CSharpDB v3.6.0 is out

[MaxAkbar]

Access-style forms, extensible controls, and better admin tooling

This release is a big step toward making CSharpDB’s built-in Admin experience feel more like a real application builder, especially for users coming from Microsoft Access.

The main focus is the forms system. Forms now support a wider set of first-class controls, including combo boxes, list boxes, option groups, toggle buttons, tab controls, subforms, attachments, and image fields. Existing controls remain backward-compatible, but the rendering and designer infrastructure has been expanded so forms can support richer layouts and data-entry workflows.

A major part of this release is Access-style layout behavior. Controls can now participate in anchoring and resizing rules, including minimum sizes, so forms are no longer locked into a static layout when the window changes size.

This version also introduces the first version of the form control extensibility registry. Developers can now register custom controls through a formal API instead of editing the toolbox, designer, renderer, property inspector, and CSS by hand. Custom controls still persist using the existing ControlType plus PropertyBag model, so saved form JSON stays compatible.

Highlights:

• New form controls:

  • comboBox
  • listBox
  • optionGroup
  • toggleButton
  • tabControl
  • subform
  • attachment
  • image

• Better form layout behavior:

  • Access-style anchoring
  • Responsive resizing
  • Minimum control sizes
  • Improved designer/runtime consistency

• New extensibility layer:

  • IFormControlRegistry
  • FormControlRegistryBuilder
  • FormControlDescriptor
  • Custom designer previews
  • Custom runtime renderers
  • Generic/custom property editing support

• Admin improvements:

  • Host callback catalog
  • Callback readiness checks
  • Missing callback visibility
  • Stub generation for missing callback registrations

• Compatibility:

  • Existing form JSON remains valid
  • Existing built-in controls continue to work
  • New/custom control metadata is preserved through the existing property bag model

This release is mainly about moving CSharpDB from “forms as metadata” toward “forms as an extensible application surface.” There is still more to do, especially around deeper callback policy hardening and future out-of-process extension support, but the foundation is now much stronger.

Thanks to everyone following along as CSharpDB grows into a more complete local database and admin application platform.