Our v2020.1 UWP controls have been updated with a new maintenance release that is now ready for download. 

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

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Here's a look at some of the new features.

SyntaxEditor

Collapsed Region Quick Info Syntax Highlighting

When hovering the mouse over a collapsed region, the IntelliPrompt quick info tip now renders the contents with full syntax highlighting.

Markdown Syntax Highlighting

The free Markdown syntax language included in the samples has been improved with much better syntax highlighting.

New Print Options

New print options are available for:

• Whether collapsed outlining nodes can remain collapsed in printer views.
• Whether indentation guides are visible.
• Whether squiggle lines are visible.

JSON Syntax Highlighting (Web Languages Add-on)

A new classification type was added for syntax highlighting JSON property names.

We are pleased to announce the release of the 2020.1 version of our UWP Controls.  

This announcement post contains the detailed list of updates in the 2020.1 version.  Please be aware that Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) or later and usage of the Microsoft's free 'Win2D.uwp' NuGet package are required.

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While the version includes a wide number of small updates and bug fixes, let’s take a look at a handful of the larger updates.  

Editors

AutoCompleteBox 

AutoCompleteBox now has a SelectedItemChanged event and an InputMode property, that alters input behavior.  Search mode is the default and is intended for usage when the control is providing search-like functionality, commonly seen in application title bars.  ComboBox mode is an alternate mode intended for use when the control should be used in more traditional ComboBox-like scenarios.  When in ComboBox mode, the popup list filter turns off when not typing in the control, allowing the entire list to be browsed when interacting with the control purely via the popup.

Swatch-Only Display

BrushEditBox and ColorEditBox now have a HasText property that allows you to hide the text portion of the edit box for a swatch-only display.

Dates and Times

DateEditBox and TimeEditBox now accept delimiter-less input for several additional custom formats.

Large Incremental Changes

Numeric edit boxes now support large incremental changes when holding Shift while pressing Up/Down or rotating the mouse wheel.

Custom Format Strings

Several numeric edit boxes now support custom format strings with semi-colon conditional format specifiers.

Grids

We've added a PropertyGrid.RequestRefresh method that can be called to tell the PropertyGrid to refresh its contents.

SyntaxEditor

Search Overlay Pane

A new background renders the search range when the search overlay pane is in Selection scope mode.

A new property allows you to disable key bindings that would activate the search overlay pane, which is useful if you have an external search UI.

Logic related the selection scope searching has been improved.

Ctrl+Enter can be pressed to execute a Find All search operation when the Find textbox has focus and the find all button is visible.

IntelliPrompt

New methods allow completion list items to be added much faster, dramatically improving performance.

Our v2019.1 WPF and Universal Windows controls have been updated with new maintenance releases that are now ready for download.  There were a number of minor enhancements and bug fixes made across various products.

See the announcement posts for the detailed list of enhancements and updates:

• WPF Controls announcement
• Universal Windows Controls announcement

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Let's have a look at some of the larger updates.

SyntaxEditor

.NET Languages Add-on Parser Updates

The C# parser and resolver have been updated to support C# 7.3 syntax.  Likewise, the VB parser and resolver have been updated to support VB 15.8 syntax.  These enhancements allow SyntaxEditor's syntax checker and IntelliPrompt engine to work with recently-added C# and VB language features.

Triple-Click Selection

Triple-clicks now selects an entire view line.  Dragging the pointer on the final click will extend the selection by view line.

Searching Improvements

Editor view searching and search result highlighting logic was improved, including offloading some pieces to worker tasks for better performance.

The search overlay pane's textbox now displays a red border when no match for the find text is located.

Shell (WPF)

Object Name Sorting

The name sort logic for shell objects now uses a natural sorting algorithm, where digits in the names are considered as numerical content rather than text.  This behavior matches Windows' own sorting logic.

Grids

PropertyGrid DataObject Clearing

We added a new section to the PropertyGrid documentation that talks about best practices for clearing the DataObject property when the PropertyGrid is no longer needed to prevent memory leaks.  We improved some of our own internal logic in how we watch for property value changes to help prevent memory leaks regardless.  A PropertyGrid.CanClearDataObjectOnUnload property was also added that can be set to true to automatically clear the DataObject property when the control is unloaded.

All

VS 2019 Designer Functionality (UWP)

The original 2019.1 version of the UWP Controls changed the minimum Windows 10 target version to the Fall Creators Update.  This change indirectly triggered a different set of designer functionality APIs in VS 2019 that are breaking changes from the old ones.  This new UWP Controls maintenance release updates our designer functionality to be based on the newer APIs.

We are pleased to announce the release of the 2019.1 version of our UWP Controls.  This version includes the massive SyntaxEditor enhancements and updates we’ve been working on that have previously been described as “SyntaxEditor vNext” in the blog.

This announcement post contains the detailed list of updates in the 2019.1 version.  Please be aware that Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) or later and usage of the Microsoft's free 'Win2D.uwp' NuGet package are now required.

We also have published a maintenance release for the 2018.1 version.  All of the updates are listed in this announcement post, and are included in the 2019.1 version codebase as well.

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Let’s dig in and see a handful of the larger SyntaxEditor updates.

Cross-Platform Design

The internals of SyntaxEditor have been heavily refactored to support a cross-platform API across the WPF, UWP, and WinForms platforms. This allows SyntaxEditor features for the three platforms to be kept in sync moving forward.  The 2019.1 WPF version of SyntaxEditor is already out and the WinForms version will follow later this year.

