The WinRT XAML port of our popular SyntaxEditor syntax-highlighting code editor control is nearly development complete! 

While the SyntaxEditor control itself has been used as the foundation of our free Code Writer app for a while now, we haven't had the SyntaxEditor control available to our customers yet to use in their own apps.  That's about to change.  The 2013.2 release of our WinRT XAML controls will include all the recent updates to our Charts and Micro Charts, as well as the new SyntaxEditor port and ports of its .NET Languages Add-on and Web Languages Add-ons.

First Look at a Demo

Let's see a screen of the WinRT version of our SDI Code Editor demo:

Here we have a SyntaxEditor contro showing off the advanced C# language that is part of the .NET Languages Add-on.  With SyntaxEditor you can easily add text and code editing functionality to your Windows 8.1 apps.  It supports custom language creation, and as seen above, has some pre-built languages available with features like automated IntelliPrompt popups.

Beta Testers Wanted

We're really excited to get this finished up and into your hands.  If you are interested in helping us beta test SyntaxEditor for WinRT XAML, please contact our sales team (if you haven't already).  We expect the beta to be ready in the next week or two.

Actipro WPF Controls 2013.1 have been released and is now available for download. This version adds a new full-size Charts product, a Metro Dark theme, a complete reimagining of the Sample Browser's UI, and some great new SyntaxEditor functionality.

Major new features are described below.  See the announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.

Our new full-size Charts product has been added, allowing you to create stunning charts for your apps.  See this announcement post and this first look post for a couple other chart screenshots.

Line Charts

A line chart renders quantitative data as a series of points connected by line segments. Lines can be straight, curved, or stepped. Markers can optionally be displayed based on type (such as first/last, high/low, negative, etc.).

Scatter Charts

Scatter charts render data points where each point is represented by a marker. Markers can use numerous built-in shapes or can be set to use custom shapes.

Area Charts

An area chart is a derivative of a line chart, where the area between the line and axis is filled in. As with line charts, areas can also be rendered using straight, curved, or stepped lines

Bar Charts

A bar chart displays rectangular bars with lengths proportional to the values they represent. Bar spacing can be set and the bars can be changed to render horizontally instead.

Indicators

A rich object model for supporting indicators has been added.  Indicators are special "tagged" regions of text that optionally display a glyph in the indicator margin and optionally highlight the text range with special styles.  Built-in indicators include bookmarks, breakpoints, and current statement indicators.  Custom indicators can easily be created as well.

See this bookmark indictors post and this debugging indicators post for much more detail on indicators and examples of functionality.

Line Terminator Backgrounds

When a style that has a background encompasses a line terminator, it now will render the background of the line terminator's virtual character.

A new property BackgroundSpansVirtualSpace property has been added to highlighting styles that when set to true, will extend the background over a line terminator to cover all the way to the right edge of the view.

Trim All Trailing Whitespace

A new edit action has been added to trim all trailing whitespace in the entire document, regardless of the current selection.

CollectionTagger<T> Enhancements

The CollectionTagger<T> class has received a large number of new methods that make it easier than ever to manage a collection of tagged regions.

.NET Languages Add-on - Text Formatting

Text formatters have been added to the C# and VB languages in the .NET Languages Add-on, which beautify code by adjusting whitespace and making it more readable.

See this C# text formatter post and this VB text formatter post for more information and examples of the formatting results.

.NET Languages Add-on - Attribute IntelliPrompt

Full automated IntelliPrompt while editing C# and VB attributes is now included.

.NET Languages Add-on - Implicit Variable Type IntelliPrompt

Automated IntelliPrompt quick info now displays when hovering over var in C# or Dim in VB.

See this blog post for some more information and screenshots.

Metro Dark Theme

A Metro Dark theme has been implemented that renders similar to Visual Studio 2012's dark theme.  This new theme affects all controls and even can apply to native WPF controls.

Actipro Themes for WPF now provides implementations of all system themes, three Office themes, and three Metro themes!

See this blog post showing several screenshots of the new Metro Dark theme in action.

Actipro Silverlight Controls 2013.1 has been released and is now available for download. This version adds a new full-size Charts product, a complete reimagining of the Sample Browser's UI, and some great new SyntaxEditor functionality.

Major new features are described below.  See the announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.

Note:  Version 2013.1 updates the Silverlight controls to target the Silverlight 5 platform.

Our new full-size Charts product has been added, allowing you to create stunning charts for your apps.  See this announcement post and this first look post for a couple other chart screenshots.

