Released: Dec 17, 2018

Updates in 2018 Volume 4

Features

Common

• Theme Support - Now, you can easily theme all the controls using predefined dynamic resource keys.

Backdrop

• New control - The new Backdrop control is composed of two surfaces, a back layer and a front layer. The back layer displays actions that will update the front layer’s content. Key features
  • Integrates with the Xamarin.Forms ContentPage and supports seamless navigation and toolbar customizations.
  • Back layer height automatically adjusts based on its content, and provides an option to expand the content to fit the screen.
  • Curved and flat edge shapes for the front layer with corner radius customization options.
  • Smooth animations for revealing and concealing the back layer content.

Badge View

• New control - Badges are used to notify users of new or unread messages, notifications, or the status of something. They can also be used in conjunction with lists to represent the stage of an item, such as New, Old, or Preview. Key features
  • Customize the badge background with predefined colors.
  • Choose predefined notification icons for badges.
  • Position the badge text around the badge content.
  • Use animations for badge text.

Border

• New control - The new Border control is a container control that allows you to apply borders, background, border width, and corner radii. Key features
• Customize the background, border width, and border color of the Border control.
• Implement a circular image.
• Customize all the edges with different corner radii.

Button

• New control - The Xamarin.Forms Button is a custom button control with UI customization, toggle states, and theme support. You can set icons, background images, and corner edge radii and customize the appearance for different visual states using the visual state manager. Key features
• Easily customize a button as an outline, flat, circle, or icon button.
• Use visual states such as pressed, normal, checked, and unchecked.
• Display an image as the background for the control.
• Display custom content in the button control.
• Use a toggle button.

Chips

• New control - The new chip control presents information in an interactive and customizable layout. The new chip group control arranges multiple chip controls in a variable layout and groups them to make selections. Key features
  • Preferred layouts can be used to arrange chip elements.
  • Has support to add input views in a group.
  • Single and Multiple selection.
  • Command support.

Parallax View

• New control - The new ParallaxView control binds the scroll position of a foreground element (e.g., a list) to a background element and moves the background element at a different speed. Key features
  • The speed of the parallax scroll can be customized.
  • Horizontal and vertical orientation support.
  • Built-in integration with SfListView and SfRotator
  • Any control that implements the IParallaxView interface can be bound.

Essential DocIO

• Update field enhancements - Essential DocIO now allows updating the AutoNum and Set fields in a Word document.
• Restart numbering in lists - Essential DocIO now allows numbering in lists to be restarted in the Word documents while performing mail merge and merging multiple Word documents.
• Hyphenation in Word-to-PDF and Word-to-image conversions - Essential DocIO now allows hyphenating text in a Word document while converting it to PDF or image format.
• Track changes in Word-to-PDF conversion - Essential DocIO now allows showing revision marks in a generated PDF when converting Word documents with tracked changes or revisions.
• Word-to-PDF enhancements - Essential DocIO now provides the following features in Word-to-PDF conversion:
  • 30% improvement in conversion performance.
  • Improvements in text size calculation to paginate Word documents properly.
  • Preservation of rotated images.
  • Option to embed complete or subset font information for TrueType fonts.
  • PDF conformance level PDF/A1B or PDF/X-1a:2001 for long-term archiving.
  • Preservation of complex script text.

Essential PDF

• OpenType font - Add text to a PDF document by using OpenType font.
• PDF/A-1b conformance - Create a PDF/A-1b conforming document.

PDF Viewer

• RTL - RTL support changes the flow of the UI to right-to-left based on the culture of the device.
• Form filling and editing - Form filling and editing support allows users to fill and edit form fields present in the PDF document.
• Handwritten signature - Handwritten signature support allows users to add, edit, and delete handwritten signatures in the signature form field present in the PDF document.

Essential Presentation

• Connector - Add, edit, and remove connectors in PowerPoint files.

Calendar

• Inline and agenda view customization - Support to customize inline and agenda view events using template and template selector.
• Chart
• Straight line support in data marker connector - Change the connector of a data marker to a horizontal line in circular charts. At present, the connector line of a data marker is rendered based on the angle of the respective segment.
• Plot range column chart type with single Y value - A typical range column chart requires two values, high and low, but this feature allows users to plot the range column chart with a single y-value. This is possible when the y-value is considered the delta value for a range column chart, and the segments are arranged at the center of the chart area.
• Series selection support - Highlight an entire series by touching anywhere on the series.
• Custom axis - Add an axis to the chart without mapping it to any series. This is typically used to duplicate a y-axis and display it on the opposite side of the y-axis. The axis can always be kept in the UI even though the respective series is removed or added at runtime.

DataForm

• Change multiline text editor height - Increase or decrease text editor height based on user input to improve readability in multiline text editor.
• Customize validation message - Support to customize validation messages using templates in DataForm.

DataGrid

• UnboundRow - Display additional rows which are not bound to the underlying data source using the unbound row functionality.
• RTL support - DataGrid control provides RTL support to change the flow of text to a right-to-left orientation.

Diagram

• Virtualization - Virtualization enables faster rendering by loading the diagramming objects available only on the visible area. Remaining objects will be loaded when they come into view.
• Auto scroll - This feature allows users to automatically scroll the Diagram whenever a node or connector is moved beyond the visible boundary.
• Relative positioning for annotation - This feature allows users to arrange annotations in relative positions.

Image Editor

• Image quality improvement - Save an image without losing its original quality.
• DataTemplateSelector support for card template - Customize the data template of cards based on DataTemplateSelector.
• RTL support - Change the left-to-right alignment of the Kanban Board to right-to-left (RTL).

ListView

• Pushing sticky group header - Support to push the sticky group header when another group header leads (e.g., Contact list in Android and iOS device).
• RTL support - ListView control provides RTL support to change the flow direction of text from right to left in vertical orientation.

Maps

• Tooltip support for maps - Tooltip support has been provided to the shapes, markers, and bubbles of a map’s shape layer and the markers of a map’s tile layer. The tooltips feature animation and template support for customization. Tooltips are used to show information about the shapes, markers, and bubbles when the end user taps the map elements.

Numeric Entry

• Range support - Restrict the Values to within a specific range by setting the Maximum and Minimum property values.

Schedule

• RTL support - Provides right to left flow direction support in Schedule control.

Text Input Layout

• RTL support - This feature allows users to change the alignment of the Text Input Layout control to right-to-left (RTL).
• Container customization - The None container type can be used in addition to the Filled and Outlined types, where the hint and input view will be positioned compactly without any background decorations for the container.

TreeView

• RTL - Support to change the flow of text to the right-to-left direction in TreeView control.
• On-demand loading - Support to add nodes on demand when the expander is tapped in TreeView control.

Essential XlsIO

• Excel to PDF - Excel documents can be converted to PDF. This converts Excel files with data, styles, rich-text, Unicode characters, conditional formats, pivot tables, tables, shapes, images, text boxes, page setup options, page breaks, print area, headers, and footers.