Louisiana DNUG Road Trip wrap-up

Last week, I spent three days crisscrossing Louisiana on a .NET User Group Road Trip. I made stops in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette, and I had a great time interacting with the LA .NET community (that’s LA as in the state, not the city). We packed the house and talked about what’s new in Silverlight 4 and ASP.NET 4. It was a lot of information to cover, but we managed to get through it all, and hopefully there are 100+ developers in Louisiana more ready for .NET 4 this week than there were last week. Thanks to everyone that came out for the events!

The slides from my Louisiana talks are available below, but most of the demos I used were borrowed from other great minds in the .NET community. As promised, here some some direct links to the original demo source:

• Silverlight Issue Tracker by David Poll (Multi-page printing)
• Simple SL4 Printing Demo by Tim Heuer
• Simple SL4 Drop Target Demo by Jesse Liberty
• Photo Drop Target Demo by Jeff Prosise
• Simple SL4 Web Cam Demo by Tim Heuer
• ScottGu PDC Keynote Demo (WebBrowserBrush)

Of course, one final reminder, make sure you’re following/subscribing to these people in the Microsoft community to keep-up with all of the Silverlight 4 news:

• Tim Heuer, Silverlight Program Manager
• Jesse Liberty, Silverlight Community Program Manager
• Adam Kinney, Silverlight Technical Evangelist
• Brad Abrams, Silverlight Program Manager
• Nikhil Kothari, Software Architect (RIA Services)

What’s New in Silverlight 4 and ASP.NET 4
[Slides (PDF)]

Ask the Experts answers (updated)

This past Friday, Telerik hosted a new “Ask the Experts” webinar where a panel of Telerik experts, including Evangelists, Developer Support Specialists, and Telerik MVPs, answered your questions about the Q1 2010 release. It was a successful experiment, and many questions and answers were exchanged. A huge thanks to those of you that attended and brought questions, and of course, join me in thanking our Telerik MVP experts for their time.

The video recording of this event will be posted to Telerik TV soon, but in the mean time we are providing a complete recap of the major questions with their answers! We hope you enjoy this resource and join us for more “Ask the Experts” events in the future.

Continue reading Ask the Experts Answers

General Questions

1. Are there any limitations or issues in using any of the new Q1 2010 products in VS 2005 such as ASP.NET AJAX, Open Access or Telerik Reporting? OpenAccess ORM, Telerik Reporting, and the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX all work in VS 2005, VS 2008, and VS 2010. Obviously, some features that are specific to new versions of the framework, such as LINQ, will not be available in 2.0 projects, but otherwise, these are supported IDEs. More information can be found on the “System Requirements” page for each product.
2. You said Telerik Q1 2010 supports the .NET 4.0 framework. Our project is still on 3.5 and we don’t plan to upgrade to 4.0 anytime soon. Can we still upgrade to Q1 2010? The Q1 2010 release did indeed add support for the .NET 4.0 framework but that does not mean that it exclusively targets 4.0. As with our previous releases we still provide support for the .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 frameworks. These are offered via different assemblies, which are located in your local installation folder (usually C:\Program Files\Telerik\RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q1 2010) under Bin (2.0) and Bin35 (3.5). If you are currently using .NET 3.5 and are looking to upgrade you will have no issues with installing and using the Q1 2010 release.
3. Does the new CDN support SSL? The new CDN does indeed support SSL. When you are using a SLL connection the RadScriptManager and RadStyleSheetManager controls will fall back to Amazon's S3 service. In this case the following hosts are used: Scripts- https://telerik-aspnet-scripts.s3.amazonaws.com Skins - https://telerik-aspnet-skins.s3.amazonaws.com
4. Can you share the future direction of your UI controls, particularly the AJAX and Silverlight controls. Any certain things you will focus on or add? Thanks. The future of our UI controls for both Silverlight is actually heavily influenced by you, our developer community. With the launch of PITS, we have provided a nice and easy way for users to submit requests for our controls and vote upon them. If you see a particular feature that you would like to be included either in an existing control or perhaps a brand new one, vote on it! Through these submissions you can directly influence the evolution of our RadControls and our other products.

