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Version 2.27 - December 11, 2004

Release Notes

In version 2.27 we put emphasis more on the improvements relating to the general look and feel of the interface rather than on adding completely new GUI components. These improvements are almost in every aspect of interaction between the user and the application from enhanced drawing to much better performance in dragging and docking features.
A whole new approach to loading language-dependent resources of any type is implemented in a new component, which we called the Resource Manager. It allows you to switch between the languages supported in Prof-UIS or your application on-the-fly and what is most remarkable is that it does not require you to have a bunch of resource dll files. A new LanguageSwitcher applicaton demonstrates how to implement switching between languages at runtime.
New features also include draggable tabs for the tab control and tab page container, a custom docking outline, and the ability to customize the Office 2003 theme. The latter, for example, allows your application to imitate Windows XP themes on OSes other than Windows XP.
A number of bugs reported by the library users have been fixed.

What's new

  • Completely redesigned the algorithms used for painting the background of both toolbars and docking sites. This significantly improved performance of drag-and-drop operations for docking toolbars when the 2003/2005 gradient style is used
  • Completely revised the paint manager component. This enhanced GUI painting for the Office XP/2003 and Studio 2005 styles including when Windows XP's Luna Blue, Luna Olive, Luna Silver, or some non-Microsoft theme is used
  • Enhanced compatibility with system colors
  • Some areas are now filled with a gradient when the Office XP/2003 and Studio 2005 styles are used: expand menu button in the pop-up menu, selected menu item of the main menu when the pop-up menu associated with it is open, and toolbar drop-down button
  • New global resource manager (the g_ResourceManager variable of the CExtResourceManager class) is now used by all Prof-UIS components for loading Win32 resources. It allows you to search for and load language-dependent resources of any type. This makes possible to change languages supported in Prof-UIS or your application dynamically at runtime. The most remarkable feature of the resource manager is that this dynamic language switching is possible without the necessity to have a bunch of resource DLLs. We have not yet come across the conception of such a resource manager, so, this is our original idea.
  • Toolbars now support the following feature: When the Customize dialog is open, the toolbar window can get automatically shown/ hidden (m_bAutoShowOnCustomizationStart and m_bAutoShowOnCustomizationEnd properties of the CExtToolControlBar class). This allows you to implement a toolbar window similar to the Context Menus toolbar in Microsoft Office applications (it is visible only in the Customize mode and contains context menu buttons). The Context Menu toolbar can also be created with ProfAuto (Automation pack) (HideInContextMenus, AutoShowOnCustomizationStart, AutoHideOnCustomizationEnd and VisibleInCustomizeListBox properties of the IExtAutoToolbar interface)
  • Added a new ItemMove method to CExtTabWnd and a new PageMove method to CExtTabPageContainerWnd, with which you can change the tab position programmatically
  • Added the __ETWS_ITEM_DRAGGING style to the tab control window (CExtTabWnd) and two methods (ItemDraggingSet and ItemDraggingGet) to the tab page container class (CExtTabPageContainerWnd), which allows the user to change the position of any tab with the mouse (in other words, by drag-and-dropping it)
  • Added a new ThemeColorizer sample application that demonstrates how to customize the Office2003 theme with user-defined colors
  • Added a new LanguageSwicher sample application that shows how to implement switching between languages supported in Prof-UIS and your application on-the-fly
  • Docking outline for the resizable control bars that appears when the control bar is being dragged or resized now can be easily customized (a new CExtControlBar::g_nMsgDrawTackedArea registered message, CExtControlBar::eDrawTackedAreaType_t enumeration, and CExtControlBar::MsgDrawTackedAreaData_t structure). This feature is demonstrated in the FullScreenState and ThemeColorizer sample applications.
  • Prof-UIS is now localized to Danish. Many thanks to Finn!

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug with incorrect position of some menu items (an extra pixel line below menu items in some cases)
  • Fixed a bug with incorrect position of toolbar buttons when the Office 2003 or Studio 2005 theme is used (by having shifted all buttons one pixel upward)
  • Fixed a bug with incorrect position of the toolbar gripper when the toolbar is docked horizontally
  • Fixed a bug with incorrect drawing of the border around the CExtEdit control in some cases (when the Office 2003 or Studio 2005 theme is used, the edit is not focused, and the mouse pointer is outside the control)
  • Fixed a bug in the drop-down button when it is in a pop-up menu (mouse clicks on the part outside the drop-down arrow were incorrectly processed)
  • Fixed a bug with menu shadows on Windows XP
  • Fixed a bug with incorrect creation of built-in edit controls in popup menus if the control was initially hidden
  • Fixed a bug with incorrect drawing of toolbar chevrons when Windows 9x is used
  • Fixed a mouse hook bug in auto-hide windows (the MdiInnerOuterBars sample application)
Previous: Version 2.26