Are you looking for the best way to understand what's new in Telerik's upcoming Q1 2009 release? Then you don't want to miss the huge Q1 Webinar Week! This week long event, hosted by the Telerik Evangelism crew, will bring you a new webinar everyday for a week to show you what's new in one of the biggest Telerik releases ever. Every Telerik product will be covered and every webinar will be loaded with demos and information. Here's the schedule:
Monday: Getting Started with Sitefinity 3.6
Tuesday: Introducing Telerik Q1 2009 & WebUI Test Studio
Wednesday: What's new in RadControls for WinForms & WPF
Thursday: What's new in RadControls for ASP.NET & Silverlight
Friday: What's new in Telerik Reporting & OpenAccess ORM
Everything kicks-off on Monday, March 9th. Every webinar will be held at 11 AM EST (to try accommodate as many timezones around the world as we can) and we'll work quickly to make webinars available on Telerik TV shortly after the live events. The webinars will also be a bit shorter than normal- about 45 minutes- so that you can easily attend more than one event during the release week.
Registration for these webinars is now open, so reserve your free seat today and set your Outlook reminders. There are tons of exciting new features- and products- to learn about in Q1, so jumpstart your learning and make the most of this release by joining us for Webinar Week Q1 2009!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Announcing Q1 Webinar Week
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Telerik Watch Minute Editing RadSilverlight Templates
It's been a few weeks, so it's high-time for another fine-blended edition of Telerik Watch Minute. This week is a double feature: news + a Silverlight demo. With Q1 just around the corner, there's plenty of news to share- but I didn't want leave out the little technical tip. So, you'll get your quick 60 seconds of news up-front and then I'll give you a quick 7 minute demo showing everything you need to know to get started customizing the XAML control templates for the RadControls for Silverlight. I'll use the RadTabStrip for Silverlight in today's demo since it already works well in Expression Blend, but all of the RadControls for Silverlight in Q1 will work the same way, making it very easy to customize the look at feel of any Telerik XAML control. Enjoy! Watch this episode on Telerik TV HD (bigger size)
New Telerik Reporting webinar today
Sorry for not highlighting this webinar earlier this week. Hopefully you're starting to catch on to the whole "weekly webinar" schedule we're running- I'll make an "official" announcement later this week. But without further delay, let me draw your attention to a new, free webinar on Telerik Reporting happening today, Thursday, February 25th at 11:00 AM EST. The focus of this webinar? As Kevin summarized it:
"Interested in learning how to embed reports within reports? Want to know how to create your own charts? Curious what that barcode item is all about? Whether you already work with Telerik Reporting or are just getting started, this webinar will bring you up-to-speed on all the goodies available to report designers using Telerik's world-class reporting tool."
As usual, this webinar will be recorded and we'll try to have the recording on Telerik TV before the weekend. I'll post a link on Telerik Watch when the recording is ready. For everyone that wants to ask questions, though, don't miss the live event! Register now and we'll see you online later today.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Random Online Utility: Xencode Browsers
It's been a long time since I introduced the ROU "series," so it's high-time I added another tool to this list. This time I bring you a tool I just discovered- thanks to the geniuses on the internal Telerik Newsgroups- called Xenocode Browser Sandbox. The "tool" (it's really more of a service) enables you to launch browsers "from the web"- including IE6, IE7, IE8, Opera, Safari, and Chrome. Here's the basic tool pitch:
You visit the Browser Sandbox page and download the executable for the browser you want to use (it comes in Xenocode's virtualized package). You run it- no installs required. The browser of the version you selected opens and runs!
Clearly, the coolest part of this is that you can finally run multiple versions of IE on the same computer without all the hassle of firing-up a VPC. I tested IE6 on my Windows 7 workstation and it definitely works as promised. There are some shortcomings- for instance, I couldn't enter any text in inputs on webpages (no keyboard input)- but if your goal is to just navigate to a page to see how it looks, you're set.
