Need reviews and advice on web and data control tools and vendors

16 Jun 2005 1:47 PM

Tim Meagher

In order to reduce my development time, I would like to acquire a suite of
tools for ASP.Net development that provide grid, treeview, menus, and other
similar web controls. I would like a tool that provides good documentation
and that is fairly intuitive to use, is robust and gearing up for ASP.Net
2.0, and is not buggy. I prefer tohave access to source code, but of the
controls work well enough than that may not be an issue.

Recommendations, URLs for reference?

16 Jun 2005 3:14 PM

Karl Seguin

Tim:
Infragistics sells NetAdvantage which comes with most/all of these things
and are pretty robust and capable:
http://www.infragistics.com/products/NetAdvantage/WebForms/Default.aspx

Depending on your budget, I'd look around and look for free alternatives.

For example, you can use skmMenu for your menus:
http://skmmenu.com/menu/

Free ASP Treeview:
http://www.obout.com/t2/download.aspx

and google can help you out with the rest...

Karl

--
MY ASP.Net tutorials
http://www.openmymind.net/ - New and Improved (yes, the popup is annoying)
http://www.openmymind.net/faq.aspx - unofficial newsgroup FAQ (more to
come!)

Show quoteHide quote

"Tim Meagher" <t**@aaom.net> wrote in message
news:utmGslncFHA.2436@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> In order to reduce my development time, I would like to acquire a suite of
> tools for ASP.Net development that provide grid, treeview, menus, and
> other
> similar web controls. I would like a tool that provides good
> documentation
> and that is fairly intuitive to use, is robust and gearing up for ASP.Net
> 2.0, and is not buggy. I prefer tohave access to source code, but of the
> controls work well enough than that may not be an issue.
>
> Recommendations, URLs for reference?
>
>

16 Jun 2005 6:07 PM

Aaron Corcoran

Karl,

Thanks for the obout.com link. This was a wonderful resource! Another
great resource for free controls would be:

http://www.eworldui.net/

I hope this helps!
Aaron

16 Jun 2005 7:45 PM

Andrew Backer

Someone else suggested it, but I have to back ComponentArt as well
(www.componentart.com).

Their new controls are nice and much upgraded. They have a bit of a
confuzing (though powerful) skinning method which works pretty well.
Overall we have had pretty good luck with their tree & menu so far.

My favorite menu guys, even over component art, are Coalesys
(http://www.coalesys.com/home/). The menu is better in many instances,
especially since it just gives you hooks to attach the menu to any
standard HTML object. Very convenient if you need to have custom
menus, flyouts, etc, where ComponentArt creates the menu iteslf for
you.

So... take a look at componentart & coalesys. The only two I have
found so far that were any good (have dev/source lic for C-Art & dev
for coalesys for asp).

-Andrew Backer

16 Jun 2005 4:20 PM

Jeremy S

I would strongly advise to *avoid* Infragistics for Web Forms controls
(their Windows Forms controls, however are great).

Highly recommended: http://www.componentart.com/home.aspx

-HTH

Show quoteHide quote

"Tim Meagher" <t**@aaom.net> wrote in message
news:utmGslncFHA.2436@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> In order to reduce my development time, I would like to acquire a suite of
> tools for ASP.Net development that provide grid, treeview, menus, and
> other
> similar web controls. I would like a tool that provides good
> documentation
> and that is fairly intuitive to use, is robust and gearing up for ASP.Net
> 2.0, and is not buggy. I prefer tohave access to source code, but of the
> controls work well enough than that may not be an issue.
>
> Recommendations, URLs for reference?
>
>

16 Jun 2005 4:34 PM

Rob R. Ainscough

Tim,

Warning on Third party vendors -- they can take you down an ugly path of
lots of money, very buggy software, and seem to have little or no regard to
upgrading the components and how those upgrades will break existing code
(i.e. no compatibility path). Some of the components can be VERY slow also.
And, their support is terrible -- often out sourced to countries that don't
provide good English speaking individuals.

I'd wait for VS 2005 and .NET v2.0 and hope MS provide more robust controls
and fix a lot of bugs in the process. Of course if MS don't provide a easy
upgrade path, then we'll all be screwed anyway. But if MS do that, it will
be the final straw for me.

