What We Accomplished

In this quarter, we published a very large 2014.1 version maintenance release of our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls.  These versions included several new controls and some big feature enhancements for our existing controls.  Check out the release posts for more detail.

What’s Coming Next

We are in the middle of several large projects right now.  The first is one that we recently mentioned, which is a full advanced language add-on for the Python language.  As mentioned in this post, the language will support both the Python v2.x and v3.x syntax.  It will have full parsing, syntax error reporting, code outlining, smart indent, and more.  We also have begun working on automated IntelliPrompt features, which we will post about in the coming weeks.

Another area we have invested a good amount of time in recently is a new control product offering for WinRT, one that already has a counterpart in our WPF controls.  Can you guess which one?  That being said, the designs we've come up with include some new unique interfaces that are very friendly for all forms of input.  We will delve more into this in future blog posts too, once we are a bit closer to ready for release.  We're really excited to reveal these controls.

And of course we are continuing to enhance and update our existing controls, along with designing some new controls, as we start collecting updates for the future 2014.2 versions.

Blog Post List

Control Product Development

• SyntaxEditor Python Language Add-on Coming Soon
• Chart Automatic Tick Calculation
• SyntaxEditor XML Add-on - Navigable Symbols
• PropertyGrid Double-Clicking Enhancements
• HorizontalListBox Control
• UniformGrid Coming to WinRT and Silverlight Controls
• Windows Workflow Designer SyntaxEditor Integration Updates
• JSON Language Coming to WinForms SyntaxEditor

Control Product Releases

• WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML Controls v2014.1 Maintenance Releases

In today's post I'd like to formally announce that a new Python language add-on is coming to SyntaxEditor (WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML platforms) in its 2014.2 version.

What is Python?

Python is a very popular programming language that uses indenting to create blocks of code (as opposed to curly braces as in languages like C), and attempts to allow users to write code in fewer lines than is possible in other languages.  Python has a standard library of API features that has grown very large over time.

These days, Python code comes in two flavors: v2.x syntax and v3.x syntax.  Unfortunately there are breaking changes between the two syntaxes.  But we've got you covered since you can tell our PythonSyntaxLanguage class which version to use and it will parse things accordingly.

Features

Here's a screenshot of the Python language in action within SyntaxEditor:

The first release of the Python language will have these features:

• Support for both Python v2.x and v3.x syntaxes.
• Syntax highlighting.
• Abstract syntax tree (AST) generation.
• Automatic code outlining based on AST structure.
• Reporting and automatic squiggle display of errors for invalid syntax.
• Mouse hover quick info for syntax errors.
• Line commenting.
• Smart indent.
• Code block selection.
• Delimiter (bracket) highlighting and auto-completion.

Beta Testers

Since this is a brand new language add-on, we would love to get your help beta testing it.  If you are a SyntaxEditor customer and would like to assist us in testing the Python language add-on, please contact us at our support email address.

Summary

This new Python language add-on will roll out in the 2014.2 version of our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls.

New maintenance of the 2014.1 versions of our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls have been released and are now available for download.

Major new features are described below.  See the announcement posts for the detailed list of enhancements and updates, including many items not listed below:

• WPF Controls announcement
• Silverlight Controls announcement
• WinRT/XAML Controls announcement

Auto-Calculation of Tick Mark Intervals

XYDoubleAxis, XYDecimalAxis, and XYDateTimeAxis have been updated to auto-calculate tick mark intervals when they aren't specifically set.  A new Axis Ticks QuickStart has been added that shows off automatic tick mark interval calculation.

Rendering Improvements

We've improved the rendering speed of data point labels, improved the rendering logic of bar charts, and updated data point labels to use a subtle border so that they don't blend in with surrounding chart objects of the same color.

Label Performance Improvements

Data point labels in pointer visibility mode now delay layouts until a pointer event occurs, thereby speeding up initial chart display.

Numeric Type Data Upconversion

XYChart now will automatically upconvert non-Double numeric type data to Double type so it can display.

Child Control Styles Applied to Some Auto-Generated Columns (WPF only)

ThemedDataGrid has been updated to style the child controls of auto-generated ComboBox and CheckBox columns.

Disabling Rafting Window Snap-to-Screen (WPF only)

Added the DockSite.IsRaftingWindowSnapToScreenEnabled, which can be set to false to prevent rafting windows from snapping to the closest screen when being displayed.

