ExpressApp.HtmlPropertyEditor.Win.HtmlPropertyEditor or DevExpress.ExpressApp.HtmlPropertyEditor.Web.ASPxHtmlPropertyEditor.