Line Charts

A line chart renders quantitative data as a series of points connected by line segments. Lines can be straight, curved, or stepped. Markers can optionally be displayed based on type (such as first/last, high/low, negative, etc.).

Scatter Charts

Scatter charts render data points where each point is represented by a marker. Markers can use numerous built-in shapes or can be set to use custom shapes.

Area Charts

An area chart is a derivative of a line chart, where the area between the line and axis is filled in. As with line charts, areas can also be rendered using straight, curved, or stepped lines

Bar Charts

A bar chart displays rectangular bars with lengths proportional to the values they represent. Bar spacing can be set and the bars can be changed to render horizontally instead.

Indicators

A rich object model for supporting indicators has been added.  Indicators are special "tagged" regions of text that optionally display a glyph in the indicator margin and optionally highlight the text range with special styles.  Built-in indicators include bookmarks, breakpoints, and current statement indicators.  Custom indicators can easily be created as well.

See this bookmark indictors post and this debugging indicators post for much more detail on indicators and examples of functionality.

TextFormattingMode Support

SyntaxEditor's text rendering has been updated to support Silverlight 5's TextOptions.TextFormattingMode property setting.  This feature allows for improved text clarity.

Line Terminator Backgrounds

When a style that has a background encompasses a line terminator, it now will render the background of the line terminator's virtual character.

A new property BackgroundSpansVirtualSpace property has been added to highlighting styles that when set to true, will extend the background over a line terminator to cover all the way to the right edge of the view.

Trim All Trailing Whitespace

A new edit action has been added to trim all trailing whitespace in the entire document, regardless of the current selection.

CollectionTagger<T> Enhancements

The CollectionTagger<T> class has received a large number of new methods that make it easier than ever to manage a collection of tagged regions.

.NET Languages Add-on - Text Formatting

Text formatters have been added to the C# and VB languages in the .NET Languages Add-on, which beautify code by adjusting whitespace and making it more readable.

See this C# text formatter post and this VB text formatter post for more information and examples of the formatting results.

.NET Languages Add-on - Attribute IntelliPrompt

Full automated IntelliPrompt while editing C# and VB attributes is now included.

.NET Languages Add-on - Implicit Variable Type IntelliPrompt

Automated IntelliPrompt quick info now displays when hovering over var in C# or Dim in VB.

See this blog post for some more information and screenshots.

We're working on new features for our 2013.1 control releases and today I'd like to show off a new feature coming to the WPF and Silverlight .NET Languages Add-on in that version.

C# Var Quick Info

As seen in the screenshot below, hovering over var keywords will now show the resolved type.

In this case, the resolved type for the randomNumbers variable is List<int>, which we aliased to Int32List above in the usings.

Visual Basic Dim Quick Info

Similar features have been added for the Dim keyword in VB.

In this screenshot, the j variable is being assigned an Int32.

Summary

These features will be in the 2013.1 versions of the WPF and Silverlight SyntaxEditor .NET Languages Add-on.

In our previous post, we talked about the new NavigableSymbolSelector control being added to the next 2012.1 builds of SyntaxEditor for WPF and Silverlight.

To sum up, the control implements drop-down lists that can be wired up to a SyntaxEditor and will list available symbols within the document.  As the caret moves, the drop-down selection is updated.  The end user can select a symbol from a drop-down and the editor caret will navigate to that symbol.  All of this functionality is very similar to the type/member drop-downs found in Visual Studio. 

Best of all, this functionality can easily be implemented for any custom language.  The last post showed an example of using the control for a custom language.  In this post, we'll take a look at the built-in implementation for the C# and VB languages found in the .NET Languages Add-on.

Screenshots

Here's how the NavigableSymbolSelector control looks when bound to a SyntaxEditor that has the .NET Languages Add-on's C# language loaded:

There are two drop-downs present.  The one on the left shows the types and the one on the right shows the members within the currently-selected type. 

As we move the caret around, the drop-downs update their selections.  In this screenshot we can see the members that are defined in the ConsoleWriter class, which is being edited in the SyntaxEditor.  Note how the members render their representations using C# syntax.

Next, let's look at the Visual Basic language's implementation:

Here you can see the drop-down selections are tracking the caret's location and are rendering their content in VB syntax. 

This screenshot also shows a special feature only found in the WPF implementation.  If the caret is outside of a symbol, the text will appear grayed out.  Note how the caret is inside the Program class declaration but is outside of the Main method declaration.  Thus the Main symbol is grayed out.  This helps the end user visualize better whether they are actually within, or just near, a symbol.

Summary

These new features will be in the next 2012.1 builds of our WPF and Silverlight controls.