SyntaxEditor 4.0.0232 Release

It's final! The long-awaited SyntaxEditor v4.0 is now officially released. It has an enormous set of new features and adds some key components that will enable advanced language developers to do some amazing things. Download an evaluation of the new version to see many of the key improvements in action.

Major new SyntaxEditor v4.0 features include:

• A complete parser generator framework for defining semantic parsers.
• A semantic parser service which can perform semantic parsing in a separate worker thread.
• An AST node class framework for building abstract syntax trees for code documents.
• Reworked the design of syntax languages so that they are much more abstracted and can totally encapsulate all the code for handling IntelliPrompt, smart indent, code formatting, etc.
• Virtual space past the end of lines.
• Virtual space past the end of the document (virtual lines).
• Block selection and related features such as controlling the types of selections that are able to be made.
• Read-only regions of text within an editable document.
• Text statistics that scan text and give statistics such as word, sentence, character counts, readability scores and can display the results in a Form. Languages implementations can create custom statistics such as comment coverage.
• IntelliPrompt smart tag features.
• Improved parameter info features to aid in selected parameter tracking and context switching.
• Ability to suspend lexical parsing when a batch of document modifications are made.
• Ability to disable lexical and/or semantic parsing completely, which is useful for working with extremely large files.
• A Document.PreTextChanging event that lets you cancel a document modification before it occurs.
• Various whitespace-trimming methods and options to trim trailing whitespace on paste or text replacement.
• Designer features for the Document.Language property, allowing a language to be chosen if there is one available in the component tray or a dynamic language to be loaded from a file.
• Support for non-editable code snippet declarations and methods so that functions can be used to update fields (enables dynamically building case statements for a switch on an enumeration, etc.).
• Changed code snippets to only load snippet header information by default for saving on memory. The full snippet data is loaded on demand when the code snippet is activated.
• Automated line modification marking and enhanced how it tracks modified text ranges.
• An improved object model for span indicators that uses layers.
• Detailed hit-testing for anywhere in the editor.
• Custom EditorView buttons that can be placed on any side of a scrollbar.
• A new renderer interface that lets you override how SyntaxEditor is painted, alter the colors used for the default drawing scheme, or perform custom draw.
• Multiple font families/sizes in the same document.
• Highlighting style enhancements for semi-transparent backgrounds, borders, strike-outs, underlines, and more.
• Ability to modify the caret style and width for both insert and overwrite modes.
• Added a new FontDropDownList control that displays all non-Symbol fonts and shows fixed-width fonts in bold type.
• Over 40 new built-in commands.
• New free dynamic language XML definitions for Assembly, Lua, MSIL, and Pascal.
• Updated dynamic language XML definitions to add features such as documentation comment member lists in C#, tag completion in XML and HTML, and tag member lists in HTML.
• An enormous amount of object model enhancements.
• Dramatically reduced memory usage.
• Sample project enhanced with a Grammar Designer and many QuickStarts.
• More than double the number of core documentation topics.
• Full source for a sample language add-on in the C# sample project.
• An advanced C# language add-on that has automated IntelliPrompt, smart indent, XML comment auto-complete, and much more. (Sold separately)
• Much, much more

In addition, we've made available a .NET Languages Add-on that has everything from smart indent to automated IntelliPrompt for C# (and soon for VB.NET as well). You'll find that our quick info tips are much better than even those found in Visual Studio.

Major .NET Languages Add-on features include:

• An assembly repository that stores reflection information for .NET assemblies at run-time.
• Ability to cache all reflection and documentation to data files which can be loaded extremely quickly once built.
• A project resolver that manages external references (assemblies) for a "project" and coordinates reflection data between the assemblies and code files.
• Over 100 AST node classes for representing .NET code in an AST.
• Easy display of a compilation unit in a code outline TreeView.
• A type/member drop-down list control that can bind to a SyntaxEditor control.
• Detailed lexical parsing of tokens down to specific keyword/operator level by using a fast programmatic lexical parser.
• Semantic parser that conforms to the C# 2.0 specification, including generics, and uses the semantic parser service.
• Semantic parser builds an AST based on document text.
• Automatic outlining based on compilation unit.
• Reporting and automatic display of syntax errors.
• Automated IntelliPrompt code snippets, complete word, member lists, parameter info, and quick info.
• IntelliPrompt tips with icons and highlighted text.
• XML comment auto-complete.
• Smart indent with configurable options.
• Code block selection.
• Line commenting.
• Specialized C# text statistics for counting commented lines and determining comment coverage.

Source Code Is Available

Starting with SyntaxEditor v4.0, the SyntaxEditor source code is now available for purchase via a Blueprint license. The source code is updated with each new build and is intended for our larger customers. We recently slashed Blueprint license prices for all our products in half so check out the new prices.

Downloading SyntaxEditor v4.0 and the Add-ons

Download an evaluation release of SyntaxEditor v4.0 on the .NET Controls Download page. All SyntaxEditor v4.0 releases come packaged with the .NET Languages Add-on, although the add-on license is sold separately (see below).

Upgrading to SyntaxEditor v4.0

If you are an existing owner of SyntaxEditor and would like to upgrade to v4.0, please log into Customer Relations. If you originally purchased an annual subscription and if it is still active, you can request a free upgrade to v4.0 on the Organization Purchases page in Customer Relations. Simply click the link on that page to request a free upgrade (not available if you are not eligible). We will validate upgrade requests at the end of each day.

If you do not own an annual subscription, you can purchase an upgrade or an upgrade and annual subscription for the amount of developer licenses you own from our secure purchase pages. This will allow you to be licensed for the 4.0 version.

Upgrades and annual subscriptions can be purchased securely here:
Purchase .NET Controls

Once you purchase and download the full 4.0 version, follow the directions in the Licensing FAQ in our Customer Relations site. If you have any other questions regarding purchasing upgrades, please contact our sales staff.

.NET Languages Add-on Licensing

The .NET Languages Add-on is a separate product from the core SyntaxEditor control. It has two purchasing options, an Enterprise license and a Blueprint (source code) license.

The Enterprise license covers everyone in your organization and includes a year of free upgrades.

Most importantly, the add-on Enterprise license may be purchased even if you only have a single developer license for SyntaxEditor. We wanted to keep the pricing options for the add-on as straightforward and cheap as possible, and make it available to organizations of all sizes that use SyntaxEditor.

Please note that you do NOT require an Enterprise license of SyntaxEditor to purchase the add-on. Anyone with any valid license of SyntaxEditor, even a single developer license, can purchase the Enterprise license of the add-on.

Special Offers

We have some great special offers that are available:

• Purchase a Site or Enterprise license of the core SyntaxEditor control and receive a free Enterprise license of the .NET Languages Add-on.
• Purchase a Blueprint license of the core SyntaxEditor control and receive a free Blueprint license of the .NET Languages Add-on.

[Modified at 10/16/2006 01:20 PM]