More Tabbed MDI Tile Options (WPF only)

Overloads to the TabbedMdiHost.TileHorizontally and TileVertically methods have been added that allow for a maximum number of columns/rows.  This permits additional tile configurations, such as a single row of tiles.

Double-Clicks Cycle Values (WPF only)

Updated double-clicks on property names to cycle through standard values if available.

CommitPendingChanges Helper Method (WPF only)

A PropertyGrid.CommitPendingChanges method has been added that forces any pending LostFocus bindings within property editors to update and ensure the data model is current.

Navigable Symbols Hierarchy Support

Navigable symbols now support hierarchy levels and item indentation.  This feature was added to allow XML element hierarchies to be displayed in the NavigableSymbolSelector.

Numerous Minor Enhancements

Many minor enhancements have been made, which can be seen in the detailed update list.

LL(*) Parser Framework

A Grammar.AddChildFrom overload was added that allows for specification of a desired child index.

Web Languages Add-on

The XML grammar was reimplemented using type-specific AST nodes, thereby reducing overall AST memory usage by an average of 40%.  A XmlNavigableSymbolProvider service was added to the XML language that provides contextual element and attribute display in a NavigableSymbolSelector control.  The XML and HTML editor demos were updated to showcase the new navigable symbol provider features.

Horizontal ListBox Control

The HorizontalListBox control was added, which allows for selection of items that are arranged horizontally with a uniform width.

UniformGrid Control (WinRT / Silverlight only)

The UniformGrid control was added, which is a Panel that can arrange content in a grid where all the cells in the grid have the same size.

RadialSlider Improvements

The RadialSlider class logic for snapping values has been improved.

DelegateCommand (WinRT only)

The DelegateCommand class has been added, which is an implementation of ICommand that uses delegates.

One great new feature coming in the next build of our Charts product for WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML is automatic tick calculation when no tick interval is specified.

If you know the range of data that will be displayed in your charts, it often makes sense to specify an exact tick interval.  This ensures that the charts render gridlines, ticks, and labels exactly how you intend for them to look.

Our current version of Charts requires you to specify the tick interval, or else ticks won't show up in many cases.  We had a lot of feedback from customers that there are many scenarios where they don't want to have to set up the tick intervals ahead of time since the data can often be very dynamic.  Our customers asked for tick intervals to be automatically calculated when not specified, and that's what we've done for the next build.

Features

The new feature will examine the minimum and maximum values of your data and determine a proper interval to apply to ticks so that they are visually spaced out in a pleasing way.

Let's have a look at how this works.  In this chart, neither axis has a tick interval specified, so the new feature kicks in on both the x-axis and y-axis.

The y-axis has a sales dollar amount and the new logic determined that a major tick interval of $200 should be used.  The x-axis' major tick interval was determined to be 5.

Next, we have another similar example, but this chart shows how the feature even works to calculate major tick intervals for dates.

The logic examined the minimum and maximum dates and found a certain number of days to use as the major tick interval.

Summary

The new highly-requested chart automatic tick calculation features will be available in the next 2014.1 maintenance releases of our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls.

Today I'd like announce a great new feature coming to the SyntaxEditor Web Languages Add-on (WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML versions): a XML navigable symbol provider. 

Features

If you are new to SyntaxEditor, you may be wondering what is a navigable symbol provider.  Navigable symbol providers allow SyntaxEditor to provide a set of drop-downs above it that indicate the current context of the caret.  They also allow an end user to select items in the drop-downs to move the caret directly to the related definition.

Our .NET Languages Add-on's C# and VB languages already support this feature and the two drop-downs above the editor show the current type and member context.

With the addition of this feature to XML, two drop-downs above the editor can show the current element and attribute context.  Let's see a screenshot:

In the screen above, the caret is on line 12 in the "id" attribute.  The attribute drop-down (top right) properly shows the "id" attribute as context.  If we would click the "book" element in that drop-down, the caret would move to the "book" tag's name.

In this screenshot, we have displayed the element drop-down while still on the "book" start tag.  It has selected the current element for us and also shows the hierarchy of elements up to the root element ("catalog").  It also shows us the elements that are direct children of the current element.  In this case, elements like "author", "title", etc. are the direct children of "book".  Any of the items in the drop-down can be clicked and the caret will jump right to that element.  In this sense, it provides somewhat of a mini-document outline.

Summary

This great new feature will roll out in the upcoming 2014.1 WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls maintenance releases.