This version contains many small feature enhancements and quality of life improvements.

See the related announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.

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This version contains a large number of updates across the WPF control product line.  The largest being a new ShellListView Columns QuickStart with examples on adding checkable items and inserting a custom column, TreeListBox performance and selection updates, and many other various improvements to nearly all products.

See the related announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.

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Earlier this week, we published a WPF Controls 2018.1 build 671 maintenance release that added some major new features for our WPF Shell controls.  It also made some minor updates and bug fixes in other WPF controls, so it is a highly recommended update.

Actipro's WPF Shell controls allow for easy folder and file browsing. While the product comes packed with a pre-built implementation for the Windows shell that mimics Windows Explorer, the controls are fully customizable, allowing you to filter or change the folders/files presented. Or build your own shell service to support other files systems, such the remote side for a FTP client.

ShellListView Layout Modes

The initial 2018.1 release of the Shell controls first introduced the ShellTreeListBox control (presents a shell folder hierarchy in a tree structure) and the ShellListView control (shows the contents of a selected folder).  This first build only supported the Details layout mode in ShellListView, which is the one most commonly-used, and has multiple columns of shell object information display. 

In this latest maintenance release, we've added multiple new layout mode options:  List, Small Icons, Medium Icons, Large Icons, and Extra Large Icons.  Let's see a comparison of the new modes.

List

Small Icons

Medium Icons

Large Icons

Extra Large Icons

Details (default)

Thumbnails

This latest maintenance release also can display thumbnails that represent shell object content in place of the standard file type icons in several of the new layout modes.

Let's take a look at a folder that has the thumbnails feature off:

You can see that the folders don't show any content and the images display a standard icon.  Now let's compare the same folder with the new thumbnails feature on:

That's quite an improvement and really helps users get a feel for the content.  The thumbnails displayed are provided by the system, so the thumbnails should support generation from any shell extension that supports thumbnails.

Summary

The features described above are available today.  Please download our latest WPF controls build to get them.

The next feature we're working on for ShellListView is adding a virtualizing panel for these new layout modes that will allow folders with many shell objects to display quicker.  If you'd like to help us beta test new features like the virtualizing panel, please write our support address.  And "Chat With Us" about our shell controls on Slack.

We're happy to announce that the 2018.1 versions of our WPF, Universal Windows, and Silverlight controls have been released.  These versions include a new WPF Shell product, new features, and a lot of minor updates and bug fixes throughout the control sets.

See all the details on the 2018.1 releases in the various announcement posts:

• WPF Controls announcement
• Universal Windows Controls announcement
• Silverlight Controls announcement

Introducing Shell Controls (WPF only)

The 2018.1 version of the WPF Controls introduces a beta of a new Shell controls product that we've been developing the past several months.

Actipro Shell controls allow for easy folder and file browsing. While the product comes packed with a pre-built implementation for the Windows shell that mimics Windows Explorer, the controls are fully customizable, allowing you to filter or change the folders/files presented. Or build your own shell service to support other files systems, such the remote side for a FTP client.

The ShellTreeListBox control presents a shell folder hierarchy in a tree structure. It is often paired with a ShellListView control, which shows the contents of a selected folder using column-based property display. Both controls support customizable tool tips, context menus, multiple image sizes that account for high-DPI scenarios, and in-line renaming.

All of the UI found in the Shell controls is native WPF, even the context menus. Unlike competitive products with interop-based user interfaces, the Actipro Shell controls don't have any airspace or focus issues, and every bit of UI can be fully-themed or even customized with XAML data templates.

Although these controls are still in beta, they should be stable for usage in production.  If you would like to submit suggestions for improvement, please post them in our Shell discussion forum or join our Slack workspace.  We've done a lot of planning with beta testers in the Slack #uicontrols channel.