The development machines are packed up and traveling by UPS. I have just a simple laptop to use until I am reunited with them at the end of next week.
Fortunately I can still work with my simple laptop to get on with adding documentation to the toolkit. But access to the internet will cease tonight until I arrive in Melbourne a week tomorrow. Now I just need to practice my Aussie accent.
G’day mate!
You can now download the Beta cut of the toolkit using the link contained in this post.
This is code complete for the toolkit controls. What it does not contain is updated documentation or tutorials, webinars etc. These are collaterals I am about to work on over the coming week. But this gives you a chance to use the controls and get your feedback incorporated before the full release.
Download Krypton Toolkit 0.9.1
My development machines are being packed up and transported to Australia via courier and so I will be incommunicado for about a week starting this weekend. However, documentation is something I can still be getting on with using an old laptop.
It has taken a week longer than I expected but all the new controls, enhancements and bug fixes are finally in place. Now for the second phase of work.
A result of the recent survey was the need to improve the documentation. In order words actually write some! The help needs to explain the recurring concepts used for the toolkit controls. Plus a couple of extra samples and tutorials that explain how the samples are created. I am also thinking of creating a couple of webinars that can be downloaded so you can see the tutorials in action. If a picture is worth a 1000 words then a webinar must be better yet.
The second component for the next release is now finished. It allows a set of KryptonCheckButton instances to be grouped together and enforces mutual exclusion.
It was suggested by a couple of feedback comments on the blog that a control be created for performing this logic as well as laying out the instances automatically. I don’t like that approach because it places restrictions on how the checked buttons will be layed out. It forces all the buttons to be next to each other.
Instead I have created a component that has a collection that can be edited at design time to specify the list of check button instances it manages. That way you can layout the buttons however you like which is far more flexible. Here is how the component and the check buttons look on the design surface.
You can see the KryptonCheckSet instance in the component tray. I had to implement a custom collection editor so that selecting the instances to place into the check set is as quick and simple as possible. Here is the collection editor at design time.
The editor lists all the KryptonCheckSet instances on the form and then you just use the check box to indicate the ones you want to be managed by the component.
In order to ease the process of exchanging palettes I have added the ability to import and export settings using xml documents.
As I create new custom palettes you don’t need to wait for the next full release of the Krypton Toolkit before getting hold of them. Instead I can perform an export of the palette settings to an xml file by selecting the export action from the smart tag that is available from the KryptonPalette at design time.
Then I can make this xml file available for download from a gallery section on the website. You browse the gallery and download whatever catches your eye and just use the import action from the design time smart tag.
Of course, it would be even better if users of the toolkit also share there own designs by posting them to the website as well. Once that next release has been made I will look at adding a gallery area to the website for just such a purpose.