For a free tool, it's pretty cool. Check it out and stay tuned for more cool ROUs.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Q1 beta available now, RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX
Sorry folks, I'm bringing this news to you a few days late. Still it doesn't diminish its importance! The Q1 2009 beta for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX is now available! This is your chance to get a hands-on look at what's coming in Q1 (for ASP.NET AJAX, at least) and send us your feedback while there's still time to change things before the official release. Here's a highlight of what you'll find in the beta (and, in turn, the Q1 release):
- New "control": RadFileExplorer
- Huge improvements in RadScheduler client-side features
- Improvements to RadGrid Pager and Filter templates
- Official release of RadCompression tool
- New skins: Vista, Default*
- Huge improvements to all skins*
Friday, February 20, 2009
"Getting Started with the RadControls for Silverlight" webinar wrap-up
As you can see, the Silverlight webinar is done and already posted for your viewing pleasure on Telerik TV. The webinar went very well-at least it did from my perspective- and I hope all of you that attended live enjoyed the session. You asked some great questions (which I will answer soon and make available on this blog) and hopefully you got most of the answers you needed during the live show. For those not at the live event, here's what I ended-up covering in the 75-minute Silverlight webinar:
- Adding the RadControls to the VS toolbox
- Working with RadMenu, RadWindow, RadCoverflow for Silverlight
- Binding RadCoverflow to a Flickr web service
- Preview of RadGridView for Silverlight (filtering, grouping, data binding, etc.)
- RadPageNavigation (navigating between XAML pages, history support, deep linking)
- Theming (how to apply themes to the RadControls)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Reminder: Telerik Silverlight webinar today!
Don't forget! There is a free, live webinar today (actually, in about 30 minutes) that will be covering the RadControls for Silverlight. This is a "getting started" webinar, so anybody that is looking to get a better grasp on how to work with 3rd party components in Silverlight should definitely attend. We won't spend much time on Silverlight basics, though, so make sure you have at least a basic understanding of Silverlight before attending today's session. And if you haven't registered yet, there's still time (now 25 minutes):
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/188665451
If you can't make our live event, I will be publishing the recording of this event on Telerik TV. I'll do my best to process the hour long video right after the webinar ends and get in on TTV by the weekend. I'll post the link the follow-up post. See you in a few minutes!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Redirect: Windows 7 application compatibility
As you know, I don't make a practice of regularly dedicating entire posts on Telerik Watch to other posts on other blogs, but I do make occasional exceptions. Today is an exception. On one of my other blogs, I recently documented a more complete list of all significant software I've tried to install/use on Windows 7. The blog post is a "living document," so I intend to update it if I install more apps worth mentioning. Since I know this crowd is also likely considering Windows 7 beta forays, I thought I'd highlight the list so it can help you avoid some of the challenges I had getting Win7 up and running:
Monday, February 16, 2009
Introducing Telerik WebUI Test Studio, Public beta available now
The wait is over. Telerik today is announcing a brand new product that will be added to our growing line of .NET developer tools in Q1 2009: Telerik WebUI Test Studio. Created in partnership with ArtOfTest, WebUI Test Studio is a next-generation tool for creating automated web UI tests. It integrates directly with Visual Studio (no extra programs required). It enables, easy, interactive web UI test recording (and maintenance). It creates tests that can target multiple browsers (currently IE and FF, soon Safari and Chrome). And best of all, it can intelligently test the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX.
If you are already doing automated web UI testing today, this tool is going to dramatically simplify your workflow and make testing complex controls like the RadControls quick and painless. If you're new to automated web UI testing, this tool is going to finally make what seemed like an impossibly difficult task (automating tests of a website's UI) point-and-click easy.
To get started understanding this new tool, be sure to check out all of the videos on Telerik TV (with more to follow very soon). In fact, the intro video is probably the best place to start.
We hope that you enjoy this new offering and addition to the Telerik line-up. Combined with the RadControls for your UI and OpenAccess ORM for your data layer, WebUI Test Studio helps you automate another aspect of your developer tasks so that you can focus the majority of your time on the code that makes your (or your clients) money. Keep your RSS tuned-in here for more details and watch Q1 for the official release.
'Til then, download the Telerik WebUI Test Studio Beta and let us know what you think!