ASP.NET AJAX/MVC Questions

1. Any chance of seeing the Outlook Bar from Silverlight in the ASP.NET suite? As always, Telerik’s bases it plans on feedback from customers. If you’d like to see this tool in a future release, be sure to submit a Feature Request in the Telerik Public Issue Tracking System (and vote on other existing requests you want to see).
2. Is there any plan to add more validation controls for ASP.NET? Looking at our release history you can see that we always try to add validation to our controls. If you have not tried the RadInputManager, you will discover that it is a very powerful control that makes it easy to apply basic validation to many textboxes on a page. We are also researching the option to add direct support for Data Annotations to the RadControls to make validation configuration easier. Don’t forget to log your request in PITS so that your votes for new validation controls can be heard!
3. ASP/AJAX question: Is there a way to create a template for exporting RadGrids to Excel, PDF, etc? I've used the built-in export, but the format doesn't look like the Grid. I would like to be able to pass the RadGrid style/look to the different export options. Although there is no exportation template for the RadGrid we do have quite a few events that you can hook into in order to get the exported RadGrid to look exactly the way you want. You might want to have an exact duplicate (in terms of style etc.) of the RadGrid you have on your page, or you might want something different - either scenario can be achieved by using these events. The following links should be able to provide details about specific exportations, and which events you can subscribe to: Exportation Overview - http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/grdexport.html ExcelML Exportation - http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/grid-excelml-export.html PDF Exportation - http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/grid-pdf-export.html

   There are also other formats which you can export to (see the Overview article) and each one has a specific documentation article discussing what you can do in order to achieve the style you are looking for.

4. Are AJAX controls compatible with mobile browsers? Will there ever be a product line that focuses on mobile? Currently our RadControls for ASP.NET Ajax only officially support the browsers found on our Browsers Support page: http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-ajax/resources/browser-support.aspx

   Although it is not an Ajax product we can also note that the browser for Windows Phone 7 does seem to support most of our RadControls for Silverlight as some preliminary tests have shown: http://blogs.telerik.com/blogs/posts/10-03-18/mix10_is_in_history_windows_phone_7_is_here.aspx

5. RadAjax Grid: I'm attempting to use a Count Aggregate on a Boolean field. I found on the forums an example - but how can I then use that same functionality - for a field that gets grouped? So, if the user Groups by a column named Flight, how can I get the group footer to count the Skins checkbox - broken out by flight? When it comes to having a Count Aggregate being displayed in the footer of a grouped item there are two approaches you can take. The first would be to declaratively set the text and aggregate which appears in the footer. An example of this, along with further details on the functionality available for a group footer, can be found in this documentation article: http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/gridgroupfooters.html

   Another way of manipulating what is displayed in the group footer is the code-behind approach in which you subscribe to the OnItemDataBound event and customize the footer this way. Although this article goes over the approach for a GridGroupHeaderItem you can actually substitute this for a GridGroupFooterItem and follow the same approach. http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/grdcustomizegridgroupheaderitem.html

   As seen in the above article there is a lot of manipulation that can be done via this approach. If you are looking to do something outside of just a Count Aggregate the later approach is the recommended implementation.

6. How about some more MVC webinars and examples? We will continue to expand our MVC resources in 2010. Make sure you don’t miss the recently posted videos to Telerik TV showing you how to work with the Telerik MVC Grid. You will learn how to setup an MVC project with the Telerik Extensions, how to configure data binding, and how to setup inline data editing.

WinForms Questions

1. Can we use the Telerik themes as a basis for new themes in the new Visual Style Builder for WinForms? The Telerik themes have not yet been converted to the new theme repository format. We plan on updating them all for the Q2 release. You will then be able to use them as the basis for new themes.

Silverlight/WPF Questions

1. How similar can the SL GridView control behave like Excel? You can make the GridView perform similar to Excel, but keep in mind that a GridView is not designed to be a complete Spreadsheet replacement. There is a CurrentCellChanged event, in which you set e.NewCell.BeginEdit(). With this set, every time the cell changes, it instantly enters edit mode. If you subscribe to RowEditEnded, you either save changes or add new records based on EditOperationType. The end result is that every change you make to a row triggers a save in the database. That said, this is still not spreadsheet and you can’t do things like cell referencing, multi-cell selection (coming Q1 SP1), or formulas in the cells from the client-side.
2. How can I fill the DataCarouselPanel in WPF with data from WCF services ? We have a help article for that addresses this scenario: http://www.telerik.com/help/wpf/carousel-data-binding.html
3. Can you post the source for that MVVM sample? The source for the MVVM demo will be made available on Ross Wozniak’s blog. You can subscribe to his blog and catch the update by visiting the Telerik.com Blogs.
4. Silverlight Question: Where can I find the template/code for textbox with search/magnifier icon shown on the Telerik Silverlight demo apps? Thanks. In this specific case, the code is part of the Telerik QSF, and only available as source if you have a subscription license. An easier solution is to use a tool like Silverlight Spy, which lets you dive into styles and XAML by “picking” elements on the screen. With this tool, you can quickly examine the Telerik QSF and see the template being applied to the TextBox.
5. What is the best way to debug performance issues in Silverlight? I’m having a problem where my RadComboBoxes are taking a long time to expand (up to 5 seconds with only 48 items). I am not able to recreate the problem in a basic demo application. Starting with Silverlight 4, you can now use the Visual Studio 2010 profilers to profile Silverlight applications. You should be able to use these tools to get started analyzing your application’s performance. Details regarding VS2010 profiling are available on the MSDN Blogs.
6. Will Telerik create a MVVM framework similar (but better) than Prism and Silverlight FX? Telerik is not currently looking to build another MVVM framework. There are great options available for free today, such as Prism, SilverlightFX, and MVVM Light. We also offer tools like RadCommandManager to make it easier to work with MVVM-like concepts.

