First Look at SyntaxEditor for WinRT/XAML

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro) - 1 comment
Friday, November 30, 2012 at 3:19pm

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One thing we always wanted to do was write a small free application that used SyntaxEditor (our syntax-highlighting code editor control) and could be used as a notepad replacement.  While we have many nice demos for the control product, we've never made an app that is real-world and usable by the masses.  That is, until now.

UPDATE:  Code Writer is now live on the Windows Store.  Download it for free!

Today I'd like to share a picture of an exciting Windows 8 app running on my Surface RT:

Surface

We've created a text and code editing application for Windows 8 that uses a port of our WPF and Silverlight SyntaxEditor as its primary interface for editing documents.  And I must say, it's beautiful.

Yes, it works on any Windows 8 platform, including ARM devices such as seen in the picture above.  And best of all, our upcoming app will be free to use! 

This gives us an opportunity to show off SyntaxEditor's capabilities and heavily test the WinRT/XAML port of SyntaxEditor.  Once SyntaxEditor for WinRT/XAML is released, you will be able to add text/code editing features into your own Windows 8 apps.

We currently are putting the finishing touches on the app for a first release and hope to have it out soon.  We've worked up a very nice way for interacting with documents, and will dive into it all with some screens once the app is submitted for certification.

If you are a customer and are interested in beta testing SyntaxEditor for WinRT/XAML, please contact our sales team.  A beta may not be ready for a while, but we'd like to start collecting info on interested customers now.

WPF Controls 2012.2 Build 571 Released

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro) - 2 comments
Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 4:01pm

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WPF Studio 2012.2 build 571 has been released and is now available for download. This maintenance release contains some massive new features and updates for the WPF controls.

This build has the following major new features:

  • Docking: Updated the standard switcher to use current theme assets and updated dock guide appearances for the Metro themes.
  • Docking: Updated dock guides, previews, rafting windows, and the switcher to support LayoutTransform detection.
  • Editors: Updated EnumPart to implement ISpinnable and allow up/down arrow keys to change its value.
  • PropertyGrid: Added a new Custom Factory QuickStart that shows how to build a custom data factory.
  • Ribbon: Completely rearchitected RibbonWindow to use the powerful new WindowChrome class for providing its custom chrome.
  • Ribbon: Improved RibbonWindow's Metro themes to support outer glows.
  • Ribbon: Improved RibbonWindow to fully support Aero snap and dock.
  • Ribbon: Updated Backstage to have a more Office 2013-like appearance when in a Metro theme.
  • Ribbon: Updated Backstage so that it covers the RibbonWindow.StatusBar if present.
  • SyntaxEditor: Added a NavigableSymbolSelector.AreRootSymbolsSupported property, that can be set to false to only show the member drop-down.
  • SyntaxEditor: Added new SyntaxEditor.HorizontalScrollBarVisibilty and VerticalScrollBarVisibility properties that can be set to Hidden to hide scrollbars.
  • SyntaxEditor LL(*) Parser Framework: Added a new Grammar.AstLeftAssociativity tree constructor method that can provide left associativity on binary operator expressions.
  • SyntaxEditor .NET Languages Add-on: Improved the parser and resolver.
  • Themes: Added a new Metro White theme, that is similar to the Office 2013 appearance.
  • Themes: Updated WindowChrome to support the rendering of custom chrome for any current theme, not just the Metro themes.
  • Themes: Updated WindowChrome to support Aero glass via its new IsGlassEnabled and GlassThickness properties.
  • Themes: Added the WindowChrome.TitleBarContentTemplate property that allows for injecting custom content next to window title bar caption buttons.

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

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Silverlight Controls 2012.2 Build 141 Released

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 3:52pm

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Silverlight Studio 2012.2 build 141 has been released and is now available for download.  Several very nice new controls and enhancements are part of this build.

This build has the following major new features:

  • SyntaxEditor: Added a NavigableSymbolSelector.AreRootSymbolsSupported property, that can be set to false to only show the member drop-down.
  • SyntaxEditor: Added new SyntaxEditor.HorizontalScrollBarVisibilty and VerticalScrollBarVisibility properties that can be set to Hidden to hide scrollbars.
  • SyntaxEditor LL(*) Parser Framework: Added a new Grammar.AstLeftAssociativity tree constructor method that can provide left associativity on binary operator expressions.
  • SyntaxEditor .NET Languages Add-on: Improved the parser and resolver.

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

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WinForms Controls 2012.1 Build 303 Released

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 3:39pm

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WinForms Controls 2012.1 build 303 has been released and is now available for download. Several enhancements and bug fixes are part of this build.  SyntaxEditor updates include an improved regex engine that allows for Unicode categories, and improved CharClass design.  .NET Languages Add-on updates include improvements to the VB parser, resolver, and auto-indent.

