Syncfusion Essential Studio Version 5 set for release—Office 2007 look and feel, Vista compatibility

Syncfusion, Inc., a leading provider of ASP.NET and Windows Forms components for the .NET platform, today announced the upcoming release of the Essential Studio v5 beta. This release includes expanded support for the Office 2007 look and feel and is 100% Vista compatible. Essential Diagram has been completely rewritten, and there are a significant number of ASP.NET AJAX controls available. The new version of Essential Studio includes solid updates and enhancements across the entire range of products, and significant updates to Essential Tools, Essential Chart, and Essential Grid are introduced in this release.

Stefan Hoenig, CEO of Syncfusion, says of the new version, “We are very excited about the release of Syncfusion Essential Studio v5. The Microsoft Office 2007-style look and feel enhancements in the suite are outstanding. These bring the incredible user experience of the Office 2007 user interface to our customers. On the ASP.NET front, our products offer complete integration with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0, so developers can easily offer their users a complete AJAX experience. Additionally, our engineers have done amazing performance work on our BackOffice products; Essential XlsIO can crank out Excel spreadsheets faster than ever before. You will have to test it to believe it! All in all, this is a version that holds with our goal of providing exceptional value to our customers, release after release.”

Essential Studio v5 expands on the Office 2007 support already offered by Syncfusion. This release includes support for the new Microsoft Office 2007 look and feel across all relevant controls, and no code is needed to switch the Docking Manager, GroupBar, Editors, and more over to the Office 2007 look and feel.

Version 5 has Vista written all over it. Starting with the install, which offers complete and seamless integration with Vista’s UAC features, all Syncfusion controls have been tested and are 100% compatible with Vista. Developers can easily recompile their applications using Essential Studio v5, readying their applications for use by millions of Vista users.

The next generation of AJAX-enabled controls is really impressive, and with the release of the ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 framework, more possibilities are available than ever before. All Syncfusion controls work seamlessly with the new framework. With Syncfusion Essential Studio v5, developers can provide their users with the very latest AJAX capabilities with a minimum of effort.

Using the new version of Syncfusion Essential Tools, developers can give both their Windows and Web applications the new Office 2007 look and feel. The improved appearance offered by the Office 2007 theme is now available across all Essential Tools controls, including Menus, Toolbar, GroupBar, Tabs, and Rich Text Editor. The newly improved Rich Text Editor in Essential Tools for ASP.NET gives end users complete access to Rich Text editing. No longer will they have to work with plain looking text; excellent design-time support is available for this control. The Rich Text Editor now includes more styles, more skins, and an improved spell checker and will give Web 2.0 applications a truly rich-client look and feel.

The new AutoFormat feature in Essential Tools for ASP.NET provides a predefined set of styles that can be applied to the control with just a click of a button, allowing developers building web applications to quickly and easily take their apps beyond what their users expect.

Within Essential Tools for Windows Forms, the Ribbon control now includes a dropdown designer—making customization incredibly easy. Customizable Tab Groups and Microsoft Office 2007-like galleries are also available.

Syncfusion Essential Chart v5 for ASP.NET and Windows Forms includes a significant number of new chart types, including Funnel, Pyramid, and Doughnut charts that provide users with an even greater variety of ways to display data. Stacking support is also now available, making it very easy to visually highlight data with no additional code. This new release also builds on Syncfusion Essential Chart’s existing AJAX support: Support for scrolling and interactive zooming has been implemented in Version 5. Displaying charts on the Web is more functional and user friendly using this feature, and interactive cursor support has also been included so that the look and feel of the cursor is easily customized. End users will love all of the enhanced usability provided by these updates.

Syncfusion knows that grid performance is one of the features developers have come to rely on the company for, and Syncfusion Essential Grid v5 for ASP.NET takes a great product to even greater heights. End users will love the new customizable grouping options, and the grid now offers a variety of data caching techniques that minimize traffic to a database and allow for simpler code that is much easier to write.

Essential Grid v5 for Windows Forms includes solid updates to the core control and minor performance updates to the grouping engine. Additionally, Office 2003 and Office 2007 themes have been added to the grid, allowing developers to enable the latest Office 2007 look and feel with only a few lines of code.

Essential Diagram v5 gives developers the power of Microsoft Visio-like diagramming with none of the licensing hassles. Developers using Essential Diagram v5 can create Windows Forms and ASP.Net applications that are indistinguishable from those built using Visio, and this version has been completely updated with an improved look and feel, solid performance improvements, and enhanced line routing and layout.

Essential DocIO is greatly improved in this version, with the addition of new features and fixes that will both improve stability and give developers a jump in productivity. The AutoShapes preservation feature gives users the ability to preserve shapes in a template document; similarly, form fields can be preserved along with footnotes and endnotes. Users can append footnotes and endnotes in Word documents, and a GetText method is now supported so developers can get text from a template Word document. An API for creating nested tables has been added, and bookmark text can be replaced by any text that is input by a user. All of the new features and fixes in this version of Essential DocIO mean enhanced usability for the user.

Performance has been improved by leaps and bounds in this version of Essential XlsIO, and there is a new feature that checks for whether or not a cell has an external formula. Additionally, there is a new feature for removing an error marker that appears when there is a mismatched data type in a cell, or changes can be made to the data type, if necessary.

For additional details on Essential Studio v5’s new features and enhancements please visit: https://www.syncfusion.com/products/whatsnew/v50info.aspx.