Silverlight webinar this Thursday
Another week, another Telerik weekly webinar. This week it's my turn and I'll be presenting a session on Telerik's RadControls for Silverlight. The session will be pretty "101" with the goal of making sure you know everything you need to know to get started with the RadControls for Silverlight. Among the topics we'll cover:
- How to add the Silverlight controls to your VS toolbox
- How to work with the controls in VS/Blend
- How to bind the controls to data
- How to style/theme the controls
- How to deploy an application with the RadControls
Friday, February 13, 2009
My Windows 7 Beta foray
Thursday, February 12, 2009
South Florida Code Camp 2009 Wrap-up (update)
As everyone knows, this past Saturday I made a quick trip from Texas to attend and speak at the 2009 South Florida Code Camp (#SoFlCC, for all you twits out there). It was another outstanding event and I'm very glad I made the trip! Registration numbers topped 800 and over 600 people turned-out for the day-long event, which for anyone not "in the know" is pretty incredible for a "code camp." I'm always amazed by the size and involvement of the Florida .NET community, and this year's Code Camp did nothing but further that amazement. My two sessions also went very well. Both were packed and both sessions generated a lot of good questions. A big thanks to all of you that came out to one (or both!) of my sessions. Hopefully you enjoyed the content despite my speaker "idiosyncrasies." Congrats to all of the t-shirt and Telerik license winners, too! As promised, I'm making the slides from both sessions available on this blog post (see links below). I'll be making the code available, too, but there are some problems with the server hosting my downloads, so the links aren't live yet. Check back soon for live downloads. Finally, I couldn't call this a real wrap-up post if I didn't mention Telerik's sponsor involvement. I had a great time manning the Telerik "micro booth" and talking to many of you between sessions. I always enjoy meeting Telerik "fans" and people that want to join the club. I learned about some very cool projects being built this year and I'm thrilled that Telerik has been selected as the trusted partner for .NET tools and components. The Telerik-sponsored after-party was fun, too. If you missed it, you missed a good time- don't miss it next year! Needless to say, SoFlCC remains a bright spot on my calendar and I look forward to heading back to Florida next year for SoFlCC 2010! ASP.NET MVC: Red Pill or Blue Pill? [Slides] [Code] ASP.NET ViewState Tips & Tricks [Slides] [Code]
Friday, February 06, 2009
Join Telerik at the South Florida Code Camp tomorrow
Hailing all .NET developers and Telerik customers in Florida: your next chance to hang out with the .NET community and meet with Telerik has arrived! Tomorrow, Saturday, February 7th is the 2009 South Florida Code Camp. It's a free event- you can still register online- and it promises to be a great event for .NET learning. Things will get kicked-off at 7:30 AM (yay...) and run through 5:45 PM. Throughout the day there will be 12 simultaneous tracks running, covering everything from web development to business intelligence. There are already nearly 800 people registered, and if last year is any indication, I fully expect most of them to show-up and create a great event.
Telerik is again a Gold Sponsor of the event and we're also sponsoring the "After Party," too. I'll be flying down this evening and delivering two sessions during tomorrow's packed agenda: one on ASP.NET MVC and one on ViewState Tips & Tricks. I'll also be hanging out at Telerik's "micro booth" throughout the day, so be sure to stop by and say 'hi.' In fact, if you ask, I'll even give you a sneak peak of Telerik's mysterious brand new product that will be launching with Q1!
Go to be early and I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning at DeVry!
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Demos Featuring RadControls for Silverlight
Available for your immediate viewing pleasure are 6 demo applications, all featuring the RadControls for Silverlight:
- Car Configurator Demo (shows RadNavigation, RadDragDropFramework in action)
- CV* Viewer Demo (shows RadNavigation)
(*For the US crowd, that's "rest of the world" for resume) - Telerik Media Demo (shows RadMediaPlayer and RadCoverFlow)
- Northwind "Astoria" Demo (shows RadTreeView in combo with ADO.NET Data Services for updating data)
- Job Board Demo (shows RadGridView Beta and RadTreeView)
- RadControls for Silverlight Demos (shows all RadControls in various small demos with code viewer)
Beyond the 6 "polished" demos featured here, there are also a number of demos available for download that help you understand RadGridView in even greater detail:
- Server-side Paging, Sorting, and Filtering with RadGridView for Silverlight
- Custom Template Columns for RadGridView for Silverlight
- Export to Excel, Word, Csv with RadGridView for Silverlight
And is if that were not enough to keep you busy for a while, there are even a few "bonus" demos available in the Client.net downloads. If you look at your downloads, you'll find a Zip file labeled "Navigation Examples" that contains three more demos showing you how to use RadNavigation. They're a great starting point for learning how to build multi-XAML form Silverlight applications.
