Syncfusion Essential Studio^® 2024 Volume 4 Is Here!

Syncfusion is thrilled to announce the final release of Essential Studio^® for the year 2024! Essential Studio^® 2024 Volume 4 introduces highly anticipated new controls and game-changing features. This release is designed to elevate your development experience like never before.

Let’s dive into the outstanding new additions available across all platforms!

.NET MAUI

• The .NET MAUI DataGrid now offers:
  • Swiping: Easily swipe rows left or right to perform quick operations, increasing usability and interactive capabilities during data handling.
  • Cell selection: Users can select individual or group cells within the DataGrid, which is ideal for apps requiring detailed data manipulation. 
• The .NET MAUI AI AssistView supports:
  • Stop responding: You can control automated responses and halt the assistant as needed. This feature will be perfect for customizing the AI interaction based on user preferences.
  • Editor view customization: Users can tailor the look and feel of editor views to match their app’s theme and user experience goals. This will add immense flexibility to UI design and align with specific design strategies.
• The .NET MAUI Linear Gauge and Radial Gauge support rendering ticks over the range, which offers improved visualization and makes gauges more informative and appealing in apps.
• The .NET MAUI Maps control includes customizable legend templates, allowing developers to seamlessly match the legends with their specific app styles and requirements.
• The .NET MAUI Numeric Entry control allows users to customize the alignment of up and down buttons to the left, right, or both sides of the entry field.
• The .NET MAUI Tab View supports customizing the stroke thickness of the selection indicator when the IndicatorPlacement is set to Bottom or Top.

Flutter

• All our Syncfusion Flutter widgets have been updated to support WebAssembly as a compilation target for building web apps.
• The minimum Dart version of our Flutter widgets has been updated to 3.3 from 2.17.
• In the 2024 volume 4 release, the following Flutter widgets use AI to enhance their features:
  • Charts: For anomaly detection and predictive data entry, improving data accuracy.
  • DataGrid: For anomaly detection and predictive data entry, improving data accuracy.
  • Calendar: It offers suggestions based on user behavior and historical patterns. It also implements conflict detection to notify users about overlapping events, improving time management.
  • PDF Viewer: Smartly auto-fills fields by understanding the context of copied content.

• The new Flutter AI AssistView widget is a highly customizable and feature-rich solution for integrating conversational AI capabilities into your Flutter apps.
• The Flutter Chat widget delivers the following new features:
  • Suggestion: Show actionable suggestion items that users can select with a tap, accommodating both single and multiple selections.
  • Customization: Users can customize the background colors, shapes, text styles, and item spacing. They can also create their own suggestion items using custom widgets.
  • Layout: Select between a scrollable list or a wrap layout for presenting suggestions. Configure the scrolling direction—either horizontal or vertical—and adjust the spacing between items.

• The Flutter Charts widget allows us to enable or disable the trackball tooltip specific to a series.

Blazor

• Syncfusion Blazor components now fully support .NET 9, beginning with the 2024 Volume 3 Service Pack release (27.2). We’ve provided dedicated assemblies for .NET 9, ensuring you can leverage the latest enhancements in Blazor.
• All components in the Syncfusion Blazor suite now support the Tailwind CSS 3.4 theme, which adds enhanced styling and features for a polished, modern appearance.
• The Micorrsoft.Extensions.AI package allows for easy integration of AI functionalities into our Blazor components. This package provides a unified API abstraction for AI services, including:
  • OpenAI
  • Azure AI Inference
  • Ollama
• The Blazor AI AssistView and MultiColumn ComboBox components have matured to meet industry standards and are now marked as production-ready.
• The 2024 Volume 4 release introduces the following three new Blazor components in preview mode:
  • Ribbon: This provides a streamlined interface for accessing features and functions.
  • Chat UI: This is a lightweight chat interface displaying user conversations.
  • Sankey Diagrams: This component helps us to visualize flow and relationships in various data contexts.
• The Blazor Calendars and Pickers now support the following new features:
  • Hijri calendar: Supports the Islamic lunar calendar for accurate date management.
  • Popup opening on focus: Automatically opens date/time popups when the component is focused.
• The Blazor Charts component offers:
  • Adaptive layout: Dynamically adjusts chart elements for various screen sizes.
  • Crosshair snap: Snap the crosshair to the nearest data point instead of tracking the exact mouse position, ensuring a precise focus on individual data points.

