Informative Live Tile

In the past, Code Writer had a plain tile, which is still the case when no documents are open.

For version 2.0 we wanted to make the live tile really useful.  Now the live tile will list the documents you have open:

In this screenshot, there are five documents open, sorted by the order in which they were last accessed.  A checked box means that the document is unmodified.  An unchecked box means that the document has pending changes that need to be saved.  Also, as in previous versions, the number at the bottom right corner indicates the total number of unsaved documents that are open.

The tile is also very intelligent and updates its display based on how big it is and how many documents are open.  If in the above screenshot only four documents were open, it would switch back to a single column display mode so that longer filenames could be visible.

In this screenshot, we've switched to a smaller tile.  Since there are five documents open, not all of them can be listed on the four available lines.  Thus we show the last three that were accessed, along with a "+ 2 more" to let you know that you have five total documents open.

With all this information, you have a heads-up display right on your Windows start screen about what you're working on in the app.  We love this new feature!

Document Print Support

End users have asked for printing support and we've delivered it in v2.0.  You can print a document by opening the Windows 8 Devices charm or simply by pressing Ctrl+P.

Once a printer is selected, a flyout will display that shows a preview of what will be printed.  Numerous options are also available, such as the ability to turn off syntax highlighting, show/hide line numbers, or show/hide whitespace markers.

Since Windows 8 allows you to print to an XPS Document Writer, you can print right to an .OXPS file (similar to a PDF) and send it to other colleagues or review it later on other machines.

Block Auto-Indent

Block auto-indent has been added, which kicks in when Enter is pressed within a curly brace pair for the C, C++, C#, CSS, Java, JavaScript, Lua, Perl, PHP, PowerShell, Python, and Ruby file types.

With the caret in between the curly braces in this JavaScript code, Enter is pressed.

The result is that the text after the caret moves two lines down and the caret indents on the middle line.  This really helps typing efficiency.  For some more detail, see the related SyntaxEditor post.

Nested CSS and JavaScript Editing Improvements

Block auto-indent, delimiter highlighting, and delimiter auto-complete have been added to CSS and JavaScript sections that are nested in HTML, ASP, ASP.NET, and PHP file types.

Twilight Background Theme

The Add Document, Help, and Release History screens have always been rather spartan:

This look remains the default when you first start Code Writer.  While this is great and adheres to the Metro principles, we wanted to spruce things up by adding a new optional Twilight theme:

The twilight theme still keeps focus on the content as every good Windows Store app should, however it renders a night sky with a star field at the top, and multiple cloud layers at the bottom.  Best of all, if you scroll the screen, you'll encounter parallax scrolling of the theme's elements.

The Twilight background theme option can be activated on the General flyout via the app's Settings charm.

Improved Copy and Share

Past versions of Code Writer supported clipboard copy and sharing via the Windows Share charm.  In v2.0, we improved these areas further.

Here we see the Share charm flyout, where I've shared the document I'm editing.  Notice how now the text that is added to the message is fully syntax highlighted and line breaks are passed correctly, both of which are part of the v2.0 improvements.

Copying text to the clipboard and pasting in other apps such as OneNote will also retain syntax highlighting.

Code Writer is smart in that if you have a dark editor theme active, all the syntax highlighting used for sharing and copying will be done in the light background theme so that it shows up properly in other apps.

Protocol Activation

This version adds protocol activation support.  This means that you can enter codewriter:// in your browser to open Code Writer.

Commands can also be passed to Code Writer:

• codewriter://add - Opens the Add Document screen.
• codewriter://help - Opens the Help screen.
• codewriter://open?path=c:\document.txt - Opens the document at local path "c:\document.txt".  Note that due to Window Store app security, the file will not be accessible unless you have previously opened the document in Code Writer using the Browse dialog.

All of the protocol-based commands listed above can be easily executed from PowerShell by using the Start-Process cmdlet. This example shows how to open a local file (be aware of security notes above):

• Start-Process "codewriter://open?path=c:\document.txt"

Tutorial Overlays

In past versions, Code Writer would display a mostly textual introduction screen the first time you used it.  We never really liked that concept and wanted a more visual tutorial.  In v2.0, when you first visit the Add Document and Editor screens, you are now presented with a single page tutorial overlay that gives some quick tips on how to use the page.

The screenshot above shows the Add Document screen tutorial.

