Installation
Download the Update Controls MSI installer for WPF, Winforms, and Silverlight. It adds the Update Controls to your Visual Studio toolbox, and the Independent Property Generator to your Tools menu.
Save the MSI file to your machine and double-click to install it, or open it from the browser.
Demos
In addition to the demo source code available on the CodePlex site, these demos illustrate different facets of the library. Download and unzip the source code. Open the *.sln file in Visual Studio 2008 and build. You must have first installed the Update Controls library (above).
- Noteworthy and accompanying article showing Linq to SQL integration.
- Data bound menus and accompanying article.
- INotifyPropertyChanged is Obsolete and accompanying article.
- Commuter and accompanying article showing multi-threaded updates.
- Quick Writer and accompanying article showing data binding through Linq queries.
- XAML Demo and accompanying article showing the Navigation Model pattern.
- Case File demo of the themed tab deck control.
Open Source
Update Controls carries an MIT license. This open source license grants you the right to copy, use, and redistribute the software. You may make derivative works, which you may then use, copy, sell, and license as you see fit.
Attribution
If you wish, you may provide a link to this web site as attribution to Update Controls. The Logo control is provided for this purpose. You are expressly permitted to use the Update Controls logo for attribution. Use of the logo is optional, but please incude a link to the home page "http://updatecontrols.net".
CodePlex
The source code is available on CodePlex. Please submit issues, comments, and patches there.
Thank you for your support of Update Controls.
Troubleshooting
Please be aware that Visual Studio Express does not support add-ins. Ctrl+D, G will not work on Express.
If you cannot use the Ctrl+D, G keyboard binding after installation, open the Tools menu and see if the "Generate Independent Properties" item appears. If so, manually set up the keyboard binding. If not, the add-in did not properly install. This has been known to happen on 64-bit Vista. Follow these steps:
- Create an \Addins folder in {My Documents}\Visual Studio 2008.
- Copy the UpdateControls.VSAddIn.2008.Addin from C:\Program Files (x86)\Mallard Software Designs\Update Controls to the Addins folder.
- Edit the file. Change the line that says <Assembly>C:\Program Files\Mallard Software Designs\Update Controls\UpdateControls.VSAddIn.dll</Assembly> to add the " (x86)" (if on a 64-bit OS).
- Start Visual Studio and look in the Tools menu. You should see "Generate Independent Properties". If not, go to Tools, Add-in Manager and make sure that UpdateControls is in the list and checked.
- If necessary, go to Tools, Options, Environment, Keyboard and bind UpdateControls.VSAddIn.Connect.GenerateIndependentProperties to Ctrl+D, Ctrl+G.
One user reports that he also had to copy UpdateControls.VSAddIn.dll to the Addins folder, though the installer does not do this.
If you are going to be using WPF exclusively, you don't need to add the Winforms controls to the toolbox. But if you want to use the Winforms controls:
- Right click on the Toolbox and select "Add Tab".
- Name the new tab "Update Controls"
- Right click again on the Toolbox and select "Choose Items"
- Scroll down in the .NET Framework Components list to the controls beginning with Update
- Check all of the controls.
- Click "OK".
- Repeat to create a tab called "Update Controls Themes" containing all controls starting with "Theme".
If all else fails, check the logs. Two log files are created:
- C:\Program Files\Mallard Software Designs\Update Controls\UpdateControls.Forms.dll.install.log
- C:\Program Files\Mallard Software Designs\Update Controls\UpdateControls.VSAddIn.dll.log