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.

Today we just published new maintenance releases of all our control products.  These maintenance releases contain a lot of minor updates and bug fixes.  For more details, see the related announcement post:

• WPF Controls
• Silverlight Controls
• WinRT XAML Controls
• WinForms Controls

We highly recommend that if you are on the latest major versions, you upgrade to these maintenance releases.

Happy Holidays

We want to wish you all a very happy holiday season and new year.  We value our customers and your support for our products.  You allow us to continue doing what we love, and that is crafting great software.  We are excited to bring you more new products and features in 2013.  See you on the flip side!

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.

In our previous blog post we talked about how our WPF RibbonWindow has been completely rewritten from scratch using WindowChrome for the next 2012.2 maintenance release.  The post also showed off the new Metro White theme that will be included with our WPF controls, matching the visual appearance of Office 2013.

In today's post, we'll look at another new feature coming in the next maintenance release:  an updated Ribbon Backstage.  In the screenshot below, you can see the new Metro White theme in action along with the updated Backstage visuals.

There are several things of note here.  First, the Backstage has been modified so that when it is open, it will fully cover the RibbonWindow's StatusBar.  This applies to all themes.  For the Metro themes, a large back arrow button has been added to the top left of the Backstage to allow returning to the normal document view.  The ribbon, QAT, etc. also automatically disappear in Metro themes while Backstage is open.

These enhancements will be in the upcoming WPF controls 2012.2 maintenance release build 571.

WindowChrome Usage

In our previous post, we discussed all the great new feature additions coming to our WindowChrome implementation.  Another related item for the upcoming maintenance release is that we've completely reimplemented how RibbonWindow works and now have it using WindowChrome to manage all its custom chrome API calls.

This means that the same implementation of custom chromes will be used for both RibbonWindow and regular windows that use WindowChrome.  You'll get outer glow effects in Metro themes, full Aero snap/dock support, etc.  Everything described in our previous post.

New Metro White Theme

In the first 2012.2 version release, we added a new Metro Light theme that can be applied app-wide to all Actipro and native WPF Controls.  For the upcoming maintenance release, we've added a new Metro White theme that is similar to Metro Light but gives windows and toolbars more of an Office 2013 appearance.  Take a look:

If you are an Actipro customer, once you get the new features you'll be able to toggle the theme to Metro Light and instantly make your ribbon windows and other controls look like the above.  That's really slick!

Summary

These great new features will be part of the next WPF controls 2012.2 maintenance release build 571, due soon.  But that's not all… we have some more major announcements that we'll make for this version soon.