• The Blazor Chips component now supports the template rendering feature. Users can use any HTML element, such as anchor tags for links and SVG icons, as the content of a Chip item.
• The Blazor Dropdown components deliver the following new features:
  • Popup resize: Allows dynamic resizing of dropdowns for enhanced usability.
  • Filtering with debounce: Optimizes performance by delaying filtering during rapid typing.
• The Blazor File Manager now supports the chunk upload feature, which allows large files to be split into smaller chunks based on the specified chunk size and uploaded sequentially to the server.
• The Blazor Image Editor allows us to restrict image extensions and sizes for uploads and provides user-friendly alerts.
• The Blazor Maps allows us to enable and customize marker clusters for individual marker groups to improve map readability.
• The Blazor Scheduler prevents appointments from overlapping, ensuring a smooth and efficient scheduling experience. 

Essential JS 2

• Our Angular components now offer zero-day compatibility with Angular 19. Experience seamless integration, enhanced performance, and immediate support for the latest Angular CLI tools, enabling you to build modern web apps confidently from day one.
• The React components provide zero-day compatibility with React 19, ensuring immediate support for its latest features, improved performance, and effortless integration within React apps.
• The Tailwind theme for our JavaScript UI components has been updated to Tailwind CSS 3.4. This version offers advanced styling capabilities and support for CSS variables, enhancing your design workflow.
• The Essential^® UI Kit for Angular is here to simplify web app development. With over 120 pre-designed, responsive blocks, you can effortlessly build modern, aesthetically pleasing apps.
• The new Chat UI component is a lightweight conversational interface for modern chat apps.
• The following components are now polished to meet industry standards and are now marked as production-ready:
  • AI AssistView
  • MultiColumn ComboBox
• The Charts component has been rolled out with these new updates:
  • Crosshair snap: Snaps to the nearest data point for precision.
  • Toolbar positioning: Drag and position the zoom toolbar within the chart area.
  • Tooltip highlight: Highlights the series when hovering over data points.
  • Legend layout: Arrange legends horizontally or vertically, with fixed-width options.

• The Chips and Context Menu components now support custom templates, offering enhanced interactivity and a richer user experience by allowing the integration of icons, links, images, and other HTML elements.
• The Word Processor delivers the following new features:
  • BeforeAcceptRejectChanges event: Identify and control revisions with greater precision.
  • Document load failure events: Handle errors effectively during document loading.
  • List numbering control: Restart and continue list numbering programmatically.
  • Performance boost: Pasting large content into tables is now significantly faster.
• The File Manager supports chunk upload, which breaks large files into smaller chunks for efficient uploading.
• The Image Editor now supports image restrictions, which set constraints on file type, size, and dimensions with alert notifications.
• The Maps supports marker cluster configuration to customize cluster appearance and expansion for individual marker groups.
• The PDF Viewer comes with the following features:

• • Page details retrieval: Access and manage page size and rotation details.
  • Custom fonts in annotations: Apply and preserve custom fonts in free-text annotations.
• The Pivot Table provides a tabular(Classic) layout that enhances data visibility with a traditional row-and-column format.
• The Scheduler now offers copy and paste events to easily move events between time slots.
• The Spreadsheet delivers the following new features:

• • Manual calculation mode: Control formula calculations manually for improved performance.
  • Custom data validation: Use tailored validation rules based on formulas.
• The Tabs supports the following vivid features:  
  • Content loading options: Load content dynamically, during initialization, or on demand.
  • Swipe mode: Enable swiping gestures for smooth navigation on touch devices.

