Silverlight Studio 2011.2 is now released and available for download. This version adds significant new features to SyntaxEditor and its add-ons.
Major new features are described below. See the announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.
IntelliPrompt Parameter Info
IntelliPrompt parameter info popups show the end user information about the member signature being edited and its parameters, if any. SyntaxEditor 2011.2 adds this highly-requested new UI feature, and makes it easy to implement parameter info for your own custom languages. Parameter info can even be implemented such that the caret properly handles being in nested calls and shows information for the closest containing signature.
As with quick info, parameter info can handle rich-formatted content display using HTML-like markup tags. Colors and font weights or styles can be used to bring attention to portions of the info tip. Multiple signature options can be displayed in a single parameter info tip. In those scenarios, arrows automatically appear that can be clicked. Alternatively the end user can use the up/down arrow keys to switch between options.
The .NET Languages Add-on has been updated to fully take advantage of the new parameter info feature. Both of our C# and VB language implementations now have parameter info features out-of-the-box, making for a true Visual Studio-like code editing experience. When there are multiple overloads for a signature, the resolver will do its best to show the one that best fits the code that has been typed thus far.
See a previous blog post on parameter info and another showing the .NET Languages Add-on’s implementation to learn more.
Single-Line Edit Mode
Single-line edit mode is an option you can activate to make the editor appear like a standard TextBox, where there are no scrollbars and no line terminators are accepted as input.
While in single-line edit mode, nearly all the standard UI features found in SyntaxEditor are still available, such as automated IntelliPrompt, adornments, etc. This makes for a very nice way to edit small code snippets or expressions.
See a previous blog post on single-line edit mode to learn more.
Code Fragment Editing
Code fragments provide the ability for an end user to edit a portion of a document, such as a method body or just an expression. The benefit of using code fragments is that you can also set up header and footer text to get pre- and post-pended to the text being edited, when it is sent off for parsing and AST-building. Since a complete document is then used for parsing and resolution, automated IntelliPrompt, code outlining, and other features work correctly on the fragment being edited.
This is an especially useful feature when combined with languages like our C# and VB languages in the .NET Languages Add-on. Imagine being able to edit a set of C# statements with full automated IntelliPrompt and the user not being able to see or edit the containing class.
You can also combine the code fragments feature with single line edit mode to allow for single-line editing of expressions.
See a previous blog post on code fragment editing to learn more.
Miscellaneous
Other miscellaneous SyntaxEditor control updates include:
- New SyntaxEditor.AcceptsTab property, indicating if tabs should move focus or indent content.
- Ability to hide the EditorSearchView mode toolbar.
- Ability to disable syntax highlighting for printouts.
- Ability to customize which typed characters can commit a completion session.
- Option to require that a completion item is matches exactly before it is fully selected in the list.
- Performance enhancements.
- Many tweaks and minor bug fixes.
- Several new samples.
- Improvements to the .NET Languages Add-on’s resolver.
- Updates to the .NET Languages Add-on’s completion sessions to use acronym matching by default.
- Improvements to Web Languages Add-on’s XmlContextFactory logic.
Enjoy the new version! The WPF Studio 2011.2 version with similar features and more will be out in the coming weeks.