How hard is it to switch over to WPF SyntaxEditor?

Hi Nassim,

For the WPF version, the feature areas it does have are generally implemented the same or much better and with more features than WinForms. We've been trying to enhance everything as we port over feature areas.

Our completion list is much nicer than the WinForms member list and you can do a lot more with it. We don't yet have parameter info, that is something on our TODO list. The parameter info will likely be coming when we work on the .NET Languages Add-on for WPF, of which work is scheduled to start in the coming weeks.

Our Language Designer app can import dynamic language definition files from SyntaxEditor 4 and convert themt to the new language project format.

We don't yet have span indicators or smart tags. We do however already have the core framework in place to support background adornments and custom margins though, so you could achieve span indicators even without our dedicated features for them yet via taggers/adornments/custom margins.

Thanks for your reply,

I was hoping to get more details from your side so let me ask you again:
According to you, who has experience in these matters and understand the big picture....

1- What would be the best way to switch over to Actipro WPF given that we already have an extensive developement done in the WinForm version as mentionned in my 1st post?
2- The logic for parsing the tokens and text, does it remain the same?
And
3- Can we simulate similar things to ParameterPrompts using some other tools that you are offering in this new version?

Regards
Nassim

Hi Nassim,

The new next-generation object model we've designed for the WPF/Silverlight versions of SyntaxEditor is completely interface-based and is extremely extensible. So while a lot of concepts and general object model properties are similar in name, there are some areas like completion lists that are completely rewritten with a lot more features.

The lexer end of things isn't much different and can be converted fairly easily. As mentioned, the WPF Language Designer can import WinForms dynamic language XML definition files.

As for other pieces, depending on how complex your code is they can be more work. In the previous post I indicated the WPF version doesn't have parameter info UI, smart tags, or span indicators yet. All are on the TODO list.

Parameter info will be added when we work on the .NET Languages Add-on. We only have completion lists and quick info built-in right now.

Span indicators can be made by you via the use of classification taggers (examples are in QuickStarts) to provide the background highlighting inline in text, and by making a custom margin that renders the glyphs based on the tags. Custom margin QuickStarts are also included. The nice thing about the new object model is the extensibility. We have all the core framework features in place to support things like span indicators. However something just needs to wrap the functionality, by doing the things mentioned above. We eventually hope to make a wrapper layer for span indicators ourselves to make them easier to use.

Smart tags are a bit more complex, but we do support adornments inline with and behind text via our adornments layer so you can achieve smart tags too if you write the adornment UI for them. We eventually will add that feature as well though. There are QuickStarts for adornments that ship with the product.

Thank you so much for your response.... this made things very clear for me...

But while we're at it, I see that adornments are very powerful.... so how hard of a task would it be to complete the following developement:

I am required to include lock icons and probably display running numerical TextBox or text counters or even buttons directly next to specific tokens in the document text editor.

Is this something fairely easy to accomplich using adornments, your QuickStarts for adornments does it contain examples that can help and get me going considering what i mentioned?

Regards
And thanks again for your support.

Hi Nassim,

It's not that hard to add controls in the editor content. We have a QuickStart (some screens of it shown in the following blog entry) that does an example of that:
http://blog.actiprosoftware.com/post/2010/01/29/Code-reviewing-in-SyntaxEditor-for-WPF-demoing-upcoming-intra-text-adornments-features.aspx

I'd highly recommend you download and install SyntaxEditor for WPF. We have well over 50 QuickStarts to get you going with various features of the product, such as the one above.

Just FYI, as described in this blog post, IntelliPrompt parameter info features are coming to SyntaxEditor for WPF/Silverlight in the 2011.2 version.
http://blog.actiprosoftware.com/post.aspx?id=750e6169-16cb-4d04-ad8b-cc498962124c