Text Rendering

Text rendering is many times faster than in the previous versions, making an enormous leap forward in performance.

Text rendering now properly handles cultural editing concepts like complex glyphs, bi-directional text, etc.

Carets and Selection

Multiple Selections

Multiple selections, each with their own caret, are now supported. A new selection can be added by holding the Ctrl key when clicking in the text area or clicking on the selection or line number margins.  Most edit actions have been refactored to fully support multiple selections. For instance, pressing Shift+Right Arrow will extend all of the selections by one character. 

Copying text from multiple selections unions the selected text, joining each range's text with a line terminator.  Pasting multi-line text into a view with the same number of selections as text lines being pasted will replace each selection with a related line from the pasted text.

Caret Movement

Carets now support movement at both the start and end of word wrapped lines.

Virtual space is now supported at the end of lines when a new option is enabled.  Block selections can be made in virtual space at the end of lines, even without line end virtual space being enabled. This prevents the caret from snapping to an offset when making a block selection, which can sometimes be problematic.

Drag/Drop

Text drag and drop support has been added, allowing text to be quickly moved around the editor.

Search Overlay Pane

A new search overlay pane displays over the upper-right of the active editor view when Ctrl+F (find mode) or Ctrl+H (replace mode) are pressed in a multi-line editor.  A toggle mode button on the search overlay pane switches between find and replace modes, and all common search options are supported via toggle buttons and other controls.  The search overlay pane can be closed by clicking the X button or by pressing Esc.

Ctrl+F3 will open the search overlay pane without focusing it, and will search forward for the currently-selected text. Ctrl+Shift+F3 will do the same but will search backwards.

F3 will search for the next match of the previously-used search options. Shift+F3 will search for the previous match of the previously-used search options.

If the SyntaxEditor.IsSearchResultHighlightingEnabled property is true, the search results can be highlighted while the search overlay pane is open. Closing the search overlay pane, clears the search result highlights.

IntelliPrompt

Vector Images

The Metro Light and Metro Dark common image sets are now in vector form and render beautifully in high DPI.

Completion Filters

Completion filters have been updated so when there are multiple active filters with the same ICompletionFilter.GroupName, any one of those filters can includes an item.  Toggle button completion filters were changed to appear unchecked when they aren't active, which is more natural.

Ctrl Key Opacity Changes

The logic for making IntelliPrompt popups and the new search overlay pane semi-transparent when the Ctrl key is held has been refactored and improved.  A brief delay was added before the opacity change occurs.

Splitting

Splitting the editor to show two stacked views is now possible.

The view splitter can be dragged to the bottom of the view to remove the split and keep the top view.

Scrolling and Zooming

Touch Scrolling

Smooth inertia-based touch scrolling has been added.

Auto ScrollBar Visibility

The horizontal and vertical scrollbars now support an Auto visibility option that will only display then when necessary.

Horizontal Scrolling

Editor views can be scrolled horizontally with Shift+MouseWheel

Better logic was implemented for managing horizontal scroll maximums, especially when scrolling vertically.

ScrollBar Acceleration

The vertical scrollbar accelerates its scrolling speed the longer you hold the up or down button.

Scroll API

New programmatic scroll methods were added that allow for aligning an anchor line to the top/center/bottom of a view with a specified pixel displacement, or scrolling by pixels.

Margins

Line Number Customization

A new line number provider language service was added that allows for complete customization of how line numbers are rendered in the line number margin.  In addition, a property was added to the document that sets the line number for the first line in the document, defaulting to one.

Ruler Margin

A new optional ruler margin has been added.

Indicator Glyphs

The rendering of built-in indicator glyphs was improved.

TextStylePreview Control

The TextStylePreview control has been added that renders a highlighting style.

.NET Languages Add-on

IntelliPrompt completion list toggle button filters were added for the various kinds of items displayed in the list.  The IntelliPrompt completion filter UI (toggle buttons and tabs) only shows based on the available items in the unfiltered list. For instance, if there are no types in the list, no 'Types' toggle button filter is visible.

Python Language Add-on

IntelliPrompt completion list toggle button filters were added for the various kinds of items displayed in the list.  The IntelliPrompt completion filter UI (toggle buttons and tabs) only shows based on the available items in the unfiltered list. For instance, if there are no classes in the list, no 'Classes' toggle button filter is visible.

Web Languages Add-on

Full XML schema support, including validation and automated IntelliPrompt, has been added to the XML syntax language.

We are ready to begin beta testing of our Universal Windows version of SyntaxEditor that contains all the updates for our vNext project.

Beta testers will get a first look at all the new features and can give us feedback prior to a final official release.

Beta Testers

We are looking for beta testers who:

• Will actively use supplied preview builds to help ensure the beta is stable.
• Will report suggestions for improvement of new features.
• Will report any bugs that are encountered.
• Ideally is signed up in our Slack workspace, as it’s easiest to communicate through that during testing phases.

Please contact our support team privately via a ticket to sign up for beta testing:

Contact Our Support Team to Sign Up

Please indicate the following in your message:

• Your name and e-mail address.
• If you are already an existing customer, and which syntax language(s) you currently use.
• The platform(s) you’d like to test (Universal Windows).
• If you are already signed up in our Slack workspace.

Thanks for your help and we look forward to working with our testers.

Thanks for your help and we look forward to working with our testers.

The SyntaxEditor vNext work is already launched in the v2019.1 SyntaxEditor for WPF release, and is coming to the SyntaxEditor for UWP as part of this beta, followed by SyntaxEditor for WinForms.