Rob.

Show quoteHide quote

"Tim Meagher" <t**@aaom.net> wrote in message
news:utmGslncFHA.2436@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> In order to reduce my development time, I would like to acquire a suite of
> tools for ASP.Net development that provide grid, treeview, menus, and
> other
> similar web controls. I would like a tool that provides good
> documentation
> and that is fairly intuitive to use, is robust and gearing up for ASP.Net
> 2.0, and is not buggy. I prefer tohave access to source code, but of the
> controls work well enough than that may not be an issue.
>
> Recommendations, URLs for reference?
>
>

16 Jun 2005 4:59 PM

Jeremy S

You sound like someone who has actually implemented (or attempted to
implement) Infragistics!

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"Rob R. Ainscough" <roba***@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:%23U7JVFpcFHA.3204@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Tim,
>
> Warning on Third party vendors -- they can take you down an ugly path of
> lots of money, very buggy software, and seem to have little or no regard
> to upgrading the components and how those upgrades will break existing
> code (i.e. no compatibility path). Some of the components can be VERY
> slow also. And, their support is terrible -- often out sourced to
> countries that don't provide good English speaking individuals.
>
> I'd wait for VS 2005 and .NET v2.0 and hope MS provide more robust
> controls and fix a lot of bugs in the process. Of course if MS don't
> provide a easy upgrade path, then we'll all be screwed anyway. But if MS
> do that, it will be the final straw for me.
>
> Rob.
>
> "Tim Meagher" <t**@aaom.net> wrote in message
> news:utmGslncFHA.2436@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> In order to reduce my development time, I would like to acquire a suite
>> of
>> tools for ASP.Net development that provide grid, treeview, menus, and
>> other
>> similar web controls. I would like a tool that provides good
>> documentation
>> and that is fairly intuitive to use, is robust and gearing up for ASP.Net
>> 2.0, and is not buggy. I prefer tohave access to source code, but of the
>> controls work well enough than that may not be an issue.
>>
>> Recommendations, URLs for reference?
>>
>>
>
>

17 Jun 2005 8:51 PM

Ken Cox [Microsoft MVP]

I'm biased because they're one of my clients but most people agree that
ComponentArt has great controls:

http://www.componentart.com/home.aspx

Show quoteHide quote

"Tim Meagher" <t**@aaom.net> wrote in message
news:utmGslncFHA.2436@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> In order to reduce my development time, I would like to acquire a suite of
> tools for ASP.Net development that provide grid, treeview, menus, and
> other
> similar web controls. I would like a tool that provides good
> documentation
> and that is fairly intuitive to use, is robust and gearing up for ASP.Net
> 2.0, and is not buggy. I prefer tohave access to source code, but of the
> controls work well enough than that may not be an issue.
>
> Recommendations, URLs for reference?
>
>

18 Jun 2005 4:04 PM

Karl Seguin

Ken,
I certainly agree. Very slick controls....afaik though they don't offer
everything that was asked for (grids)

Karl

--
MY ASP.Net tutorials
http://www.openmymind.net/ - New and Improved (yes, the popup is annoying)
http://www.openmymind.net/faq.aspx - unofficial newsgroup FAQ (more to
come!)

Show quoteHide quote

"Ken Cox [Microsoft MVP]" <BANSPAMken_cox@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:%233MKH53cFHA.1276@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> I'm biased because they're one of my clients but most people agree that
> ComponentArt has great controls:
>
> http://www.componentart.com/home.aspx
>
>
> "Tim Meagher" <t**@aaom.net> wrote in message
> news:utmGslncFHA.2436@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> In order to reduce my development time, I would like to acquire a suite
>> of
>> tools for ASP.Net development that provide grid, treeview, menus, and
>> other
>> similar web controls. I would like a tool that provides good
>> documentation
>> and that is fairly intuitive to use, is robust and gearing up for ASP.Net
>> 2.0, and is not buggy. I prefer tohave access to source code, but of the
>> controls work well enough than that may not be an issue.
>>
>> Recommendations, URLs for reference?
>>
>>
>
>