Have fun playing with the RadControls for Silverlight and stay tuned for some more exciting previews of our Q1 2009 features very soon!
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Optimization Tips: RadInput vs. RadInputManager
In the Q3 2008 release, Telerik introduced a new control to the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX suite called RadInputManager. Like RadInput, it is designed to enable you to provided textboxes to your users that give real-time validation and feedback based on the entered text. The big difference with RadInputManager, though, is that you don't have to add lots of Telerik Input controls on your page to get this real-time feedback. Instead, you can quickly convert "standard" ASP.NET TextBoxes to RadInput textboxes via the RadInputManager configuration- similar to how you can use RadAjaxManager to quickly ajaxify your page without littering it with UpdatePanels.
RadInputManager is a very innovative control and- in my opinion- one of the biggest steps forward in simplifying ASP.NET form validation to come around in a long time. In this optimization tip, we'll take a look a the RadInputManager (RIM) control to see how it simplifies form validation and see how it helps us improve page performance.
Continue reading RadInputManager optimization tip
SIMPLIFYING FORM VALIDATION
When ASP.NET developers want to validate form inputs today, that usually represents the beginning of a time consuming task where form validation controls are add to the page for every input that needs to be validated. After the assorted RequiredField, RegularExpression, and Range validators are added, their prosperities set, and some type of UI added to display their error messages, you're left with a page cluttered with markup that is unrelated to the actual layout or function of the form. Further, any complex validations on the page are usually set such that they do not get evaluated until the form has been submitted, meaning users get feedback regarding their input errors long after the mistake has been made. Not great for usability.
With RadInputManager that all changes. Instead, validating form inputs becomes easy and painless:
- You add standard ASP.NET TextBoxes to your form where you want to collect values
- You configure RadInputManager to apply RegularExpression, Numeric, DateTime, or RequiredField validations the appropriate textboxes
- You run the page
No markup littering. No need to set properties over and over again on controls that are providing the same validation. And as a bonus, when you use RadInputManager, users get real-time feedback when their input does not validate, enabling them to correct it before submitting the form.
RADINPUTMANAGER VALIDATION TYPES
We won't go in to fully detailing the RadInputManager's properties- there are great docs available for that- but I will highlight it's capabilities as a form input validation control. Via the control's simple configuration properties, you can accomplish any of these validations:
- Numeric - only accept numeric digits, specify Max and Min number range, specify negative number formatting, specify decimal formatting
- Date- specify allowed DateTime format, specify allowed DateTime range
- RegularExpression- specify any regular expression to validate
- TextBox- use as simple RequiredField validator
In addition to these specific validation types, RadInputManager allows you make any textbox required (essentially replacing the need for separate required field validators) and it enables any textbox's validation to be declaratively connected to a web service for powerful server-side validation. With a single control, you're replacing the need for separate TypeValidators, RangeValidators, RequiredFieldValidators, and CustomValidators for every input on your form.
RADINPUT VS. RADINPUTMANAGER
RadInput has been part of the Telerik RadControls for quite some time and- like the RadInputManager- it provides rich, validated text input. In fact, the RadInputManager is really just simplifying and optimizing the creation of RadInput controls on your page. Rather than manually adding a RadInput every place you need input validation and then initializing all of those controls separately, RadInputManager allows you to simplify the the configuration and optimize the initialization on the client. For example, if you needed to validate 5 numeric textboxes on a form, you might do this with RadInput:
ASPX
<telerik:RadNumericTextBox ID="RadNumericTextBox1" runat="server" MaxValue="100" MinValue="0"> </telerik:RadNumericTextBox><br /> <telerik:RadNumericTextBox ID="RadNumericTextBox2" runat="server" MaxValue="100" MinValue="0"> </telerik:RadNumericTextBox><br /> <telerik:RadNumericTextBox ID="RadNumericTextBox3" runat="server" MaxValue="100" MinValue="0"> </telerik:RadNumericTextBox><br /> <telerik:RadNumericTextBox ID="RadNumericTextBox4" runat="server" MaxValue="100" MinValue="0"> </telerik:RadNumericTextBox><br /> <telerik:RadNumericTextBox ID="RadNumericTextBox5" runat="server" MaxValue="100" MinValue="0"> </telerik:RadNumericTextBox><br />
ASPX
<telerik:RadInputManager runat="server" ID="radInputManager1"> <telerik:NumericTextBoxSetting MaxValue="100" MinValue="0"> <Validation IsRequired="true" /> <TargetControls> <telerik:TargetInput ControlID="TextBox1" /> <telerik:TargetInput ControlID="TextBox2" /> <telerik:TargetInput ControlID="TextBox3" /> <telerik:TargetInput ControlID="TextBox4" /> <telerik:TargetInput ControlID="TextBox5" /> </TargetControls> </telerik:NumericTextBoxSetting> </telerik:RadInputManager>
IMPACT ON PERFORMANCE
When you use RadInputManager instead of RadInput, you're optimizing your page in two ways:- You're reducing the bytes sent over the wire
- You're reducing the page initialization time
As a follow-up, we'll also re-run the tests- both with RadInput and RadInputManager- with the RadManagers to see how they affect overall page performance.
