Syncfusion is excited to roll out the final release of the year: Essential Studio 2023 Volume 4. This release is packed with highly demanded, exciting new controls and features. All the bug fixes completed before the code freeze are also included.

Here’s a brief description of the major highlights for each platform.

.NET MAUI

In the 2023 Volume 4 release, we introduce the following .NET MAUI controls in preview mode:
- Cards: A container control that allows users to create dismissible cards or a stack of cards. It can also organize a sequence of cards where only one card is visible at a time. Users can easily navigate through the stack by swiping to reveal the next card in the sequence.
- Carousel: It allows users to navigate through image data interactively so that it can be viewed or selected. It provides various customization options for item arrangement.
- Navigation Drawer: It creates a navigation pane in an app. It consists of a content area and a sliding pane that can be opened programmatically or by swiping the edges of the screen.
- Pull to Refresh: This control refreshes the loaded view by executing the pull-to-refresh action. Upon initiating the action, a progress indicator will be displayed. The app will refresh when the pulling reaches a specific distance, and then the touch will be released.
- Sunburst Chart: It represents hierarchical data structures. Each level represents a different category or subcategory, allowing users to understand the relationships and dependencies within the data.
- Switch: It provides an efficient way to select states based on a toggled value.
The Autocomplete and ComboBox controls now allow users to select multiple items from the suggestion list and display them as tokens.
The DataGrid control now allows users to manipulate data using the DataPager to view rows on multiple pages.
The Cartesian Charts control now supports two new chart types: Stacked Area and 100 % Stacked Area charts.
The PDF Viewer supports a form-filling feature to digitize the manual process of filling out paper forms.
The following .NET MAUI controls have been developed to meet industry standards and are now marked as production-ready:

Flutter

The Flutter DataGrid now delivers the following new features:
- Dynamically grouping data by columns.
- Placing users in control with intuitive expand/collapse interactions.
- Elevating the app’s adaptability with customizable grouping logic. You can define specific rules for data grouping, ensuring alignment with your unique data model.
The Flutter PDF Viewer supports these powerful features:
- Easily add, remove, and modify text markup annotations in a PDF.
- Ensure the integrity of your PDFs with non-interactive digital signature rendering.
- Enhance the reading experience with vertical scrolling in single-page layout mode.

Blazor

The Syncfusion Blazor components seamlessly support .NET 8. This provides access to the newest features introduced in the .NET 8, such as rendering mode, web app template, and more. Also, we’ve shipped and published a new sample browser with live Blazor Web App templates.
In this release, we’ve introduced the following new components in preview mode:
- Data Form
- DropDown Tree
- Stepper
The Image Editor meets industry standards and is production-ready.
The DataGrid adds more advanced features such as:
- Adaptive view layout for context menus, column choosers, and column menu features based on the screen size of mobile devices.
- Row drag-and-drop with grouping.
- Enhancements in frozen rows and columns functionality along with the traditional frozen rows and columns feature. Now, users can lock columns in place while scrolling horizontally.
- Exporting the grid to a file stream, memory stream, or blob.
- DataTable binding.
- Adaptive view layout for a page size drop-down.
The PDF Viewer introduces a mobile-friendly annotation toolbar to perform various actions such as adding, modifying, removing, and commenting on annotations within a PDF directly from mobile devices. Also, we’ve enhanced the keyboard accessibility that allows individuals to navigate through the PDF Viewer using keyboard shortcuts instead of relying solely on mouse or touch input.
The Word Processor (Document Editor) has ruler support. This provides greater control over the layout and formatting of documents, making it easier than ever to create professional-looking results.
The Diagram control provides a radial tree layout that automatically arranges diagram nodes into an intuitive circular layout, improving the organization of diagrams.

Essential JS 2

The new 3D Chart component is a powerful tool for visualizing data in three dimensions, uncovering intricate relationships and trends among variables with six chart types, data binding, customizable legends, and more.
The new Stepper component facilitates navigation through step-based processes in web apps. Customize step types, orientation, linear flow, label positioning, tooltips, and templates for a seamless user experience.
The Charts component has rolled out these new updates:
- Apply steps from the left, center, and right of each data point in a step series.
- Align axis titles to the near, far, and center of the chart area.
- Position the tooltip at a fixed location within the chart.
Easily incorporate UML class shapes into your diagrams.
The new features added to the Word Processor are:
- Greater control over document layout and formatting with horizontal and vertical rulers that adjust to zoom levels.
- Precise alignment of text at specific points for a clean and organized look.
- Simultaneous collaboration on documents in real-time for increased efficiency.
The Gantt Chart delivers the following new features:
- Efficiently load project tasks with longer timelines while rendering only the current viewport cells (lazy loading).
- Easily reorder tasks by dragging and dropping taskbars between Gantt Chart rows.
- Check data validity before saving with custom validation rules and messages.
- Comprehensive reporting, customization, and data integrity.
The DataGrid comes with the following features:
- Dynamically load checkbox list data in Excel and checkbox filter dialogs for improved performance with large datasets.
- Improved layouts for context menus, column menus, column choosers, and adaptive view layouts in the Grid control to suit various screen sizes.
- Save grid data as a blob, memory stream, or file stream during export, allowing easy manipulation before downloading in Excel or PDF format.
- Customize the content displayed when no records are available in the grid.
The Image Editor supports the ability to effortlessly align and correct the orientation of images for a polished and visually appealing output.
The ListView with on-demand data loading (lazy Loading) retrieves data from remote services for the current viewport alone, improving performance and usability.
You can draw and display polygon shapes over the Maps control’s main layer using appropriate data sources.
The Scheduler comes with the following features:
- Directly customize the icons, text, and tooltips of toolbar items.
- Customize the maximum number of concurrent events to be displayed.

