Syncfusion Essential Studio® 2021 Volume 1 Is Here!

Syncfusion is very excited to roll out the first major release of the year, 2021 Volume 1! This release is packed with new controls and features in all the supported platforms. This blog will provide a brief description of the major highlights of the WinUI controls are now compatible with WinUI 3 – Project Reunion 0.5.

All WinUI controls now support WinUI in desktop.

New controls:

• Scheduler
• Linear Gauge
• Calendar DateRangePicker

Use a simplified layout by arranging the most-used commands in a single line and in less space in the Ribbon. The ribbon gallery displays a collection of related commands similar to the gallery feature used in Microsoft Office.

DataGrid and TreeGrid controls can display grid lines horizontally, vertically, or in both directions.

Charts includes new fast-chart series types to render large amounts of data with greater performance:

• Fast line series
• Fast line bitmap series
• Fast column bitmap series
• Fast bar bitmap series
• Fast stepline bitmap series
• Fast scatter bitmap series

DatePicker supports a calendar identifier, which allows users to choose the calendar system.

Calendar now supports range selection to select a date range.

Flutter

• All the Syncfusion Flutter packages have been migrated to use non-nullable types and are therefore in compliance with null safety.
• All the Syncfusion Flutter packages are now compatible with desktop platforms.
• New widgets:
  • TreeMap
  • Linear Gauge
• The Charts widget enhancements:
  • Lazy loading on data on demand.
  • A date-time category, which removes the missing dates gap.
  • Auto-scrolling where the chart displays a fixed number of points always in the viewport and displays the remaining points on panning.
  • Gradient colors in circular charts.
• The Calendar widget enhancements:
  • Load more appointments on demand.
  • Display a current time indicator.
• There are some changes in the API structure of the DataGrid to make the data row creation process more Flutter-idiomatic and expressive and to simplify customization.
• The DataGrid widget is enhanced to support row swiping and pull to refresh.
• The Maps widget supports inverted circles and polygons and the legend titles.
• Deploy the PDF Viewer widget to web platforms.
• The Radial Gauge widget has:
  • Shadows for the marker pointers.
  • Overlay of sharp pointers.
  • Display of any widget as a pointer.
• The DateRangePicker widget now supports navigation with free scrolling.
• The Slider and Range Slider widgets can deploy vertically.
• The Excel Library lets you:
  • Import data from lists to Excel worksheets.
  • Apply conditional formatting with formula values, a color scale, a data bar, and icon sets.
• The PDF Library allows you to:
  • Digitally sign a PDF document using .pfx certificates.
  • Create, read, edit, fill, and flatten PDF forms.

Xamarin

• The Image Editor now allows you to:
  • Tilt an image to between a -45 and 45-degree angle.
  • Add simple, dotted, double-arrow, and double-arrow dotted lines to an image.
• Change the values of a range by using drag options in the Range Slider.
• Add custom toolbar items to the built-in toolbar in the Rich Text Editor.
• Display a time stamp on an image in a message in the Chat control.

Blazor

• The following components were developed to meet industry standards and have been moved from preview to production-ready:
  • Gantt Chart
  • Button Group
• The DataGrid now allows binding complex properties to grid columns and performing data operations such as filtering, searching, sorting, and grouping in that particular field.
• Reorder the tabs to reprioritize them in the Tabs control .
• The Syncfusion Blazor VS Code Extensions now provide Blazor component code examples with features to shorten the development process of an application.
• The Syncfusion Blazor Code Generator provides an easy-to-use wizard to add a Syncfusion Blazor component and speed up application development.
• Scheduler’s new features:
  • Drag and drop multiple events to reschedule the appointments.
  • Customize the first month of the year.
  • Customize timeline year view’s day and month headers using a template.
  • Adjust row height to timeline year view automatically.

Essential JS 2

• The DataGrid control was redesigned for better viewing and usability in mobile layout.
• The Rich Text Editor now allows merging two or more row or column cells into a single cell.
• The Kanban control lets users drag and drop cards from one Kanban to another and to external sources, as well.
• The Spreadsheet control can freeze panes to keep specified rows and columns always visible at the top and left side when scrolling.
• The Tree Grid control’s new features:
  • Infinite scrolling, which fetches and loads more data only when the vertical scrollbar reaches the end.
  • Maintaining the expand and collapse states when exporting data in a webpage.
• The Query Builder control now supports:
  • Complex data binding, to create subfields for the columns.
  • A header template, to customize the AND/OR and NOT conditions.

WPF

• Syncfusion WPF controls can now be added using a toolbox for the .NET 5 framework via an installer, in addition to the NuGet toolbox.
• New Fluent light and dark themes for all Syncfusion WPF controls.
• The following components have been developed to meet industry standards and were moved from preview to production-ready:
  • Badge
  • Text Input Layout
• The Skin Manager now supports:
  • Two size modes (default and touch) for the 13 themes in Theme Studio.
  • High-visibility visual feedback when navigating with the keyboard.
  • ScrollBarMode to enable a Windows 10-like compact scrollbar in the 13 themes supported in Theme Studio.
• Theme Studio now supports customizing the Pivot Grid, Spreadsheet, and Navigation Drawer controls.
• TreeView provides MVVM support to map the expand state with properties in business objects.
• PDF Viewer now supports file link annotation and an ink eraser to erase free-hand drawing.
• All numeric input controls now support spin buttons (Integer TextBox, Double TextBox, Percentage TextBox, and Currency TextBox).
• Navigation Drawer’s new features:
  • Display subitems in a pop-up menu in compact mode.
  • Complete keyboard navigation.
• Property Grid supports UI virtualization for high performance.
• Load combo box and auto-complete controls in the Text Input Layout control.

WinForms

• The Ribbon now has:
  • Backstage view to place the backstage items at the top and bottom.
  • Loading of any user control on the right side of the title bar.
• MessageBox now supports resizing.
• Drop-down placement customization, a clear button, and designer improvements in the ComboBox.
• Filter the nodes in MultiColumn TreeView.

UWP

• New features for Image Editor:
  • Tile an edited image by giving it a 45 to -45 degree rotation.
  • Crop the desired part of an image by zooming.
  • Annotate an image using a simple line, dotted line, double-arrow line, and double-arrow dotted line.
• Animate a map when the center location is changed in Maps.

File-format libraries

.NET PDF Library

• The .NET PDF Library now supports:
  • Creating ZuGFeRD 2.1-compliant PDF invoices.
  • Signing PDF documents using the ECDSA algorithm.
• A PDF document in the server can be signed with a client signature with a deferred signing method.

.NET Word Library (DocIO)

• .NET Word Library enhancements in Word-to-PDF conversion:
  • Render custom shapes from a Word document in the PDF when converted.
  • Improved text layout for Linux machines. Now, the generated PDF document will look the same as in Windows machines.

.NET PowerPoint (Presentation) Library

• The .NET PowerPoint Library can now:
  • Embed binary files as OLE objects.
  • Display an embedded OLE object as an icon or content.

Java Word Library (DocIO)

• The Java Word Library’s new features:
  • Find and replace text in Word (DOCX) documents.
  • Create and edit mathematical equations (MathML) in Word (DOCX) documents.
  • Access metadata properties in DOCX format Word documents.

Conclusion

The features listed here are just some of the highlights in our release notes and on the What’s New page.

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

If you liked this blog post, we think you’ll also like the following articles too:

• Sneak Peek at 2021 Volume 1: Xamarin.Forms [Blog]
• Sneak Peek at 2021 Volume 1: Essential JS 2 [Blog]
• Succinctly Series [Ebook]