Dynamic filtering of IntelliPromptMemberList

Hello,

Can anyone tell me if the capability to dynamically filter a displayed IntelliPromptMemberList was ever added to the WinForms SyntaxEditor control?

Thanks, Steve

Hi Steve

I don't believe it was. Happy to stand corrected though.

Thanks

Matt

Hi Steve,

Sorry it's not in the WinForms version but it is in the newer WPF/Silverlight version.  We eventually want to backport the WPF/Silverlight object model design to WinForms so that all three platforms can have a consistent codebase and feature set.

Thank you for the quick response.  I have another question (hopefully it's appropriate of this thread) that's a follow-up on your 'backporting' comment above.  I'm still on a WinForms codebase (and will be for a while) and I'm evaluating your WinForms SyntaxEditor control for use in my projects.  Can you give me a feel for the level of commitment and plans that ActiPro might have with respect to maintaining/enhancing the WinForms version of the SyntaxEditor.  It sounds like it's lagging a bit behind the newer, shinier, technologies :)  FWIW,  I've been playing with it since last week and am very impressed with what it can do 'out-of-the-box' with minimal effort.

Hi Steve,

The WinForms codebase was the first one we wrote for that type of control.  It was built out and matured and is very stable at this point.  Along the way over the years we discovered a number of design improvements that we'd like to make.  Thus when WPF came along later on, we took that opportunity to write a new codebase from scratch using our years of experience in the area.  The newer design is extremely extensible and customizable and has improvements throughout nearly every feature area.  Silverlight then uses the same codebase as WPF.  We still are missing some minor feature areas in the WPF/Silverlight version that are in the WinForms version, but are continuing to knock those things out (and improve the features too) as we go forward.  Once we have WPF coverage of about everything that is in WinForms, our general plan is to backport the newer designs to WinForms so that the same features can be present and be more easily maintained on all the platforms.  In terms of resources, it seems a more effective use of our time to continue finishing off remaining feature areas in WPF then backport, rather than do some temporary major overhauls in WinForms that would end up getting replaced anyhow.

All that being said, the WinForms product is very solid and is a quality product in its own right.  It can do most of the things that customers are looking for in that sort of product, and we are continuing to maintain it and make minor updates.

I've been contemplating replacing my WinForms control with the WPF equivalent, as I'd assumed that the WPF version was a superset of the WinForms version. The comments above seem to indicate otherwise ie: WPF is lacking some features in the WinForms edition.

Is there a list of which features are missing from the WPF version ie: features that the WinForms version has but the WPF version doesn't?

Hi Gareth,

In most cases, the WPF version does have a much more advanced and rich feature set than WinForms.  The language architecture, IntelliPrompt, grammar, etc. are all much nicer in WPF and WPF has things like adornments, snapshots, etc. that aren't in WinForms.

As of the time of this reply, the feature areas left to add to WPF yet are:

• Code block selection
• Incremental search
• Indicators (but we have an internal sample showing how to implement in the meantime with existing adornment features)
• Smart tags
• Scrollbar display options (we have added options to hide the scrollbars for the next maintenance release)
• Virtual space
• Read-only regions (but can be achieved via TextChanging event)

Hi Gareth,

I saw the recent activity on this thread, and wanted to chime in.  I have been working on a WPF rewrite of my application that successfully implemented all the advanced features of the WinForms version.  In the process, I have found the new code base and architecture of the WPF version so much easier to use.  Not that there was anything wrong with the WinForms release, but the WPF code is just that good.  There are a few features missing right now, but, to me, the code improvements make it worth the wait until feature parity comes to WPF.  A bullet list of features doesn't do the control justice.  Unless you specifically need one of those WinForms features, I'd suggest a WPF implementation even if it means using Interop into WinForms.

Boyd

Thanks, that is very helpful. FYI, my personal preferred priorities:

1. Read-only regions
2. Indicators
3. Code block selection
4. Virtual space