Syncfusion announces Essential Studio version 4.2

Syncfusion announces Essential Studio version 4.2

This release includes Essential DocIO, significantly improved AJAX support, and Essential TestStudio

Research Triangle Park, NC - May 19, 2006 - Syncfusion, Inc. today announced Essential Studio version 4.2, the latest update to its line of ASP.NET and Windows Forms components for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET developers. This release broadens the Syncfusion range of products still further, showcasing Syncfusion's continued commitment to providing developers with a suite of components that truly meets all their ASP.NET and Windows Forms needs.

Chief among Essential Studio's new additions is Essential DocIO, a product added to Syncfusion's line of input / output products that enables the reading and writing of Microsoft Word documents. This latest release also includes significantly improved AJAX support, allowing developers to AJAX-enable their applications with ease. With Essential Studio Version 4.2 developers will now be able to test their Essential Studio-based applications using Mercury Quick Test Professional and Essential TestStudio. This version also supports Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition, and Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition. Syncfusion's entire product spectrum has been updated with enhancements signaling a new level of flexibility and functionality for developers working with Syncfusion Essential Studio.

Version 4.2 introduces Essential TestStudio, which enables easy automated testing of end-user applications developed using Essential Grid, Essential Grouping, and Essential Tools. All three of these products include native support for Mercury QTP. Essential TestStudio is included at no extra cost with each Essential Studio Enterprise Edition license.

Essential Grid 4.2 also includes all new and updated showcase applications that illustrate the latest in grid-based user interface design. Little effort is needed to reuse code when integrating the latest Grid interfaces. Essential Grid for ASP.NET has several new properties in the GroupingGrid for look-and-feel customization. It also includes improved support for rendering in Mozilla.

Developers working with Essential Chart can perform advanced statistical analysis with the newest release of Essential Chart. This product now features integrated support for calculating and displaying the results of a large number of statistical functions, including, but not limited to: Anova, Beta Function, Beta Cumulative Distribution, Gamma Function, Gamma Cumulative Distribution, and more. There have been many other key features added, including the ability to create charts that allow developers to visualize and compare two populations using the new Tornado-type chart. 3-D charts can also now be created with support for displaying labels along the Z-axis. Essential Chart will allow developers to enhance their existing charts with several fixes and enhancements to Pie charts, Step-line charts, and Gantt charts. Chart legends can now be completely customized with support for changing each item in a legend independently.

Essential Diagram has been updated with several new key features. There is improved Tool support with the addition of SingleAction property, which allows developers to specify whether the activated tool performs a single action or more than one action. Developers can easily create symbol copies with the addition of Microsoft Visio-like node selection. Appealing symbols can also be created by inserting images within a region using the new Bitmap Tool.

Essential Edit has been updated with the addition of support for smart indentation and AutoText formatting, which will allow end users to easily format text. Developers can easily create applications that serialize the contents of the EditControl. The EditControl can be utilized in an unconventional way by exporting the display to an image. Additionally, an innovative Visual Studio 2005-like Code Snippets feature has been added.

Essential Tools has been updated with significant additions to its full spectrum of controls, including the Docking Manager Package, the Menus Package, the Tree Package, the Tabs Package, the TabbedMDI Package, the Navigation Package, the Editors Package, the Layout Package, and the TreeView Package. Developers can create newer and better user interfaces using the Docking Manager, and this version provides full support for Visual Studio 2005-style docking and also enhances the serialization support for docked windows. Great looking menus can be created using XP Menus with better customization support and optimized memory management. Tree control-based applications will get a boost with the optimized TreeViewAdv control. End-users will be able to navigate through Tabs more easily with the addition of the new Navigation control to the TabControlAdv control, and the Tabbed MDI interface can also be aligned to any side. There have been several enhancements made to the Editors package, including the ability to display images in the ComboBoxAdv control and the addition of the new ColorUI control that allows developers to easily select end user colors.

Essential Tools for ASP.NET has gone through the most changes to date with brand new controls, including TreeControl, GroupBar, TabStrip, PopupControlContainer, Toolbar, Snap, RichTextEditor, and SpellChecker. Developers may use these brand new ASP.NET controls, as well as the existing controls, with built-in AJAX support to build rich, Outlook-style web clients. In Version 4.2, Essential Tools for ASP.NET also features improved support for rendering in Mozilla and improved EditorControls behavior to better the developer experience.

Essential HTMLUI has new support for the FindDialog to show the text selected in the control inside the textbox as seen in Visual Studio .NET. Support for the Ctrl + C keyboard shortcut for copying the text selected has also been added allowing developers to select text from the displayed HTML and copy to the clipboard, as well as other applications. Developers working with Essential HTMLUI can load HTML documents and allow their users to search the text by programmatically controlling the search dialogue. The HTMLUI control has been improved with several enhancements and fixes to allow for the proper display of HTML elements.

The "IO" product line has undergone major expansion with critical new features added to Essential PDF and Essential XlsIO and the release of Essential DocIO. Essential PDF now offers advanced security features, such as Digital Signature and 128-bit encryption to allow for the creation of secure PDF documents. Vital functionality has been added to Essential PDF with the addition of HTML conversion, which allows for the conversion of complex web pages and HTML reports to PDF documents that retain searchable text content from HTML. Developers using Essential PDF can also create applications that can fill out standard PDF forms, such as W-4 forms, automatically using Acroform fields. Another addition allows for the protection of copyrights: Essential PDF can watermark any existing PDF document with any custom text or graphic. PDF modification capabilities, such as Merging and Splitting to applications, are also now supported.

Essential XlsIO has newly introduced Template Markers that make it possible to create .NET applications that allow the end user to design reports by using the Microsoft Excel GUI and placing special Markers in the Template file that will be dynamically replaced with data. Essential XlsIO now also includes Read / Write SpreadsheetML functionality. This will allow data to be read from Excel files that were saved as SpreadsheetML. It also makes it possible to convert SpreadsheetML files into BIFF8-compatible Excel files that can be read by all versions of Microsoft Excel from Office 97 forward. In addition, developers working with Essential XlsIO can now create applications with the ability to Read / Write an Excel document’s BuiltIn and Custom properties. Developers writing applications that leverage Essential XlsIO will find that the reading of template files with a large number of Conditional Formats has been optimized.

The introduction of Essential DocIO is particularly exciting. This library allows for the creation of richly formatted Microsoft Word reports. Using MailMerge within Essential DocIO, invoices can be created, and mailing labels and envelopes can be created with data from any .NET data source with just a few lines of code. .NET developers can convert well-formed HTML reports into Doc files by using Essential DocIO and Essential HTMLUI in tandem. Applications can be created using Essential DocIO that can convert Doc files to Text, and applications can be created that search and replace text in Doc files.

Essential Studio 4.2's Release Candidate is now available for evaluation here. The final release will be available at this page and within Direct-Trac within the next week.

Essential Studio 4.2 resources

Test-drive Version 4.2 today by downloading the Essential Studio 4.2 Release Candidate evaluation.

Details about all of the products that make up Syncfusion Essential Studio are available at: https://www.syncfusion.com/products.

Details about Syncfusion's Essential Studio products are available at https://www.syncfusion.com/products