Hang on, 26.6.7 is out - what happened to 26.6.6? The quick amongst you might realise that the last formal release was 26.6.5. Well 26.6.6 contained one small bug that needed it own fix hence why the public version numbers seemed to have skipped. Apologies about that!
Anyway, it’s another super sunny day here in the UK and another super release of Objo Studio, hot off the press! We’ve fixed all logged bugs, smoothed off some rough edges following the transition to a new Avalonia 12 backend and added some very nice features, three of which I’d like to draw special attention to.
HTMLViewer
The new HTMLViewer control lets Objo apps display web pages or HTML strings directly inside a desktop window.
It uses the platform’s native web renderer, so Objo does not bundle a separate Chromium runtime into every app, unlike some other tools. On macOS it uses WebKit, on Windows it uses WebView2, and on Linux it uses WebKitGTK.
HTMLViewer can load URLs, render HTML strings, navigate backwards and forwards, run JavaScript, and exchange messages between Objo and the page.
This control ought to be useful for embedded documentation, local HTML reports, preview panes, login flows, interactive dashboards, and hybrid UI where a little web content makes sense inside a native desktop app.
MarkdownViewer
This release also adds MarkdownViewer, a purpose-built control for displaying Markdown in desktop apps.
It’s a great fit for help screens, release notes, formatted descriptions, generated reports, and any other read-only rich text. You assign Markdown to the control’s MarkdownText property, and the control handles rendering, links, selection, scrolling, styling, and conversion to plain text or HTML.
MarkdownViewer includes plenty of styling options too, including colours, heading sizes, code fonts, code block colours, blockquote styling, borders, padding, and link behaviour.
Ad-hoc signing for local macOS builds
On macOS, Studio now automatically ad-hoc signs local .app bundles built for testing.
This does not replace Developer ID signing or notarisation for distribution, and it’s not intended for public releases. What it does do is make local Mac builds smoother: you can build and run your app locally with a valid local code signature, without having to configure an Apple Developer account.
Release signing still lives in Project Settings > Signing, where you can configure a Developer ID identity and notarisation profile when you are ready to publish.
Objo Studio 26.6.7 is available from the download page. You’ll want to read the changelog for both 26.6.6 and 26.6.7 since that’s what you’ll be getting when you upgrade.