OpenAccess ORM Questions

1. I added a new model to OpenAccess and I see the article and video where you show me how to obtain data from database. How can I use the same model to update and insert data to database? Josh Holt will be posting an example shortly that shows insert/update/delete using OpenAccess in windows and web scenarios using the new context object. Follow his blog on the Telerik Blogs to learn more.
2. When will OpenAccess support WCF RIA Services using POCO? OpenAccess ORM will offer support for WCF RIA Services in an upcoming release. As for POCO (Plain Old CLR Objects), we are evaluating the reasons why/when such support should be added. From our perspective developing Data Transporter Objects and Self-Tracking Entities will cover all the scenarios were POCOs would be used, with relatively small impact to performance, so you will see these first. If POCO support is important to your project, be sure to vote for the feature in PITS.
3. Does the visual designer replace the wizard-based "reverse engineer" feature? The answer is yes, but it is a bit complicated at the moment. In Q1, we still don’t have a translation tool between the two formats (pre-Q1 OpenAccess and Q1 OpenAccess). Our advice is to use the new designer for new projects only until we provide support for upgrading complex projects based on previous versions of OpenAccess. In fact, by Q2, the designer will be a “roundtrip” editor (forward and reverse mapping), so you will have a way to alter the database as well.
4. Can you add validation attributes? You will be able in the Q2 release. We are talking Data.Annotations attributes, of course.
5. Are we basically throwing out the old way of OpenAccessing data? Do we still need to create scopes, and dispose of them...etc? The answer is a bit complex. We prefer to say that we are changing the designer experience and the API usage-pattern to better fit the .NET ORM world, where developers are familiar with tools like LinqToSQL and Entity Framework. The underlying OpenAccess “engine” remains the same and continues to provide the core support for features like data caching, object tracking, etc.
6. Will there be a way to create a Domain Model from an existing OpenAccess project in the future? Definitely. We regard this as a “must” for the new OpenAccess designer, and we will be providing a tool to make this type of “migration” easy.
7. So with the Data Context and with no scopes, are all transactions persisted instantly instead of batched till a commit? No you still must call context.SaveChanges() to persist changes to the database. The DataContext provides a more convenient way for working with the OpenAccess API, managing scopes for you internally.
8. I saw you were able to get data from the database without using an ObjectScope. Is that replaced by the new Data Context? Yes, however, in the Q1 2010 release, only when doing reverse mapping. Forward mapping support for the new Data Context and designer will be added in an upcoming release.

JustCode Questions

1. Will JustCode display the Fonts & Colors when printing? Currently, fonts and colors will not be printed. This is a limit of Visual Studio we are actively researching to work around. We will try to provide printing support for custom fonts and colors in an upcoming release.
2. I just moved over from ReSharper. If I forget to include the using library statement or don’t know which library is needed for a type, will JustCode give me a hint to place the using statement in the class? Once you have typed the type name, put the cursor on the statement, hit Alt+Enter, and JustCode will present an option to add the missing reference. Review all JustCode keyboard shortcuts in the online docs.
3. I noticed that there was only one Code Template in the JustCode menu for VB.Net. Is it possible to add more templates? Yes, it’s possible to create more templates, however VB templates cannot be context sensitive in the current version. We will continue to improve VB support for templates in an upcoming release.
4. How changeable are the hotkeys for the JustCode menus? I’m programming on a MacBook without an end key (technically it's there, but its a 2 key combo) JustCode shortcuts can be completely changed from VS -> Tools -> Options –> Keyboard
5. How do you configure JustCode Color Identifiers? VS -> Tools ->Options->Fonts and Colors. When JustCode is installed you will see entries in the list that start with “JustCode” for adjusting fonts and colors.
6. Will there be a unit test runner built-in to JustCode? Yes! This is a feature we are working hard to provide in the Q2 2010 release.

Telerik Reporting

1. I have 3 reports I would like to add to a report book. Individually they have SqlDataSources with parameters which I pass through code. I want to add them all to a single report. How do I pass the parameters? Robert Shoemate will provide example code and a complete explanation for handling this scenario on his blog this week. Follow his blog on the Telerik.com Blogs to catch the updates. [UPDATE: The blog post has been posted.]

