Last year, we officially released our WPF Gantt control.
This year, we've refined its capabilities so you can do more and deliver Microsoft Project-inspired
solutions to your end-users.
In this short tutorial, I'll discuss our most recent feature - the ability to assign Resources
to individual tasks displayed within the WPF Gantt control.
This v20.1 feature is set to ship in early May 2020.
To help demonstrate the potential of this new feature, I'm going to use a sample we
ship as part of our standard WPF distribution.
To follow along, feel free to download our free trial from devexpress.com/try.
Before I start, a word or two about Resources.
First, our WPF Gantt control allows you to assign one or more resource records to individual
tasks.
Resources can be anything you choose - they can be individuals, employees, physical equipment,
etc. - anything you need to successfully complete an actual task.
To bind resource records to a task, you're obviously going to need a collection of resources.
Once you have your collection, you simply bind this to the appropriate property.
You also need to have a link collection between your tasks and your resources.
This is a task property that associates the resource to the task.
As you can see in this demo, the TreeList includes a Resource column alongside the Gantt
Timeline.
If you enable editing, your end-users can modify resource records associated with each
task directly within the TreeList.
Once I click a cell in this column, our Gantt control automatically displays a drop down
with a list of available resource records.
In this particular example, the dropdown includes two grid columns - the first displays the
actual resource name and the second displays allocation percentage.
Let me select a few resource records and press OK.
Note the Gantt's timeline - these new resource records are displayed directly within the
Gantt.
Very cool.
Let me move to another task and modify time allocation information.
Once I change allocation percentage values and press OK, the Gantt Timeline is automatically
updated to reflect the change.
Again, very cool.
Before I wrap up this short tutorial, I'll change demos and show you how to customize
the Gantt's Timeline and to fine-tune the Resource dropdown for maximum usability.
First, I'll select Code Examples and drill down into the Color Tasks by Resources demo.
In this example, we show you how to color tasks based on colors assigned to resources.
For instance, if your management resource is green, you can apply the color green to
tasks who have been assigned the management resource.
Similarly, if red is assigned to a developer and a developer is linked to a task, you can
apply the color red to the task itself.
Next, let me move to the Group Resources in the Editor example.
As you can see, you have total control over data organization within the Resource dropdown
window.
In this case, we've grouped resources by record categories.
Finally, let me move to the Custom Resources example.
In this instance, the dropdown actually uses a TreeList and data is organized in a hierarchical
manner.
The bottom line is simple - you have full control over the Resource dropdown window
so you can create the best possible - the most intuitive - user experience possible.
I hope you liked this brief overview of our Gantt control and its support for Resources.
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