With the release of TX Text Control 31.0 , we will fully support .NET 5, 6 and 7 (preview) in Visual Studio 2022, including Windows Forms designer support, NuGet package and deployment support.
TX Text Control 30.0 already supports .NET 5 and 6, but lacks Visual Studio designer and toolbox support for Windows Forms and WPF. For Windows Forms and WPF, Microsoft decided to change the Visual Studio design-time experience and third-party licensing among other features.
The upcoming 31.0 release is in development, and for ASP.NET, Windows Forms, and WPF, we are working on enhancements to fully support .NET 5, 6, and 7 (preview) features, including:
- NuGet packages
- Visual Studio design-time support (Windows Forms)
- .NET 5, 6 and 7 compatible license
- easy deployment
The following diagram shows the .NET versions supported by the current version 30.0 and the upcoming version 31.0:
NuGet packages
All compiled dependencies are bundled into the package, which contains all the DLLs and other things needed in projects using the TX Text Control Component.
After installing TX Text Control using the developer kit installer, a new NuGet package source "Text Control Offline Packages" is added to NuGet and contains all available NuGet packages for the Text Control component:
When a NuGet package is added to a project, all available toolbox entries are automatically added:
Visual Studio design-time support
In Windows Forms, after creating a TextControl on a form, you have full access to designer features to add more components (e.g. ribbon bars, ruler bars) and to automatically connect and arrange controls.
.NET 6 compatible license
In version 30.0, the obsolete .NET BinaryFormatter needs to be enabled when compiling licenses into assemblies. We removed this requirement in version 31.0 so that no additional setup is required to use the TX Text Control in a .NET Core application. This change is valid for all versions, including Windows Forms, WPF, and ASP.NET.
easy deployment
TX Text Control 31.0 fully supports Visual Studio's publish functionality when deploying applications . For example, in the screenshot below, the application is published to a folder.
After selecting the folder, you can select the target runtime and deployment mode :
When publishing the application, all required files (including the binary for TX Text Control) are automatically copied to the correct location:
.NET 7 Compatibility: ASP.NET, Windows Forms, and WPF
Version 31.0 was tested with Visual Studio 17.4.0 Preview 1.0 and .NET 7, and all text control related features including toolbox and design-time support, deployment and licensing worked as expected. We've been testing our components against all preview releases, including the latest, and we don't expect any issues until Microsoft officially releases .NET 7 later this year.
ASP.NET Core NuGet packages
In version 31.0, we will also provide a NuGet package to use the server text control and mail merge classes in ASP.NET Core web applications.
The NuGet package TXTextControl.TextControl.ASP.SDK automatically adds all required assemblies, dependencies and licenses.licx entries to the project so that the classes can be used out of the box without adding any references and license entries manually:
