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.

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.

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!

Q1 WinForms Preview this Thursday, New Visual Style Builder

This week’s weekly webinar is special. It will deliver one of your first “sneak peeks” at some of the new functionality shipping in the rapidly approaching Q1 2010 release (scheduled for mid-March). The Thursday Weekly Webinar will provide a complete overview of a brand new tool shipping with the RadControls for WinForms in Q1: the new Visual Style Builder for WinForms.

The new Visual Style Builder is a completely new tool, not a minor upgrade of the old VSB for WinForms. It dramatically simplifies the process of creating custom themes for the RadControls for WinForms, and in so doing unlocks more of the power built-in to the Telerik Presentation Framework. I’m not often a WinForms developer, but when I saw the new VSB, my first reaction was that we had built Blend for WinForms. It’s impressive.

Don’t miss your first chance to see it in action! The webinar happens this Thursday, February 25th at 11:00 AM Eastern (full timezone conversions). Register now to save your seat and get a link to join the live event. More Q1 news and previews coming soon!

Getting ready for Q1 2010 Telerik bits

Time marches on. The year 2009 is now soundly in the review mirror and it's time to start looking ahead to 2010. The first major event of the year- the event I know you've been building your entire schedule around- is the Telerik Q1 2010 release (planned for March 2010). This is going to be an exciting release cycle. Trust me.

I can't share everything now (clearly), but you can start to get a glimpse of what's coming by looking at the recently updated road maps for the Telerik developer products. The Silverlight, WPF, and ASP.NET AJAX road maps are currently live, and others for Reporting, WinForms, and ORM will be coming soon (I've got some "inside" reports in this post, though). In the mean time, here are some highlights:

ASP.NET AJAX

• New Controls! - Filter: A stand alone filter UI control that can be used with Grid and ListView - AsyncUpload(!): A async file upload control from Telerik (i.e. upload with no postback)
• (Some) Cool Enhancements (there are many) - RadCaptcha: Audio CAPTCHA support - RadEditor: RTF & PDF import/export - RadGrid: Improved filtering UI, new Rating column - RadScheduler: Auto UI for indicating "out of view" appointments - Out-of-the-box JavaScript IntelliSense (for VS 2008 & 2010) - New common skin: Windows 7

Silverlight/WPF

• General Improvements - Major focus on streamlining control templates, minimizing assembly size (SL), streamlining/simplifying control templates, and improving animations/transitions (i.e. a major "improve what you've got" release) - SL4 beta support (this release will still be primarily SL3, though)
• New Controls - (Beta) RadEditor for SL & WPF(!): based on SL4, early preview (this control will grow in 2010) - (Official) RadMap for SL & WPF: Official release of control intro'd in Q309 - Transition control: new tool for making animation configuration easier
• (Other) Major Improvements - RadGridView: Built-in paging UI - RadChart: New optimizations for handling millions of data points - RadScheduler: New UI virtualization for better handling of many appointments

WinForms will be getting a radically improved (all new, in fact) Visual Style Builder and a revamped data engine for the RadGridView. The road map will be updated soon, and a beta of the Q1 work will even be available early next month!

Reporting is focusing on some major improvements to the data engine, too, and it will move rendering of Silverlight reports from the server to the client (making performance of that viewer better because only data will travel the wire). Improved chart data binding in reports is also expected.

ORM has a very cool road map. I can't reveal much here right now, but stay tuned (sorry). It should be worth the wait.

The other developer tools- MVC and JustCode- are being updated, too, obviously. Both are betas, though, so they don't have formal road maps at this point. JustCode is being constantly updated, so you can join the beta if you want to keep-up with its progress. MVC is focusing on adding data editing support to the Grid, along with providing the necessary UI Extensions for supporting data editing (like a Calendar/DatePicker).

See. It's going to be a big Q1. First beta (WinForms) drops in a few weeks, so start making time now.