Customer Success - First Floor Software

First Floor Software Chooses Infragistics UI Controls for Industry’s First Silverlight Runtime Inspector Tool

First Floor Software was formed in December 2008 with the purpose of providing Silverlight consultancy and building high-quality Silverlight related products. Inspired by the release of Silverlight as an enabler to creating richer applications within the browser, First Floor Software developed Silverlight Spy, the industry's first Silverlight runtime inspector tool.

The Situation

In 2007, when Koen Zwikstra began developing applications on the new Microsoft Silverlight platform he quickly realized that debugging any Silverlight application was an arduous task. As an experienced .NET developer, Mr. Zwikstra decided to create a debugging tool as an answer to his need. What started as a hobby soon lead to an early version of Silverlight Spy. In 2008, Mr. Zwikstra uploaded Silverlight Spy to his web site and offered the free tool to the developer community.

"The community feedback was immediate, overwhelming and entirely positive," said Koen Zwikstra, founder of First Floor Software. "My need echoed the needs of the entire Silverlight developer community which made me think about the Silverlight Spy roadmap and introduction of a commercial version."

Over the next several years, Mr. Zwikstra continued to add new features and enhancements, updating Silverlight Spy to run with the latest version of Silverlight and incorporating community feedback along the way. When he was ready to launch the Silverlight Spy commercial version, Mr. Zwikstra turned to Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET to help him create a compelling and functional user interface that enabled Silverlight Spy customers to view and easily navigate through a multitude of elements, events, properties, outputs and actions associated with their Silverlight applications.

"At this point, I had two choices. I could either build the user interface or, I could purchase an 'off the shelf' program that had the UI tools needed to take my application to the next level. Several factors influenced my decision to purchase a toolset including time to market and ease of use," explained Zwikstra.

The Solution

After evaluating several UI component vendors, Mr. Zwikstra chose Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET Windows Forms control toolset, using the WinDockManager™ as the main interaction point into Silverlight Spy. The WinDockManager enables developers to maximize users screen real-estate by creating complex layouts, grouped with horizontal or vertical splits, stacked into tabbed groups, and pinned or set to auto-hide.

"What would have taken me more than a month's time to build took me only one day to develop thanks to Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET. It was a huge time saver that enabled me to take the commercial version of Silverlight Spy to market much faster. I also knew that by relying on experts in user interface development tools and user experience, my customers would have the best user experience possible," concluded Zwikstra.

The commercial version of Silverlight Spy launched in September 2009. It is still the industry's first Silverlight runtime inspector tool and is gaining widespread adoption and recognition across the market.

About Infragistics

As the world leader in user interface development tools and experts in User Centered Design, Infragistics empowers developers to build and style immersive user experiences and rich data visualization in line of business applications across all platforms — Windows Forms, WPF, ASP.NET and Silverlight. Infragistics also has a range of value-added services including UI testing tools, support, training and consulting services. For additional information on Infragistics, products and career opportunities, please visit www.infragistics.com or call us in the U.S. at +1 (800) 231-8588, +1 (609) 448-2000, in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa (EMEA) at +44 (0) 20 8387 1474, or in Japan at +81-3-5474-8040.

About First Floor Software

First Floor Software was formed in December 2008 with the purpose of providing Silverlight consultancy and building high-quality Silverlight related products. Inspired by the release of Silverlight as an enabler to creating richer applications within the browser, First Floor Software developed Silverlight Spy, the industry's first Silverlight runtime inspector tool.