We are pleased to announce the release of Aspose.Tasks for .NET 8.0.0 which is a completely revamped version. The new API provides all the functionality supported by the legacy API and facilitates the users for ease of use. You can download this latest version of the API from our product download page.
Why the Revamped Version?
The legacy API of Aspose.Tasks for .NET has been in the field for quite a long time and provides a rich set of project documents manipulating functionality. However, the API still has certain areas where further improvements could be made. For example, generalized set and get methods could be provided for properties related to project data such as Tasks, Resources, Resource Assignments, Tasks links, and others. These, along with some others, made the basis for rewriting the API that could further facilitate towards the ease of API usage.
Improvements in the Revamped API
The revamped API of Aspose.Tasks provides the following improvements as compared to the old API.
Improved API Architecture: We have reworked the API architecture in terms of setting certain properties that gives more independence to users, enabling them to focus on their application logic only. This gives user more freedom in working with the API where there is no need to take care of calling recalculating methods manually.
Generic methods for Collections: Calculations included in Microsoft Project are dependent on a number of factors from the data. In legacy API, calculations were performed at the end that sometimes resulted in the wrong outputs. This has been catered for now by introducing Set and Get methods for project data collections such as Project, Task, Resource, and ResourceAssignments. Now, properties related to any of these collections can only be manipulated through the new methods, resulting in more control over the API functionality.
Static classes for each Collection Type: The new API introduces static classes for grouping properties related to Project, Tasks, Resources and Resource Assignments. These are:
- Prj
- Tsk
- Rsc
- Asn
These can be used in combination with the Get/Set methods for achieving desired settings.
Calculation modes: The new API provides manual as well as automatic recalculation modes similar to Microsoft Project (MSP). Manual mode calculates only the necessary fields whereas automatic mode recalculates everything. This eliminates the need of calling recalculating methods manually and improve API usage.
What will happen to my Applications built on Legacy API?
Your concerns are right. Since, the new API is totally revamped and is completely different from the old API, the old codes won’t work in almost all the cases. However, we will keep publishing the legacy as well as the revamped versions in parallel for three consecutive months. We’ll address the bug reports in the legacy API for these versions. However, new feature requests and enhancements will be incorporated in the new API only.
How to get started with Migrating existing code?
We are here to help you in getting started with migrating your existing application codes as per the revamped API. Please refer to our online documentation article, How to Migrate to Aspose.Tasks for .NET 8.0.0 or higher, to start converting your codes.
Is there any functionality missing in the new API?
Absolutely not! All the functionality present in the legacy API has been implemented and provided in the revamped version of Aspose.Tasks for .NET as well. In some cases, even the rendering of project data to various output formats doesn’t even have the code difference of implementation.
Where can I find the new API Documentation?
We have updated the documentation articles of Aspose.Tasks for .NET and replaced the old ones with the new API code samples. These can be found in the Programmer’s Guide section of our online documentation. In addition, the API reference guide section of our documentation provides complete documentation about the API classes, methods and properties.
No Legacy API Documentation anymore?
We haven’t removed the old API details, samples and API reference guide completely. You can find a PDF version of the legacy API documentation in the Resources section of our release section.
About New API Support
As always, we are here to answer your queries and help you with your inquiries. Please feel free to write to us over Aspose.Tasks forum in case you have any query in this regard. We’ll be glad to assist you for getting started with the new API.