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

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WPF Controls 2012.2 Released

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Monday, September 10, 2012 at 10:24am

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WPF Controls 2012.2 has been released and is now available for download!  This version adds a number of new controls, some great new SyntaxEditor functionality, a new Metro light theme, and other theme updates.

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

ProductHeadingWPFMicroCharts

Bullet Graph

A bullet graph is a special kind of bar chart used to display a single value and make comparisons to one or more related values, such as last year's mark, a goal or target, or a projected future value. 

BulletGraph

Examples could include annual income or expenses data, sales data, and performance ratings data.

Box Plot

A box plot is a chart used to visualize major statistical values, such as the mean, median, and quartile values, of a data set. The mean and median can be shown as bars perpendicular to the chart. The upper and lower quartile values form the edges of a box that contains the middle half of the data.

BoxPlot

The spacing between the different parts of the box plot help indicate the degree of spread in the data. Box Plots are particularly useful for displaying distributions of a group in a compact way. This is good for creating charts that compare a group of data such as the performance of salespeople, heights of a group of people, temperatures along a latitude, and more.

Candlestick Chart

Candlestick charts are used to visualize price movements over time, such as changing stock or currency values.  The edges of the box define the opening and closing values, with the wicks extending to the highest and lowest values reached. 

CandlestickChart

The box is shaded differently depending on if the close was higher than the open.

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IntelliPrompt Code Snippet Selection Session

In the 2011.2 version, we added code snippet template session functionality where snippets of code can be inserted into the editor.  The snippets may contain editable fields that the end user can tab between and modify.

CodeSnippetTemplateSession

In 2012.2, we've added a new code snippet selection session that allows an end user to display a popup containing all the available code snippets. 

CodeSnippetSelectionSession

They can type in what they are looking for or can use the completion list as appropriate to locate a snippet.  Once a snippet is selected, a template session begins for it.

Structure Matchers

Structure matchers are a new language service added that allows a language to locate matching delimiter sets.  This is a feature that is harnessed by other SyntaxEditor editing functionality such as move/select to matching bracket and delimiter highlighting.  A built-in implementation is included that makes it easy to match common bracket pairs for a language.

Move/Select to Matching Bracket

SelectToMatchingBracket

When the caret is next to a delimiter that is part of a delimiter set (as identified by a structure matcher), the end user can choose to move or select the caret to the matching bracket via built-in edit actions.

Delimiter Highlighting

Delimiter highlighting checks the text next to the caret to see if it is part of a delimiter set (as identified by a structure matcher).  In cases where a delimiter is found, it and its related delimiters can be highlighted so that the end user can easily identify the code block.

DelimiterHighlighting

This highlighting commonly includes brackets (parentheses, curly braces, etc.) but can also include more advanced highlights such as #if…#else…#endif blocks.

.NET Languages Add-on Support for C# 5.0 / VB 11.0 Syntax

The latest official C# 5.0 and Visual Basic 11.0 language specifications have added some new keywords and functionality to the languages.  Both languages add asynchronous procedure support (via async/await) and VB adds iterators. 

Await

The latest .NET Languages Add-on parser is set up to properly parse the new syntax, and the resolver is able to work with async results for supporting automated IntelliPrompt.

.NET Languages Add-on Resolver Improvements for Anonymous Function Results

The .NET Languages Add-on's resolver can now examine anonymous functions to try and derive the Type of their result.

AnonymousFunctions

This helps further improve the resolver's ability to provide accurate automated IntelliPrompt when working with LINQ and other scenarios.

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New Metro Light Theme

A complete new theme for the Metro style appearance, inspired by the latest Visual Studio and Office versions, is included in 2012.2.  It is optional and is shipped in its own assembly, similar to our Office themes.

MetroTheme

As with our other themes, you can activate native control theming so that all the controls in your app, whether they are the built-in Microsoft controls or Actipro controls, will render consistently and with a great new Metro-like appearance.

WindowChrome Class

We have a new chrome class that can be used to alter the appearance of any normal WPF window.  At the moment it's designed for use only when the new Metro Light theme is active, and has these features:

  • Ability to convert any Window to use a custom chrome like above when the Metro theme is active.
  • Window border color (when active) that matches the StatusBar color.
  • Semi-transparent outer glow effect for window border.
  • Window resizing via the outer glow effect area.
  • StatusBar background, window border, and glow effect colors can all be changed based on app state.
  • Full Aero snap support.
  • Ability to render interop (WinForms, etc.) controls properly, even though transparency is used.

We plan on expanding the chrome class with more features in the future too.

Assets Added for Making Rounded Editors

EditCorners

We've added several new resource assets and updated all our themes so that it's possible to achieve rounded corners on any edit-related control, such as TextBox, SyntaxEditor, DateTimeEditBox, etc.

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