Actipro Blog 2016 Q1 Posting Summary

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 8:12pm

BlogSummaryBlogPostBanner

What We Accomplished

In this quarter, we completed work on the major rewrite of our popular Docking/MDI product for WPF.  The entire product was rewritten from the ground up to support next generation docking window features, all while maintaining a similar overall public API.  In the new version, floating documents become full-featured secondary dock hosts that even support docked tool windows around them.  This sort of thing is wonderful for end users with multiple monitors.  Fast subtle animations are used throughout the product to give the interface a more vibrant feel.  New layout properties and features are available that govern the size of containers (including min/max sizes), set initial floating window size, etc.  Interop content support is improved even further.  MVVM support is enhanced with many more bindable properties, default location determination for opening windows, and more.  Download the 2016.1 version to take the best WPF docking window framework for a test drive.

And best of all, we didn't just make it for WPF.  The entire product was written to be compatible with Universal Windows too!  Download our Universal Windows controls to see a beta of the same docking window framework there.

The WPF Controls 2016.1 version added the Docking/MDI features described above, along with 14 new Office 2016-like themes that use accent colors, improved window chrome rendering, Metro themes built right into the Shared library, SyntaxEditor light/dark Metro image sets, and much more.

The Universal Windows Controls 2016.1 version was our first release for that platform.  It was a port of our older WinRT/XAML Controls and included everything in those, along with the Docking/MDI beta.

Our Code Writer app also saw a new minor version, which will be the last one before a major new version for Windows 10 is released.

Finally, we have created a Slack team that enables you, our customers, to chat directly with us regarding new products and features.

What’s Coming Next

We're currently working on a custom TreeView control that will support more features than the native WPF TreeView.  Our goal is to support the rich functionality of a control like the TreeView in Visual Studio's Solution Explorer tool window.  It's being written from scratch for both WPF and Universal Windows using virtualization to keep it very speedy, and is capable of multi-selection, easy bring-into-view, etc.  If you'd like to give us feedback on what you'd like to see in a new TreeView control, now is the time to get your feedback in!  Either email our support address with your feedback or join our Slack discussion on the topic.  Slack is preferred because we are sharing screenshots there and frequently ask for comments on feature areas.  After this base control is completed, we'll move into some more new complex data presentation controls like multi-column trees.

We've started on the design of the updates for the Windows 10 version of our Code Writer app.  We've got a UI design that looks promising and is a bit of of a UWP take on popular apps like VS Code and Sublime.  We also have a Slack channel where we're discussing that, so please sign up to see where things are headed and get your feedback in.

Blog Post List

Control Product Development

Control Product Releases

Code Writer

Actipro Blog 2015 Q4 Posting Summary

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Friday, January 1, 2016 at 7:18pm

BlogSummaryBlogPostBanner

What We Accomplished

In this quarter, we've focused on completing the Docking/MDI vNext features that have been described in this blog thus far, along with many others, making it the most feature-rich product of its kind for WPF.  Docking/MDI vNext is now feature complete and will ship in the upcoming 2016.1 version. 

Another set of major work that will be included in the 2016.1 WPF Controls is updates to our theming system.  We have fully-implemented seven color options for both the Office 2016-like Colorful and White themes, bringing a total of 14 new themes to the WPF controls.  We are moving our Metro themes directly into the Shared library so that Metro Light will now be the default theme for all Windows 8.x and 10 systems.  The old Luna/Royale themes that are for XP appearance are being moved into their own separate assembly.  Since Microsoft has stopped supporting Windows XP, moving these themes out reduces the Shared assembly size while still allowing the themes to be utilized programmatically by apps that want them.

Finally, we have been porting the WinRT/XAML controls to UWP and while most of this work is complete, there were unexpected issues introduced by UWP's usage of .NET Native that we had to work with Microsoft to overcome. 

What’s Coming Next

The launch of our 2016.1 versions is just around the corner that will contain massive enhancements described for WPF per above.

We will also continue wrapping up the UWP controls.  Please write our support address if you are interesting in help beta test them.

Blog Post List

Control Product Development and Releases

Docking/MDI vNext Development

Actipro Blog 2015 Q3 Posting Summary

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 4:37pm

by Bill Henning (Actipro)

BlogSummaryBlogPostBanner

What We Accomplished

In this quarter, we've primarily been focused on code development of our Docking/MDI vNext version.  This has been a massive undertaking since we've been reworking nearly all of the internals, while keeping most of the public API the same, to improve the design and add an enormous number of features that have been requested by our customers.  The update log for this version is now many pages long and enables Docking/MDI to support all the UI features you find in the most premier modern IDEs like Visual Studio.  You're going to love it!

We also have been working on porting the WinRT/XAML controls to UWP.

What’s Coming Next

We are close to the end of the code development stage for Docking/MDI vNext, which means we're also nearing the beta testing phase.  We can't wait to get it into your hands.  If you would like to help beta test this new version, please write our support address.  Keep watching this blog for more development news. 

We plan to launch the UWP version of our WinRT/XAML controls in the next few weeks too.

Blog Post List

Control Product Development and Releases

Docking/MDI vNext Development

Actipro Blog 2015 Q2 Posting Summary

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, July 2, 2015 at 8:35pm

BlogSummaryBlogPostBanner

What We Accomplished

In this quarter, we published the 2015.1 versions of our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls, along with maintenance releases of our WinForms 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

In recent weeks, we've been primary focused on the development of our Docking/MDI vNext product.  We are completely reworking the internals of our popular Docking/MDI for WPF product, adding an enormous number of major new features along the way.  Most of the new features are a direct result of customer requests.  We've started detailing some of the new features in blog posts and watch for many more to posts come.  For instance, updates to tabbed MDI are progressing well and you'll soon have new features at your fingertips like pinning tabs, having preview (right-aligned) tabs as in Visual Studio, etc.

Blog Post List

Control Product Development and Releases

Docking/MDI vNext Development

Actipro Blog 2014 Q4 Posting Summary

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Sunday, January 4, 2015 at 2:32pm

BlogSummaryBlogPostBanner

What We Accomplished

In this quarter, we published large maintenance releases for the 2014.2 versions of our WPF, Silverlight, WinRT/XAML, and WinForms 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've started work on our 2015.1 versions of our controls.  These will feature some new controls, major improvements to our SyntaxEditor Python Language Add-on, and many other updates.  One thing we're working on is rewriting much of the core of our Docking/MDI for WPF product so that we can support even more advanced features found in the latest IDEs.

Blog Post List

Control Product Development