WinUI

The ComboBox control allows users to display text indicating no search results were found.
The Masked TextBox allows users to display an icon to indicate the type of error in the control.
The Ribbon provides a convenient dialog window that showcases all available commands within it. Users can now customize their quick access toolbar by adding or removing commands directly through this dialog window.

WPF

The Diagram control is equipped with the following features:
- The stencil enables users to showcase headers of symbol groups with a vertical tab layout. Users can seamlessly explore different symbol categories by clicking tab headers.
- Users can create activity diagrams, UML use cases, and state diagrams programmatically or interactively using built-in activity diagram symbols. Users can also add activity diagram symbols to stencils to drag and drop them on the canvas easily.
The PDF Viewer has the following updates:
- Users can manipulate form fields and functions, including addition, deletion, and modification, on the loaded document, syncing it to the PDF viewer.
- Document-level security has been enhanced by limiting the permissions within the PDF when opened with a user password.

Document-Processing Libraries

.NET PDF library

The Syncfusion PDF library now supports the following enhancements:

You can split PDF documents without sacrificing the integrity of accessibility tags. Accessibility is crucial for users relying on screen readers and other assistive technologies.
We’ve improved the document operations to reduce file sizes. By removing unused elements and identifying identical resources, you can experience heightened efficiency in both PDF merging and splitting.
You can easily access certificates from the Document Security Store (DSS) and retrieve CRL lists for enhanced validation during signature verification.
In HTML-to-PDF conversion, you can experience better error handling with proper exceptions on failure. Also, BlinkBinaries have been updated to the latest version (117.0.5938.150), addressing vulnerabilities and ensuring a more secure conversion process.

.NET Excel library

The Syncfusion Excel library now supports the following features:

Users can group pivot data based on the following categories:
- Date
- Month
- Year
- Quarter
- Hour
- Minute
- Second
You can create and parse the following Excel functions:
- LAMBDA : Allows custom formula parameters and logic.
- SORT : Arrange cell range values in ascending or descending order.
- BYROW : Applies a LAMBDA to each row and returns an array of the results.
- BYCOL : Applies a LAMBDA to each column and returns an array of the results.
- TOROW : Transforms an array into a single row.
- TOCOL : Transforms an array into a single column.
- CHOOSEROWS : Returns specified rows from an array.
- CHOOSECOLS : Returns specified columns from an array.
- TEXTSPLIT : Splits cell text across rows or columns.
- TEXTBEFORE : Returns text before a given character.
You can configure the fallback fonts for Unicode text while converting Excel to PDF or image files. These fallback fonts come into play when the rendering engine encounters Unicode text that lacks a corresponding glyph in the specified fonts.
Users can configure fallback fonts in the following ways:
- Initialize default fallback fonts for Unicode text.
- Set custom fonts as fallback fonts for specific script types, including Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese.
- Set custom fonts as fallback fonts for a particular range of Unicode text.
TIFF images are preserved as they appear in the input Excel document when converting PDFs or images.

.NET Word library

The Word Library delivers the following features:

Create mathematical equations by specifying a LaTeX string in a Word document. With this, you can easily add an equation created using a LaTeX editor into a Word document.
Users can configure fallback fonts in the following ways:
- Initialize default fallback fonts for Unicode text.
- Set custom fonts as fallback fonts for specific script types, including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, and more.
- Set custom fonts as fallback fonts for a particular range of Unicode text.
Preserve TIFF images in converted PDFs or images exactly as they appear in the input Word document. For example, you can convert medical reports with TIFF images of X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans from a Word document to a PDF or an image.

Java Word Library

Compare Word documents

The Syncfusion Java Word Library (DocIO) allows you to compare two Word documents and highlight the changes, such as insertions, deletions, and formatting, as tracked changes. With this feature, you can easily identify the changes between two versions of a document.

.NET PowerPoint library

TIFF image preservation

The PowerPoint Library now preserves TIFF images in converted PDFs or images exactly as they appear in the input.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! The features listed here are just highlights of our Essential Studio 2023 Volume 4 release. You can check out all the features in our Release Notes and our What’s New pages.

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

Syncfusion Essential Studio 2023 Volume 4 Is Here!