A late announcement and an even later announcement ["Atlas" Control Toolkit updated (twice)!]
I'm happy to announce the 60731 release of the "Atlas" Control Toolkit (which came out two weeks ago)! (I'm also happy to announce the 60626 release of the "Atlas" Control Toolkit which came out about a month and a half ago - but that's old news by now and is only included here for completeness.)
Why the delays?
Well, there was a good reason for keeping the 60626 release a little quiet. The "Atlas" team released an updated version of their binaries just a few days after our 60626 release came out - so the bits it included were suddenly out of date. We expected to integrate the new "Atlas" bits and put out an updated release of the Toolkit a day or two later, but various issues came up and we weren't able to do so. By the time we'd resolved all of the issues, it was just about time for the 60731 release!
So that's why there was no announcement for 60626. But why the delay for the 60731 release?
No good reason, really, other than that I've been busy with other stuff and haven't posted to my blog in a while... :|
Without further ado (or excuses), here are the highlights of the new releases:
- 8 new controls
- Accordion: Displays one pane at a time from a set of multiple panes
- DynamicPopulate: (Re-)populates any element with HTML content downloaded from the server
- FilteredTextBox: Prevents unwanted characters from being typed into a text box
- NumericUpDown: Lets you attach flexible up/down "spinners" to any TextBox
- PagingBulletedList: Adds flexible paging and sorting to any bulleted list
- PasswordStrength: Provides interactive feedback about the strength of a password being created
- Rating: Displays a "4 out of 5 stars" interface for ranking
- ResizableControl: Makes any control resizable
- A complete automated testing framework along with tests for all 21 controls in the Toolkit
- Data binding support for extender properties declarations
- Support for the July CTP of "Atlas"
- An established process that allows anyone to contribute to the project (5 of the controls above were by people who aren't on the Toolkit team!)
The release notes outline a bunch of other improvements we've made. Please take a moment to read about the new stuff. While you're at it, sample any of the controls right now (no install required). Then browse the project web site and download the latest Toolkit so you can start creating your own controls and/or contributing to the project!
As always, if you have any feedback, please share it with us on the support forum (or email me)!!