Q1 Webinar Week wrap-up

Let me take a quick break from the MIX action to deliver a post I tried to pull together before jumping on the plane to Vegas. Many of you joined us last week for the big Telerik Q1 2010 release and related Release Week Webinars. These daily webinars are your way to “jumpstart” your knowledge of “what’s new” in Q1 and our hope is that they make it easier for you to get started with the new bits.

The live webinars are great, especially with the extended Q & A, but we know not everyone can attend live. That’s why everything is recorded and on Telerik TV! Here are the direct links to all 4 Q1 2010 release week webinar recordings:

• What’s New in the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and Telerik Extensions for MVC
• What’s New in the RadControls for Silverlight and WPF
• What’s New in the RadControls for WinForms and Telerik Reporting
• What’s New in OpenAccess ORM and JustCode

Enjoy the recordings and enjoy the Q1 release. More Q1 videos are hitting Telerik TV daily, so stay tuned for more helpful content.

LIVE @ MIXnote, Day Two

One day is in the history books here at MIX10, but Day Two is just about to get kicked-off with another keynote here in the Mandalay Bay Ballroom. I’m once again settled in to my seat (with more battery than yesterday) and I will be compiling your real-time “cliff notes” of the keynote news and announcements. It’s not live blogging- there’s a live stream feed that makes that pointless- but if you just want the highlights, this is your post.

After yesterday’s YoYo Champ warm-up act, today Microsoft is giving the stage to one of their designers who is doing a digital painting on what looks like a Wacom touch-screen monitor. The real stuff starts soon…

9:05 AM: Dean Hachamovitch, head of Internet Explorer, taking stage as opening speaker. Today’s keynote is going to start by being a standards-based (HTML/Script/CSS) talk.

• “Chakra” is the new IE9 JavaScript engine- will compile and run JS against multi-core hardware
• IE9 passes nearly 600 CSS3 selector tests, Passes 55/100 ACID3 test checks (will continue to improve)
• Microsoft submit 100+ test cases to W3C to try to improve consistent rendering between browsers
• HTML5 runs on GPU in IE9 (built on DirectX) – significantly more performant than FF/Chrome when handling complex visuals. Rendering engine built from the ground-up to run on graphics hardware.

9:27 AM: Key phrase from the performance section of talk: “Same markup. Same script. Just working across browsers.”

• IE9 Platform Preview available today. Lightweight shell around IE9 engine (“Trident”) with demos.
• Platform Preview will be updated every 8 weeks.
• IE9 supports hardware accelerated HTML5 video – very high performance, even with HD

9:35 AM: Microsoft’s keypharse for IE9: Same markup, Better performance.

• Platform Preview available at ietestdrive.com

9:36 AM: ScottGu taking stage to transition talk in to talking about server tools and platforms. Getting started by reviewing what’s coming in VS2010. Reviewing what’s new in ASP.NET 4, MVC, etc. Old news for most people, I think.

9:45 AM: We’re in the middle of some Hanselman demos, showing MVC 2, VS2010. Again, nothing new if you’ve been following along with MVC/VS2010 beta/RC.

• Microsoft is going to start contributing code to jQuery + testing and QA resources
• 1st contribution: a new jQuery client-side templating engine (co-created with jQuery)

10:00 AM: ScottGu is reviewing how Microsoft has made it easier to get started with .NET (Spark programs, WPI, etc.)

10:05 AM: ScottGu is done with his part of the keynote. Turning over to Doug Purdy to talk about “Services Powering Experiences.” Sounds more like a breakout session than a keynote topic…

• Netflix Catalog API has been launched in OData
• iPhone support for OData announced today (people are bored in the keynote…)
• OData released under Apache open source license (another mild audience reaction)
• Most interesting part of this segment: new web-based tool, codenamed “Houston,” for developing/managing SQL Azure databases!

10:37 AM: My first instinct was right. The last 30 minutes have felt more like a developer breakout session than a keynote. Very data focused. Surprised this topic has received so much stage time at MIX. Almost think they ran-out of “keynote topics” and used this as filler.

10:42 AM: Bill Buxton taking stage to close out keynote. Refreshing return to keynote-style content and focus on design. Unfortunately, this part of the keynote is probably not going to be good for extracting “highlights.” Skip to this time in the on-demand recording of keynote for Bill’s content.

• “Project Gustav” is the painting program used at the opening of the keynote. Being built by Microsoft Research. Hardware is actually prototype hardware from Wacom- some mashup of multiple components that has high quality stylus and 10-point multi-touch.

And things are wrapping-up now. Great opening and closing in today’s keynote. Middle…eh. Now on to another full day of sessions and Telerik booth/kiosk work. More updates as the week rolls on, both here on Telerik Watch and on Twitter.

LIVE from MIX10 (update)

Welcome Telerik Watch readers to another LIVE update from a major Microsoft event! I’m settling in to my seat at the MIX10 opening-day keynote, where there are lots of exciting announcements expected. In the past, I’ve typed feverishly to bring you play-by-play updates from keynotes like this, but now that MIX is streaming the keynote live, that seems a bit redundant. So, instead, I’ll be “live blogging” the highlights. All the big news that’s worth remembering post-keynote.

To get things started, this year’s keynote “warm-up act” is a 16-year old Seattle-native Yo-Yo Champion (Sterling Quinn). If you thought (like me) that being able to “walk the dog” with a Yo-Yo was skill, you don’t want to watch this kid.

More big news as it happens…

9:11 AM: Things are getting started with some Killers playing after a quick Bing Maps show-off video. Room is pretty much packed now. Not sure how many people…I’d guess somewhere between 2,000 to 3,000. ScottGu taking the stage…

Scott is jumping right-in to content. Very different from last year’s long “abstract” design talk by Bill Buxton. Scott said he is going to focus on Silverlight today- on the RIA, media, and phone.

Highlights:

• Silverlight now on 60% of PCs worldwide (according to ScottGu)
• Microsoft is “open sourcing” the Vancouver Olympics media player + rough cut editor
• SL4 will support full-screen in a single monitor (“first web technology to enable that”)
• Adding new “Pivot” feature to Silverlight (very tepid response from audience – light clapping)

9:20 AM: ScottGu seems a bit off of his game. Lots of “uhs.” Almost as if he’s a little uncomfortable or unprepared.

• Blend 4 will be a free upgrade for Blend 3 (audience much happier about this than Pivot)

9:26 AM: eBay demoing their new Quick Listing tool that is built on SL4. Cool app. Takes advantage of SL4 custom out-of-browser chrome. App built by Cynergy. Audience energy is low right now. Very quiet. I think people must be waiting for a big “surprise” to wake up…

• Silverlight 4 RC now available (with VS 2010 tools, Blend 4, etc)
• Silverlight 4 RTW available next month

9:35 AM: Scott came out and just shut-down the SL4 talk. Casually announced the SL4 news and pushed us in to the Windows Phone 7 part of the keynote. Audience picked-up. This is clearly what everyone is here to see. Demos now by Joe B.

10:00 AM: Joe is done with demos. Rest of keynote will be dedicated to talking about how you build apps for Windows Phone 7. ScottGu is back on.

• Silverlight on Windows Phone 7 is same Silverlight as PC (“One Silverlight”)
• VS2010 has integrated WinPho7 templates + WYSIWYG designer + built-in emulator
• Phone emulator is full VM with full integration with VS debugger

10:10 AM: ScottGu built and deployed a simple Twitter app for WinPhone. Biggest applause of the day. Not “thunderous,” but definitely best of the day so far. Scott is back in his element.

• VS2010 & Blend will be FREE for phone development

10:26 AM: Scott Stanfield showing-off Netflix Instant Watch on WinPhone. For me, my battery is near dead (forgot to charge last night). More details and highlights soon…

…And I’m back online with battery. Fortunately, there wasn’t much (any?) news after my battery death in the Day One keynote. Just a lot of demos showing apps running on WinPhone 7. Most important news in the keynote (highlighted in red above) came early. And sadly, no surprise dev unit Win7 phones for the MIX crowd…which I guess makes sense since the current unit has yet to pass through the FCC.

One to Day Two.

Telerik @ MIX10

I know this week has been a flood of Q1 2010 news and bits, but there is no rest for the crazy. Next week in Las Vegas, Telerik will be there in full force at Microsoft’s MIX10! MIX is Microsoft’s premier conference for web developers (and designers), and this year promises to be full of excitement. Everyone expects lots of news around Silverlight 4, Windows Phone 7 Series, Silverlight on Windows Phone, Internet Explorer 9, and surprises that will be icing on the cake.

Telerik is a Silver Sponsor of MIX10 and we’ll be hanging-out in the new “Showcase” area in our Microsoft-supplied micro-booth. I’ll be there with a few people from the Telerik Silverlight product team, so if you have questions, want to see a demo, or just want to say hello, we’d love to meet you.

Finally, if you want a shot at some “spot prizes,” make sure you bring and wear your cool Telerik t-shirts. I’ll be keeping my eyes open, and if I spot you in a Telerik .NET Ninja or Geekette or other equally awesome Telerik cotton, I may present you with a valuable prize. It’ll be the easiest way to win in Vegas!

Oh! And, of course, I’ll do my best to “live-blog” from the MIX keynotes. It may be more of a “summary blog” now that MIX broadcasts everything to the web, but it’ll be your direct connection to all of the big news at MIX. See you in Vegas on Monday!