Bytes Over the Wire
This chart shows us the difference in bytes sent over the wire when using RadInput vs. RadInputManager for the exact same scenario (40 inputs). I did not include the results of the tests with the RadManagers because they do not significantly effect the bytes sent to the client (in this test, they only reduced total bytes by about 1%). What we see right away is that RadInputManager reduces the total bytes sent to the client by about 22%, but it sends about 5% more JavaScript to the client than RadInput. To achieve he overall reduction, RadInputManager is sending much less HTML- about 55% less in these tests. That's significant for one very important reason:
When a page is requested, all page resources (like JavaScript) will be cached and the cached versions will be used on subsequent page loads. The HTML, however, will be requested and sent every time the page loads.
So while RadInputManager does send slightly more JavaScript, those resource gets cached on the initial page request and then the lightweight HTML gets exchanged after that. With RadInput, you're passing twice as much HTML for every page request.
Average Page Load Time
When it comes to page load time, we also see a significant gain in performance with RadInputManager. Since the Manager can coordinate the initialization of the validation logic (as opposed to having 40 separate controls trying to initialize on page load with RadInput), overall page load time can be reduced. In these tests, the page with RadInputManager took an average of 23% less time to load than the page with RadInput controls. Page load performance was even better when the RadManagers (RadScriptManager and RadStyleSheetManager, for the unfamiliar) were added, extending RadInputManager's benefit to about 27% less loading time while cutting total requests in half (from 11 to 5).
OPTIMIZATION TIP SUMMARY
RadInput and RadInputManager are two very capable input validation controls. Both have features that make them compelling- such as RadInput's support for numeric "spinners" and RadInputManager's support for RequiredFields- so it's important to pick the right control when designing your pages. For richer UI with more interactive controls, RadInput is currently your best choice. For top performance and highly optimized pages, RadInputManager is the best choice for a few simple reasons:
- It reduces the bytes sent over the wire and has a better caching story
- It is much faster to configure than RadInput or traditional ASP.NET validation controls
- It improves overall page load performance
Monday, February 02, 2009
Two free Telerik webcasts THIS WEEK, Reporting and WPF
Open your calendars and get ready to jot down two important (free) events this week. Telerik is hosting two webcasts this week, one on Telerik Reporting (rescheduled from last week) and one on RadGridView for WPF. Both events are 100% free. Both are lead by Telerik Evangelists- so these are developer talks, not sales talks. Both are at 11:00 AM EST. If you want to maximize your Telerik learning, sign-up for these events now to reserve your seat. And don't delay, the first webcast is tommorrow (Tuesday)!
Register for Telerik Reporting Webinar ("Reporting 101")
Date: Tuesday, Feb 3rd, 2009 @ 11 AM EST (Tommorrow!)
Register for Telerik WPF Webinar ("Getting Started with RadGridView for WPF")
Date: Thursday, Feb 5th, 2009 @ 11 AM EST
A quick note about the time (since a few people have asked). We're hosting these webcasts at 11:00 AM EST so we can enable as many people as possible on this vast round globe of ours to attend the live event. When an event is held at 11:00 AM EST, that means it's 8:00 AM PST (the beginning of the workday), 10:00 AM CST, and 4:00 PM GMT (that's London, for the unfamiliar). I know this doesn't work for everybody- no time does- so we will be making these recordings available on Telerik TV shortly after the live event. Hope that helps and I hope to see you at the live events!
