ActiveBar 3.0 Beta is Now Available

ActiveBar 3.0 Beta is Now Available

Data Dynamics is pleased to announce the first beta for ActiveBar 3.0.

ActiveBar 3.0 has new features which have been added to enhance the interface design capabilities already praised by developers in previous versions of ActiveBar:

• New Painting Architecture The ToolbarStyle property replaces the XPLook property to accommodate our newly added Toolbar styles. Toolbar styles can now also be set at run time.
• 2 New Toolbar Styles Create applications with either a Microsoft Office 2003 or a Visual Studio 2005 look and feel.
• New Navigation Bar ChildBand Style The new Navigation Bar ChildBand provides developers with a ready-to-use Band object containing preconfigured nested child bands. Selecting a ChildBand tab in the Navigation Bar displays a navigation pane with the tools contained in each child band.
• New GDI+ Support To support the smooth rounded look of Office 2003 and Visual Studio 2005, ActiveBar now supports GDI+.
• New Opacity Functionality Adjust the opacity of the Popup bands in your applications to make them appear translucent.
• New Floating Toolbar Fade Delay Setting the value (in milliseconds) for the FloatingToolbarFadeDelay property, allows the floating toolbars in your applications to fade from view when inactive.
• 2 New Customize Mode Events The new CustomizeLargeIconChange event lets the user switch to the appropriate image sizes (16x16 or 32x32 pixels) when the user is in the customization mode and selects the Large Icon checkbox. The new CustomizeToolAdded event fires after the user drops a tool from the Customize dialog onto a band. Use this new event to initialize any necessary settings when customizing a band.
• New ActiveBar 2.0 Conversion Utility The new ActiveBar 3.0 UpSizer utility lets you drag and drop your ActiveBar 2.0 files into the Upsizer utility file window to convert your ActiveBar 2.0 project files into ActiveBar 3.0 project files.
• Updated Samples The ActiveBar 2.0 application samples have been updated to include the new ActiveBar 3.0 functionality.
• New Documentation The documentation provided for ActiveBar 3.0 Beta release is not complete. The documentation will offer new walkthroughs and topics on the new features offered with ActiveBar 3.0.

To the top 3 beta testers who find the most bugs during the beta period, Data Dynamics will offer a free copy of ActiveBar 3.0 when the product is released. Your constructive feedback and comments during this testing period will help make ActiveBar 3.0 a definitive success.

We would appreciate specific testing and feedback in the following areas:

• Use all of the Toolbar styles in different projects.
• Use the new Navigation Bar with the different Toolbar styles.
• Save and load ActiveBar layouts.
• Test loading different icons types onto all the different toolbars. Load 32-bit icons at run time and 24-bit icons at run time and design time.
• Run through the included samples and provide feedback on their usefulness. Also, provide suggestions on new samples that can help further demonstrate the ActiveBar 3.0 features.
• Look through the help files and provide feedback on any new topics that might need to be added.

You can download the beta from our Web site at:

http://www.datadynamics.com/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=70

Note:Users who install ActiveBar 2.0 and ActiveBar 3.0 on the same system can compile and run ActiveBar 2.0 projects. However, because the ActiveBar 3.0 Designer replaces the ActiveBar 2.0 Designer after installing both applications on the system, users will not be able to modify existing ActiveBar 2.0 projects at design time.

ActiveBar 3.0 Beta support forum:

http://www.datadynamics.com/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=69

We sincerely appreciate your participation and we look forward to your feedback and comments.

ActiveBar 3.0 Development Team
Data Dynamics, Ltd.