Telerik Extensions for MVC, JustCode now official and commercial

One of the bigger news items in the Q1 2010 release is the “official” release of both JustCode and the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. Both of these products have been in beta since late 2009, but now they are ready to take-on the world as full-blooded members of the Telerik portfolio. The transition to v1 has inevitably created a few questions, so let me try to provide you with some quick answers to satisfy your burning desire for info:

Are these tools part of the Telerik Premium Collection?
Yes! The Telerik Extensions and JustCode join the other 6 products in the Telerik Premium Collection, delivering even more value at the same $1,299 price tag. The Premium Collection now delivers over $6,000 worth of Telerik software at 1/5 the price. It’s probably one of the best values in .NET developer tools. (I’d love to learn about better values!)

If I’m an existing Premium Collection customer, do I get licenses for these tools?
Yes! If you have an active Premium Collection subscription, these tools are automatically added to your bundle license. Like I said, incredible value. Oh! And there are more tools to come. More details soon…

Can I buy these tools separately?
Yes! If for some reason you don’t want the value of the Premium Collection, you can buy these tools separately:

• Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC: $999 developer license + priority support
• JustCode: $199 developer license OR $249 dev license + subscription/priority support

I thought the MVC Extensions were open source. What happened?
You are correct. The Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC are dual licensed. That means there is an open source license (GPLv2) and a commercial license. The tools offered under both licenses are identical. The open source tools are not a “light” version of the Extensions.

Why would I want a commercial license for the MVC Extensions?
There are three very plain reasons why you would want the Extensions’ commercial license:

1. You want Telerik’s premium support for the MVC tools
2. You want access to Service Pack and Hotfix builds of the MVC Extensions (the open source branch will only be updated during major releases)
3. You are building commercial software for resale

The commercial license is also convenient for organizations that are not “open” to open source software. You know the type. Lawyers get involved and everything gets messy.

How do I know if I need a commercial license?
If the support and service pack benefits are not interesting to you, and you’re just trying to understand when you must purchase a commercial license, here’s a good rule of thumb:

• If you’re building free open source software, we want to help and support you with free open source tools. (Open source license)
• If you’re trying to make money on the software you’re building (that is, you’re selling it), so are we, and we’ve got a license for you. (Commercial license)

It’s really no more complex than that. If you’re building an internal website for your company, you can use the open source tools. If you start selling that website, though, you need to convert to a commercial license.

Now that the JustCode beta is over, what are the limits of the trial?
The JustCode trial is a fully functional version of the software. It’s only limit is that it will expire after 60 days. Hopefully two months is enough time for you to fully evaluate the Visual Studio productivity plug-in and decide if it’s worth buying. (It is.)

Enjoy the latest releases of these tools and join me in welcoming them to the world of non-beta software.

Vote for Q2 2010 Features using PITS

About a month ago, we introduced a cool new support feature on Telerik.com called PITS: Public Information Tracking System. PITS is linked directly to the Telerik TFS data and it’s your window in to our planning and software construction process. If you’ve never explored PITS, read-up on it’s features and then try it out. It’s a very cool tool and a good showcase of “useful” Silverlight.

PITS also features voting!

If you have a Telerik.com account, you can login and vote for features and bug reports that are most important to you. Telerik uses this voting information to help us set the priority for what we’ll work on in the next release cycle. There is no easier way to impact the release process than voting in PITS. So, now that Q1 2010 is out the door, you can visit PITS and start voting for what you want to see in Q2!

When in PITS, you can “Show Issues For” specific products, and you can also filter issues “scheduled for” a specific release. To vote for future issues, change the scheduled filter to show “Not Scheduled” issues. You can then click on issues, give them your vote, and even leave a comment for extra feedback. Don’t see a feature you want listed? You can also quickly submit new feature requests via PITS.

To help you get started, here are direct links to the “Not Scheduled” views for all products:

• Vote for RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q2 features
• Vote for RadControls for Silverlight Q2 features
• Vote for RadControls for WPF Q2 features
• Vote for RadControls for WinForms Q2 features
• Vote for Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC Q2 features
• Vote for Telerik Reporting Q2 features
• Vote for OpenAccess ORM Q2 features
• Vote for JustCode Q2 features

So far, the Extensions for MVC is the only product with a lot of Q2 ideas in PITS, but other products will be exposing more ideas soon. And if you’re an MVC fan, the top voted feature right now for Q2 is Grid column resizing. Not what you want? Vote now!

Working with the Grid for ASP.NET MVC

One of the main "challenges" in making a switch from ASP.NET WebForms to ASP.NET MVC is- or rather has been- the lack of a functional data grid. There are many examples showing you how to use a different views for reading and editing data in MVC, but few that show the true "grid experience," where data review and editing can occur in a single view.

Enter the Grid for MVC in the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, and specifically the new data editing features in the Q1 2010 release.

