JSON Language Coming to WinForms SyntaxEditor

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Tuesday, April 8, 2014 at 2:07pm

PostBannerSyntaxEditorDevNotes

We are adding a JSON language implementation to the WinForms SyntaxEditor samples for the next maintenance release.

Features

JSON is a lightweight data-interchange format that is a subset of JavaScript syntax, and is commonly used with many web technologies.  With the new syntax language, you'll be able to provide a great editor/viewer for JSON data.  Here's a screenshot:

JSONWinForms

The JSON syntax language has these features:

  • Syntax highlighting
  • Automatic code outlining
  • Smart indent
  • Delimiter (bracket) highlighting

Summary

This new syntax language example will be included in the next WinForms Controls maintenance release.

TaskDownload TaskLiveDemo TaskBuyNow

Actipro Blog 2014 Q1 Posting Summary

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Tuesday, April 1, 2014 at 4:36pm

BlogSummaryBlogPostBanner

What We Accomplished

In this quarter we published the 2014.1 versions of our WPF, Silverlight, WinRT/XAML, and WinForms controls.  These versions included a lot of new controls and feature enhancements for our existing controls.  Check out the release posts for more detail.

Our free Code Writer Windows Store app had a couple releases that added context menus, new file types like JSON, many find/replace improvements, and much more.

Blog Post List

Control Product Development

Control Product Releases

Code Writer App

RadialSlider Control

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Friday, March 21, 2014 at 9:08am

20141ProductNotesBlogPostBanner

The 2014.1 versions of our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls were released last week and all contain several handy components in them, such as the RingSlice control we talked about several days ago.

In today's post, I'd like to show off the new RadialSlider control.

What is RadialSlider?

The RadialSlider control allows for quick selection of a degree value, which can easily be converted to some form of scalar value.  The control uses an embedded CircularThumb control, but is otherwise transparent.  It is meant to be used in conjunction with the RingSlice control and have that control render the slider's value UI.

RadialSliderBounds   RadialSliderCorner

Radial sliders function just like normal linear sliders however instead of moving the slider thumb in a straight line, the thumb can move in a circular fashion around the slider's center point.  This sort of UI allows for additional precision when compared to linear sliders, especially with touch interaction.

RadialSliderSegmented   RadialSliderWarningLevel

RadialSlider supports minimum/maximum ranges, infinite wrapping mode, customizable thumb styles, and more. 

RadialSliderRange   RadialSliderCustomStyle

Combine two RadialSlider controls on top of each other to enable range-based selection.

Real World Usage Scenario

RadialSlider and RingSlice controls can be used to create radial input controls such as in this sample (included in our download), which mimics a countdown timer in the Windows Alarms app:

RadialSlider

The end user simply grabs the thumbs, either via touch or mouse, and drags in a circular fashion to alter the values.  The RingSlice controls that render the current values track with the dragged thumb.

Summary

The RadialSlider control is available in our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML Shared Libraries and is licensed for use by any of our customers of those control platforms.  Download v2014.1 and check it out!

TaskDownload TaskLiveDemo TaskBuyNow

WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML Controls v2014.1 Maintenance Releases

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, March 20, 2014 at 10:00pm

20141MaintBlogPostBanner

Due to an issue we found with clicks on SyntaxEditor margins that was introduced in the last build, we just published a fix in new v2014.1 maintenance releases for our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls.

Details on the updates can be found in this announcement post.

TaskDownload TaskLiveDemo TaskBuyNow

RingSlice Control

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Tuesday, March 18, 2014 at 9:32am

20141ProductNotesBlogPostBanner

The 2014.1 versions of our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML controls were released last week and all contain several handy components in them.  One that I'd like to talk in more detail about today is the RingSlice control.

What is RingSlice?

The RingSlice control renders a portion (or the entire circle) of a ring shape.  Its start/end angles, radius, thickness, and other stroke properties can be set.

RingSliceFullRing   RingSliceEndCaps

In the screenshots above, we see a RingSlice rendering a full ring and another showing how end caps can be customized.

RingSliceDash1   RingSliceDash2   RingSliceDash3   RingSliceDash4

In the screenshots above, we see how the same RingSlice control can have different stroke settings applied to it to provide dash effects.

Real World Usage Scenarios

Other very interesting composite controls can be created by using the RingSlice control together with other controls.

RingSliceProgress

The screenshot above shows how four RingSlice controls are used to surround a TextBlock and make a segmented progress indicator.  The fill of each RingSlice can be changed as progress occurs, so that the current step is reflected.

RingSliceGraph

Finally, this screenshot shows the radial graph of a numeric value.  Simply animate the end angle of the RingSlice to create a dynamic presentation of the data.

Summary

The RingSlice control is available in our WPF, Silverlight, and WinRT/XAML Shared Libraries and is licensed for use by any of our customers of those control platforms.  Download v2014.1 and check it out!

TaskDownload TaskLiveDemo TaskBuyNow