WinUI

• All our WinUI controls are now compatible with .NET 9.
• The new WinUI Kanban Board is a task scheduling control that provides an efficient interface to track and visualize workflow stages, improving project management.
• The WinUI Scheduler now allows users to customize the number of weeks visible in the month view.

WPF

• All the WPF controls are now compatible with .NET 9.

• The new WPF AI AssistView control enhances interaction between users and AI services, providing a customizable, user-friendly interface for creating intelligent and responsive apps.
• The WPF Diagram control now supports:
  • Mermaid-syntax: Create mind maps and flowcharts from Mermaid syntax and export them back, simplifying visualization, sharing, editing, and cross-platform use. Users can also use AI assistants to generate Mermaid syntax for mind maps and flowcharts and directly import it into the WPF Diagram control.
  • Stencil symbol group: Serialize, export, and import stencil groups in XML format, making it easy to share, back up, reuse, and integrate designs for seamless collaboration.
• The WPF PDF Viewer supports customizing the context menu. Users can add new menu items to introduce custom functionalities, remove existing ones, and reorder them to streamline the interface. 
• The WPF Scheduler now allows users to customize the number of weeks visible in the month view.
• The WPF TreeMap supports accessibility by providing voice narration and keyboard shortcuts for seamless interaction.

Document Processing Libraries

.NET PDF Library

The .NET PDF Library is rolled out with the following new features:

• Add and retrieve document JavaScript in a PDF: Add or embed, retrieve, modify, and remove document-level JavaScript actions within PDF documents. These JavaScript actions, written in ECMAScript, allow for dynamic content and interactivity by executing scripts when the document is opened or in response to user interactions.
• Flattening specific annotations: This feature allows users to flatten specific types of annotations in PDF documents, converting them into static content while leaving others editable. It ensures secure, consistent viewing and is ideal for finalizing documents for sharing or submission.
• Add signing date while signing a PDF: This functionality allows users to set the signed date while adding a signature to a PDF document. This ensures the integrity and authenticity of the document by including the exact date of signing.
• HTML to PDF enhancements: The .NET PDF Library includes the following enhancements when converting the HTML content to PDF format:
  • Calculating dynamic HTML content size: This enhancement allows for automatically calculating dynamic HTML content size before converting to PDF. It ensures that the content scales appropriately within the PDF, providing a more accurate and consistent conversion experience for responsive or dynamic HTML content.
  • Automatic scaling support: This enhancement enables automatic scaling of HTML content during PDF conversion, ensuring that the content adjusts to fit the PDF page size. It provides a more seamless and accurate conversion experience, especially for responsive or dynamically sized HTML content.
  • Waiting for rendering external fonts: This enhancement ensures that external fonts are properly rendered before converting HTML to PDF. It improves the accuracy and consistency of PDF documents by ensuring that all font styles are correctly applied, even when external font resources are used.

.NET Word Library

Word-to-PDF and image conversion enhancements 

The .NET Word Library includes the following enhancements when converting Word documents to PDF files or images:

• WMF image preservation: The WMF images in the Word documents are now preserved during PDF or image conversion.

• Multiple columns: Improved the column balancing on pages with multicolumn layouts and continuous section breaks during Word-to-PDF and image conversions.

.NET Excel Library

Excel-to-PDF and image conversion enhancements

The .NET Excel Library supports preserving the WMF images when converting Excel documents to PDF files or images.

.NET PowerPoint Library

PowerPoint – to PDF and image conversion enhancements

The .NET PowerPoint Library includes enhancements to preserve the WMF images when converting PowerPoint presentations to PDF files or images.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! The features listed here are just highlights of our Essential Studio^® 2024 Volume 4 release. You can check out all the features in our Release Notes and What’s New pages.

Try out these features and share your feedback as comments on this blog. You can also reach us through our support forums, support portal, or feedback portal.

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