With the Telerik Grid (which is open source, by the way), you can easily perform core data grid operations connected to MVC controller action methods. Things like sorting, filtering, paging, and now grouping and editing are a simple matter of configuration. To help you get started quickly with these features, I've created six new videos that you can find on Telerik TV:

1. Getting Started with Grid Data Binding
2. Configuring Grid Ajax Data Binding
3. Configuring Grid Web Service Data Binding
4. Getting Started with Grid Data Editing
5. Data Editing with Ajax
6. Getting Started with Grid Columns

These videos will guide you to a complete understanding of MVC Grid data binding and data editing, both "server-side" (in other words, using HTTP GETs) and using AJAX (or, binding to JsonResults). Enjoy!

Q1 2010 is live!

As promised in yesterday’s webinar, the Q1 2010 release is now live! We’ve been saying it all along, but I’ll say it again: this is a huge release. The Telerik Premium Collection is completely updated- that’s 8 releases all available today. For a complete overview of what’s new, you can use the above video, you can attend this week’s Webinar Week, or you can read-up on Telerik.com. If you’re in a super hurry, here’s a quick summary of what’s new in Q1 2010:

• All products support Visual Studio 2010 RC & .NET 4 RC (native builds)
• ASP.NET AJAX
• 2 new controls: RadFilter, RadAsyncUpload
• JavaScript IntelliSense support
• jQuery upgraded to 1.4.2 + more jQuery internally (animations, reduced code)
• NEW audio CAPTCHAs
• NEW import/export RTF in RadEditor
• NEW filter context menu in RadGrid & rating column
• NEW drag-drop support in RadListView
• NEW visual cue for non-visible appointments in RadScheduler
• Silverlight
• Optimized XAML (details)
• Huge performance gains via UI and Data Virtualization + Container Recycling
• VS 2010 designer support
• NEW RadTransition (CTP)
• NEW built-in paging UI in RadGridView
• NEW data sampling, smart labels, zooming & scrolling, Scatter chart in RadChart
• NEW multi-touch support + improved UI/features in RadMap
• THEME optimization/facelift (breaking change)
• WPF
• (Shared code-base with SL – All optimizations carry over + new features)
• 3 new controls: RadBook, RadMap, RadTransition
• WinForms
• VS 2010 RC support (client profile support coming with VS2010 RTM)
• NEW VisualStyleBuilder for WinForms (it’s like Blend for WinForms)
• NEW Visual Studio Extensions for WinForms
• NEW Timeline view in RadScheduler
• ASP.NET MVC
• Official v1 release; Commercial license now available
• New Telerik Extensions Installer (support for MVC 1.0 and 2.0)
• jQuery upgraded to 1.4.2
• 4 new Extensions: Calendar, DatePicker, Treeview, NumericTextBox
• NEW grid features: Editing, Grouping, Localization, Toolbar, Templates
• Integration with Telerik Visual Style Builder
• Reporting
• Full VS 2010 RC support (including .NET 4 client profile)
• 2 new codeless data source components: SqlDataSource & ObjectDataSource
• NEW data processing engine (improved power, reduced memory footprint)
• ORM
• VS 2010 RC support
• NEW Visual Designer for creating/maintaining mappings
• NEW VS dialogs: Mapping Details Editor, Schema Explorer, Entity Diagram Explorer
• SUPPPORT added for VistaDB
• JustCode
• Official v1 release; Commercial license now available
• VS 2010 RC support
• Major improvements in performance & memory footprint
• NEW quick fixes & refactorings
• NEW code color identifiers
• NEW “type assistance” (auto bracket/brace/paren/etc. complete)

Phew! That’s a lot of updates. And that’s not everything we’ve been working on over the last few months (believe it or not). You may have noticed that there is no mention of WebUI Test Studio, Sitefinity, or our TFS tools here. Make sure you’re following us on Twitter to get updates about those products in about 5 weeks. There will even be a few surprises!

In the mean time, download and enjoy Q1 2010! Lot’s more on the new stuff this week on Telerik TV and the Telerik Blogs.

Twitter contest for Q1 2010 Release Week

Now that the entire world is on Twitter, it’s more important than ever to let them know about Telerik’s new Q1 2010 release. As you know by now, this week is the Q1 2010 Release Week, and no, the new bits aren’t available just yet. The bits will start to be available no later than Wednesday, but the Q1 2010 release fun starts tomorrow!

The Q1 2010 Release Overview and What’s New in ASP.NET AJAX and the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC webcast happens tomorrow, Tuesday, at 11:AM EST. If you attend live, you have two chances at winning a Telerik Premium Collection. Register now!

