Bill Henning (Actipro)
New maintenances of our WPF, Silverlight, WinRT/XAML and WinForms controls have been released and are now available for download.
These releases mostly focus on minor feature additions and bug fixes. See these announcement posts for the detailed list of enhancements and updates:
As mentioned in this previous post, we've been looking for ideas to further improve our WPF Docking/MDI product, which already is the market leader for docking tool window and MDI functionality. We've committed to working on a complete internal restructuring of the product that we will call Docking/MDI vNext. We're doing our best to keep the same general API surface, while providing even more advanced features in every area of the product. We've collected suggestions from our customers over the past several years and are working to meet them as best we can with Docking/MDI vNext.
In our previous post, we discussed some new features coming to standard MDI. In today's post we'll get into one of the largest new features coming in vNext, which is the ability to have a full-featured MDI with docked tool window support in a floating container.
In the current 2015.1 version, you can float document and tool windows. Each document window goes into its own floating container, while tool windows can be combined in floating containers. Many customers have requested that we allow a full MDI in floating containers and that's what we're bringing to vNext. Let's have a first look at how this will work.
Here we have a main window that contains two tabbed documents (docked next to each other) and tool windows in various locations docked around the MDI area.
Next I drag the Document1.txt tab into its own floating container. Then I drag Document2.txt and using dock guides, attach it to the first document. This is a new feature that couldn't be done before.
Finally I drag the Solution Explorer and dock it next to the MDI in the floating container. Again, this is a new feature that couldn't be done before. The end result is a single DockSite that has two fully-functional DockHosts in it, one that is primary (within the DockSite) and one that is in a floating container.
Floating MDI features have been requested by a number of customers and we're very happy to deliver them in vNext. This feature set allows your single app to have multiple MDI areas that can be most effectively used in multiple monitor scenarios. Your end users will love it!
Docking/MDI vNext is currently still in mid-development stages but is progressing very well. Please contact us via email if you are an existing customer and would like to sign up as a beta tester for vNext. If you have any other suggestions for improving Docking/MDI, now is the time to get them in. We'll post more updates on our vNext improvements soon.
In the meantime, please download our current Docking/MDI control product and give it a spin.
Bill Henning (Actipro)
As mentioned in this previous post, we've been looking for ideas to further improve our WPF Docking/MDI product, which already is the market leader for docking tool window and MDI functionality. We've committed to working on a complete internal restructuring of the product that we will call Docking/MDI vNext. We're doing our best to keep the same general API surface, while providing even more advanced features in every area of the product. We've collected suggestions from our customers over the past several years and are working to meet them as best we can with Docking/MDI vNext.
In yesterday's post, we talked about a new optional size-to-content feature coming to standard MDI. In today's post we'll get into some other new features: standard MDI dock target and context menus.
One new addition is that now standard MDI can accept an "attach" (center dock guide) when dragging tool windows around. If the tool windows are dropped on the center dock guide, they immediately become documents in the standard MDI.
Another new feature is the ability to right-click on a standard MDI window's title bar or click its icon (if any) to see a context menu. We'll be expanding the options on the context menu further in the future.
Let's see all of this in action!
In this animation, we drag the Solution Explorer and Class View tool windows around. You can see the dock guides displayed for the standard MDI area. At first, we dock the tool windows to the left of MDI, keeping them still in a Docked state. Then we "attach" (center) dock them into the standard MDI and they become documents.
You can see the context menu that comes up when the title bar is right-clicked.
These great new features will be part of Docking/MDI vNext, with plenty more on the way!
Docking/MDI vNext is currently still in mid-development stages but is progressing very well. Please contact us via email if you are an existing customer and would like to sign up as a beta tester for vNext. If you have any other suggestions for improving Docking/MDI, now is the time to get them in. We'll post more updates on our vNext improvements soon.
In the meantime, please download our current Docking/MDI control product and give it a spin.
Bill Henning (Actipro)
As mentioned in this previous post, we've been looking for ideas to further improve our WPF Docking/MDI product, which already is the market leader for docking tool window and MDI functionality. We've committed to working on a complete internal restructuring of the product that we will call Docking/MDI vNext. We're doing our best to keep the same general API surface, while providing even more advanced features in every area of the product. We've collected suggestions from our customers over the past several years and are working to meet them as best we can with Docking/MDI vNext.
The past several days, we have been refining standard (windowed) MDI and adding several features. In today's blog post, I'd like to show a new feature coming to standard MDI, which is the ability to resize to content when first displayed.
There is a new option on the DockingWindow class that can be set to hint that when the docking window opens in standard MDI, it will automatically size-to-content. In this example, a Document1.txt docking window has a simple TextBox in it and the special size-to-content mode activated (which is off by default):
When opened in standard MDI, the window sizes to content and appears in the workspace area. Now if we manually execute the Cascade method, or if we would have originally kept the size-to-content option off, the docking window will look like this:
In this case, it is using a standardized formula for setting the width and height.
The ability to automatically resize a standard MDI docking window on load will be delivered in vNext. This is another user-requested feature.
Docking/MDI vNext is currently still in mid-development stages but is progressing very well. Please contact us via email if you are an existing customer and would like to sign up as a beta tester for vNext. If you have any other suggestions for improving Docking/MDI, now is the time to get them in. We'll post more updates on our vNext improvements soon.
In the meantime, please download our current Docking/MDI control product and give it a spin.
Bill Henning (Actipro)
As mentioned in this previous post, we've been looking for ideas to further improve our WPF Docking/MDI product, which already is the market leader for docking tool window and MDI functionality. We've committed to working on a complete internal restructuring of the product that we will call Docking/MDI vNext. We're doing our best to keep the same general API surface, while providing even more advanced features in every area of the product. We've collected suggestions from our customers over the past several years and are working to meet them as best we can with Docking/MDI vNext.
In our last two posts, we showed the redesigned functionality of dragging tool windows to float them and potentially drag/drop them elsewhere. One thing those screens didn't show was the ability to enable minimize/maximize buttons on floating tool windows. Our current Docking/MDI version allows maximize buttons on floating tool windows but there isn't an option for minimize buttons. We've added that option to vNext, so let's have a look.
Here's a simple tool window layout where all tool windows are docked or auto-hidden:
Now let's drag the Properties tool window to float it. I have both the options for minimize and maximize buttons enabled. You can see the buttons visible in the Properties tool window container's title bar:
Now let's drag the Find Results tool window and dock it on the right of the Properties tool window.
Since a hierarchy has now been created, a new title bar appears. While the tool window containers themselves no longer have minimize/maximize buttons, the new root title bar has them.
The ability to minimize floating tool windows has been requested by numerous customers and we're happy to deliver it with vNext.
Docking/MDI vNext is currently still in mid-development stages but is progressing very well. Please contact us via email if you are an existing customer and would like to sign up as a beta tester for vNext. If you have any other suggestions for improving Docking/MDI, now is the time to get them in. We'll post more updates on our vNext improvements soon.
In the meantime, please download our current Docking/MDI control product and give it a spin.