In the previous post for our Micro Charts product (currently available for WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT XAML), we revealed the MicroBulletGraph control that is coming to Micro Charts' 2012.2 version (already available for WinRT XAML). In today's post, we'll talk about how you can customize the appearance of the MicroBulletGraph to create visually stimulating graphs.

UPDATE:  Version 2012.2 is live and available for download now.

Customization Options

There are many ways to customize the look of a MicroBulletGraph, including customizable color schemes, changing part sizes, and graph orientation. The color of the graph can be set with a single base color that applies to all the parts to quickly create a unified color scheme, or the brush on each part can be set to create custom color schemes. A combination of the methods can also be used to efficiently create a graph that has a base color with highlighted parts.

Various examples of MicroBulletGraph appearance customizations, from the upcoming WPF demo

In addition to a different color, the featured bar, comparative bar, and projected bar can also be set to a different size. The height of bars can be set to a specific number of pixels, or to a percentage of the graph to fill. The width of the comparative bar can also be set to a different number of pixels to alter how large of a range it covers.

The same bullet graph demo as above, displayed in our Windows 8 WinRT XAML controls demo - available now!

Summary

The many customization options provided by the MicroBulletGraph control allow for virtually unlimited opportunities to create a unique and engaging graph. Using the appearance customization abilities graphs can be color-coded and highlight key data points while being visually appealing and easy to understand.

In our final post of this series, we'll look at some other features of the control.

In the previous post for our Micro Charts product (currently available for WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT XAML), we finished looking at our heat map control that is able to generate heat map markers that change both in size and color.  This allows for representations of two distinct data sets in the same heat map.

In today's post, we'll take a look at a new control called MicroBulletGraph coming to Micro Charts in the WPF and Silverlight controls in their 2012.2 versions.  This control is already available in the WinRT XAML 2012.2 version of Micro Charts.

UPDATE:  Version 2012.2 is live and available for download now.

What Are Bullet Graphs?

Bullet graphs were originally designed to replace meters and gauges in a more compact way while still being informative.  They are best suited to display a value that has other related values to be compared to, such as last year's mark, a goal or target, or a projected future value.  With the MicroBulletGraph's many parts, it is easy to provide contextual information about the data being displayed.

The actual value is represented by a featured measure bar, which is juxtaposed with a comparative value displayed as a bar perpendicular to it. The featured and comparative values are then placed in the context of specific ranges such as poor, average, and excellent. To give further meaning a projected bar can be used to display a future expected value of the featured bar.

In the example above all the parts of the MicroBulletGraph are displayed and labeled. Note that the only required value is the featured value, all others can be omitted, hiding the bar from view. An unlimited number of ranges can be used, or none at all, but bullet graphs most commonly utilize three qualitative ranges.

Summary

Bullet graphs are incredible tools to help the viewer grasp multiple points of information quickly without seeming cluttered or confusing.

In our next post of this series, we'll take a look at appearance customization features.

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.

Our upcoming 2012.2 versions of the SyntaxEditor .NET Languages Add-on (WPF and Silverlight versions) have been updated to fully parse the syntax changes and support automated IntelliPrompt on await expression results.

UPDATE:  Version 2012.2 is live and available for download now.

Automated IntelliPrompt for Await

Let's take a look at a sample of async/await in action.  In this sample code snippet, we have a method that will print the row count of a table that is asynchronously returned.

Note how all variables are implicitly declared with the var keyword.  First we declare a dataTask variable that is a Task<DataTable>.  Then we declare a table variable that is the result of an await of the task.

A lot of complicated code is going on behind the scenes here.  First, in order to determine task's type, the resolver has to search the awaited object (dataTask) for a GetAwaiter method (either explicitly declared or declared via an extension method).  If found, it examines that object for a GetResult method and the return value of that is task's type.

Finally you can see from the screenshot that it properly determined that table is of type DataTable since we are able to access the Rows collection on it.

Summary

Our .NET Languages Add-on continues to support the latest syntax innovations and has very impressive automated IntelliPrompt capabilities that can be added to your own applications.  The enhancements mentioned above will be included in the upcoming 2012.2 version.

Now that we've released our first set of UI controls for Windows 8 apps, our next development priority is to finish off the new controls and features coming to our WPF controls in their 2012.2 version.

In today's post, we're going to take a first look at some major theme updates that are ready for 2012.2.  In the screenshot below you can see the new Metro Light theme combined with a new class that can convert any Window to render with this custom chrome:

There are a lot of new specialized features attached to what you see above such as:

• A complete new theme for the Metro style appearance, inspired by the latest Visual Studio and Office versions.
• 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'll get into more details on how all this works in future posts.  But trust me, if you want your apps to take on the latest Metro-like appearance, you'll definitely want what's coming.  We're very excited for these updates.  They will be part of the 2012.2 versions, which should be available in the next several weeks.

UPDATE:  Version 2012.2 is live and available for download now.

Yesterday we officially released our first WinRT XAML user interface controls!  These controls are designed to be used in any .NET-based Windows 8 app and are fully compatible with both the Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012 RTM versions.

This first 2012.2 version includes all of the Micro Charts functionality found in the WPF and Silverlight versions, along with several new micro chart controls that we'll get into soon in upcoming blog posts.

These controls are full production-quality and are not a beta product.  We are excited to be one of the very first control vendors to release Windows 8 XAML UI controls for C# and VB developers.

Diving In - Windows 8 Sample Browser

The download for our WinRT XAML controls includes detailed product documentation and C#/VB Sample Browser app projects that show many sample usage scenarios for the controls.

When you first load our Windows 8 Sample Browser app, you'll be presented with a fluid Metro-style user interface for navigating to the many demos and samples we provide. 

The root page lists each product in its own group and quick access to several featured demos.  Clicking or tapping on the large logo item for each product dives down into a detail page for the product.

This page contains categorized lists of samples and access to the product's feature summary.  Click or tap any sample item to open it.

Arrow buttons on the left and right can be used to quickly navigate between samples.  You can see in this screenshot, one of our new micro charts controls (bullet graph - also coming to WPF/Silverlight in their 2012.2 versions) in action!

With this release of our WinRT XAML control products, we now have a very solid framework and samples infrastructure.  This will enable us to continue to expand our control offerings for this platform in the future.

Send Us Your Comments

After you get a chance to download our WinRT XAML controls and try out the sample, please contact us with your comments.  We'd love to hear what you think!