Miscellaneous

Numerous miscellaneous improvements have also been made:

• The mouse back button now simulates clicks on page back buttons.
• A Help button to access app documentation has been added to the Add Document screen's app bar.
• Minor user interface improvements have been made such as subtle outlines to the Add Document screen's items.
• Updated document save code to reduce memory usage for large documents.
• Fixed a bug where JavaScript sections in HTML weren't being syntax highlighted.

Summary

As you can see, this release adds a ton of great new features.  Be sure to grab it.

Go to the Windows Store to download Code Writer, and help us by tweeting about the app!

WPF Controls 2013.1 build 583 has been released and is now available for download.  This build focuses on minor enhancements and bug fixes.

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

Several weeks ago, we announced a new Delimiter Auto-Complete feature coming to the 2013.2 version of SyntaxEditor for WPF and Silverlight.  This feature is great because it improves typing efficiency by auto-inserting end delimiters when the start delimiter is typed.

We have been wanting to improve the typing experience even more and in today's post, I'd like to announce that curly brace auto-indent is also coming.

What Is Curly Brace Auto-Indent?

When the caret is in the middle of a curly brace pair, pressing Enter normally will move the close curly brace to the next line with the caret right in front of it.  If you have an indent provider for your language, the close curly brace will be indented properly however it's still not an ideal situation because you generally want the caret to be on its own line before the close curly brace's line.

This scenario is where curly brace auto-indent comes in!  This feature injects a new blank line in between the braces, indents one more level, and positions the caret on that line.

Sample Usage

Let's start with a regular JavaScript function declaration.  Note how the caret in in between a curly brace pair.

In the past, if you pressed Enter, you'd get this:

With the new curly brace auto-indent feature, instead of the above when you press Enter, you will get now this:

The end user is immediately able to start typing content for the function.

Summary

These new features will be available in the 2013.2 version of SyntaxEditor, and are built into our advanced C# and JavaScript languages for this version.

They can easily be added to any custom language as well with a few lines of code.

A couple weeks ago, we made a major update to our Office 2010 style icons that brought the bundle to over 80,000 total images.  Once bit of feedback we've gotten from customers is that they'd like to see a similar bundle that is designed in the more modern flat appearance used in Office 2013.

Today we are pleased to announce that we've delivered on this and have released a brand new icons bundle named Icons Metro Essentials that contains over 108,000 total icons!

By the way, these icons look great with the Metro themes found in our WPF Controls.

What's Included?

Icons Metro Essentials includes over 3,600 completely unique icon designs.  Each icon design is implemented in multiple sizes (64x64, 48x48, 32x32, 24x24, and 16x16), multiple states (normal, hot, and disabled), and are delivered in alpha-blended PNG and Icon file types. 

The above example shows the multiple sizes/states for a single icon design.  Notice the pixel-perfect quality of each icon.  These aren't just large icons that were scaled down to various sizes.  Each icon has been individually cleaned up to have clear, crisp lines.

Set Previews

Here's a preview of just some of the 32x32 images found in the bundle:

As a bonus, an additional status bar set is included with white icons that look great on a modern status bar:

See the full preview on our web site to see all of the included thousands of icon designs.

Summary

Are you looking to update your app or web site's appearance to the latest Office 2013 appearance?  Get Icons Metro Essentials today and you'll be well on your way.

Download a free sampler of our icons to check them out!

Last week we announced that Actipro Icons Essentials v3.0 was released.  Icons Essentials is our main icons bundle, with thousands of unique crisp and clear icon designs.  We also offer an Icons Elements package that consists of various adornments that are intended to be combined with other icons (such as those from Icons Essentials) to create icons with new meanings.

In the example above, an "image" icon was combined with a "hand" element to create a "share image" icon.

Today I'd like to announce that version 2.0 of our Actipro Icons Elements product also launched last week, adding new image designs and new image size variations (64x64, 48x48, 32x32, 24x24, and 16x16) into the mix.  The first version of these icons only included two size variations.  All icons ship in PNG and Icon formats. 

Here's an example of how a couple elements look at each of the size variations:

Note that elements are smaller than normal icons since they are intended to be merged into other existing icons and just change their context.  They afford you the ability to mix and match however you need.

Download a free sampler of our icons to check them out!

Upgrading to v2.0

If you are an existing Actipro Icons Elements customer, you can upgrade to v2.0 for just $49 per developer.  Bulk discounts are also available.  Please email our sales department for assistance with upgrading.