devexpress-xaf-appearance

What problem does it solve?

Manually adjusting XAF UI elements to reflect changing business object state is time-consuming and error-prone, especially as applications scale and business rules evolve.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Declarative Conditional Rules: Define UI styling, visibility, and enable/disable rules directly in C# business classes using the Appearance attribute, eliminating manual UI adjustments.
• Flexible Rule Configuration: Supports criteria-based and method-based rules, priority-based conflict resolution, and targeting for specific UI elements like ListView cells, DetailView property editors, layout groups, and actions.
• Runtime Customization: Extend default appearance behavior via AppearanceController events to add dynamic rules, override styling for specific elements, or reset appearance for selected items.
• Use Case: For a XAF contact management app, automatically hide the "Address" layout group for unmarried contacts and highlight high-priority tasks in red in the ListView without writing repetitive UI code.

Quick Start

Use the devexpress-xaf-appearance skill to add a conditional rule that hides the "Address" layout group in the Contact DetailView when the IsMarried property is false.