Also starting tomorrow, March 9, is the Q1 2010 Twitter Contest. To play, simply:

1. Create a Twitter account (if you don’t already have one – brush the dust off the one you stopped using 3 months ago and it will work, too)
2. Follow @Telerik (while you’re at it, follow @toddanglin)
3. Tweet your favorite Q1 2010 feature by midnight March 12 (EST)

Don’t forget to include #telerik or “Telerik” somewhere in your tweet so we can easily enter it in to the contest. If you’re new to Twitter, here are some example tweets:

Telerik Q1 2010 is awesome! I love everything, even the packaging!!

The new visual designer in OpenAccess ORM is crazy-go-nuts cool! #telerik

I’m stuck in traffic eating a ham sandwich. Flowers are colorful. Sharpie? #telerik

You get the idea. One entry will be counted per Twitter account, but you’re free to tweet as much as you want about the release. The counting starts in about 7 hours!

Q1 2010 Webinar Week registration open

It's hard to believe, but the Q1 2010 release is just a few days away! Next week, Telerik will ship updates for all 8 Telerik developer products- RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, WinForms, Silverlight, WPF, Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, Telerik Reporting, OpenAccess ORM, and JustCode. It's a big release (as all releases are at Telerik these days) and there are a lot of new and improved features to take-in.

How do you know where to start? The release Webinar Week.

Things kick-off on Tuesday, March 9th and then run every day next week. All webinars will be held at 11 AM EST (full time zone conversion) and all will be recorded for Telerik TV on-demand viewing. To join the webinars, register now:

• Tuesday What's New in Q1 2010 Overview + RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX & Extensions for MVC
• Wednesday What's New in RadControls for Silverlight & WPF
• Thursday What's New in RadControls for WinForms & Telerik Reporting
• Friday What's New in OpenAccess ORM & JustCode

We'll be giving away Telerik Premium Collections at all of the live webinar events (two for the kick-off event on Tuesday). You must attend live to win, so if you can make the live events, join us for extra chances at winning prizes.

We'll see you at 11:00 AM (EST) on Tuesday!

What’s new in Silverlight 4 tonight at D2SIG

Following my great one-day notice about my speaking trip to the South Florida .NET Code Camp, here’s a same-day notice about your next opportunity to attend one of my sessions. Tonight, Tuesday, I’ll be speaking at the D2SIG in the Houston offices of Microsoft. I’ll be presenting a new “What’s New in Silverlight 4” session, where we’ll do the basic walk-thru of some of the more significant changes in the next version of Silverlight (like printing, data binding, notifications, and so on).

The session starts promptly (as I learned by being late to speak last time) at 6:00 PM. If you’re in Houston and you’re ready to start working with Silverlight, don’t miss this great introduction to the newest features. You can RSVP for the session on the EPS Software website and then we’ll see you tonight. I will, of course, have some Telerik swag to give away, if bribery is the incentive you need.

#SFLCC wrap-up, Twitter insights

As you know from my last minute post on Friday, I spent a part of this past weekend in southern Florida for the South Florida .NET Code Camp 2010. As usual, it was a great time, with lots of eager .NET learners and interesting content. And while it looked like some of the speakers might not make it due to the storms in the North East, I think almost everyone made it to the event. A big thanks to everyone that came to the Code Camp, especially all of you that packed my two sessions!

Meanwhile, I learned, or rather re-enforced, another little tidbit on this trip: Nobody in South Florida uses Twitter.

I’ve polled audiences for well over a year now asking two questions:

1. How many of you “use” Twitter? That is, do you tweet?
2. How many of you “lurk” on Twitter (you read, but don’t tweet)?

Those that don’t respond to either question are either A) already sleeping, or B) presumed to not use Twitter at all (read or write). Traditionally, I’ve found that in a “normal” developer audience, no matter where in the world I’ve done this poll, only 10% (or so) of the audience does anything with Twitter. In other words, In a room of 50 people, 5 people (on a good day) use Twitter.

Florida was different. In two rooms of 50+ people, only 1 person admitted to using Twitter. More reinforcement of the idea that Twitter is a much smaller active community than the numbers suggest.

Telerik Prizes via Twitter

This created a bit of problem for my swag scheme. To win swag from my sessions, I told everyone to simply follow me on Twitter and on Monday (today) I would select two random winners. Fortunately, with a little coaching, I managed to bring a small chunk of South Florida on to Twitter, and I’ve got my random winners:

@marquinakat
@gardavis

Congrats to both! You each get a Telerik Premium Collection. And you may now resume not using Twitter.

Thanks again for attending my sessions and feel free to grab the session resources below. See you next year!

Resources from my sessions

Being Productive with Telerik Extensions for MVC
[Slides (PDF)]

ASP.NET Fundamentals: ViewState Tips & Tricks (v2)
[Slides (PDF)] [Code (Zip)]