Jason Beres

Ignite UI: What’s New in 13.1 HTML5, jQuery & ASP.NET MVC Controls

Jason Beres — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:55:00 GMT

As we start rolling out the blogs today on the new features for 13.1., we hope you get as excited as we are about the new stuff we are shipping in 13.1. We are continuing to solidify and expand our story of delivering the only toolset on the market that lets you design & build enterprise-ready applications for every major platform and device. With Ignite UI, you can build high performance enterprise class HTML5 & jQuery based controls that can power desktop, tablet & mobile phone applications.

If you asked me what the key messages are for the 13.1 release, I would say we focused in these areas:

Touch Touch Touch & Mobile Mobile Mobile Everywhere– all controls are touch supported with touch friendly styles. In our jQuery mobile set of controls, we ship 6 adaptive jQuery Mobile themes and an all new responsive UI framework to deliver the most modern touch & tablet experiences.
HTML / jQuery & ASP.NET MVC Pivot Grid– Infragistics now completes the trifecta in web based data grids – customers have a choice of a Flat, Hierarchical, or OLAP Pivot Grid to deliver high-performance, data intensive experiences in their browser based applications.
Responsive Web Design & Controls Support– Grid & Chart are now enabled with a responsive web design capability that allows you to control in CSS how a control behaves when the screen is resized for different devices.
Tile Manager UI– Based on our popular XAML Tile Manager UI, we’ve built a similar control for web based interactive layouts. Based on our new Layout Manager component, this popular desktop UI pattern comes to the Web with a container based grid layout that allows the end user to expand, collapse & rearrange their screen.
Data Visualization- Ignite UI features market-leading Data Visualization controls for Business Charting, Financial Charting and Geospatial Mapping applications & dashboards. 13.1 provides even better parity across development platforms for Data Visualization using HTML5 & jQuery, iOS, WPF and Silverlight. Ignite UI now supports new Data Chart types and features, and introduces the following new controls:
- Doughnut Chart
- Funnel Chart
- Sparkline
- Radial Gauge
KnockoutJS- Support for the popular KnockoutJS MVVM library key controls like Grid, Tree, Combo, Editors
MVC Controls – Every control we ship includes a server-side MVC counterpart, so if you are an ASP.NET developer building MVC applications, you get all features.

That’s the high level, so lets get into the details of what we are shipping in 13.1.

New Control – Doughnut Chart

The Doughnut Chart – just like the Pie Chart – is primarily used to show statistics expressed in percentages. Both consist of a circular area divided into sections, where each section has an arc length proportional to its underlying data value. Both are used for representing categorical data, are most effective when there are only a few categories, and when each category makes up a relatively large percentage of the data as a whole.

The primary difference between the Pie Chart and the Doughnut Chart is that the latter has a “hollow” or “empty” center, and will typically display multiple series. A given data series is represented by a ring that is drawn around the “hole” and the data in any given ring totals 100%. These rings are displayed in a concentric pattern where each ring representing a data series, either independent from one another or linked via a hierarchy. The sections that make up each ring may differ in size or each section within a ring may be the same size.

Key Features of the Doughnut Chart

Multiple Ring Series & Data-Binding– The Doughnut Chart supports one or more rings surrounding a hollow or empty center. The center may either be a “blank circle” or may contain a label. Each ring can either represent a separate data series that you data-bind to a collection via the ItemSource property, or can be a ring within a parent-child hierarchy.
Configurable Inner Radius– The inner radius of the Doughnut Chart center is configurable, allowing the developer to select the center as an object and extend the boundary or set the inner radius via a property setting.
Slice / Section Labeling– The Doughnut Chart allows developers to control how each slice or section is labeled. Options are available to automatically select how the labels are displayed inside or outside of the chart, or using the BestFit method.
Legend Support– The Doughnut Chart supports the automatic display of a legend which identifies each series displayed as a data ring, as well as each slice / section within a data ring. The legend can be configured and docked to any of the chart’s corners or borders.
Slice Selection – Allow users to select slices and change the color of selected slices.
Others” Category– The underlying data for any Doughnut Chart can often contains small value items, too numerous to display in a significant manner via separate slices. For such occasions, the “Others” category allows for automatic aggregation of several data values into a single slice. Developers can set the OthersCategoryThreshold property to separate which values get their own slice, and which values will get rolled under “Others”.
Styling & Themes – The look & feel of the Doughnut Chart is completely customizable, allowing you to style it to your app design and your brand. Simple properties are exposed to easily style the outlines and brush fill colors of the pie slices, allowing you to use solid colors as well as gradients. Alternatively you can use chart themes to give your pie charts and other charts a consistent and color-coordinated look and feel. Simply set the theme property to one of the predefined themes or create your own.

New Control – Funnel Chart

Visually showcase diminishing values in your HTML5 Web applications and sites with our new funnel chart, a single series chart that displays data in a funnel shape with a variable number of sections, each representing the data as different portions of 100%. The funnel chart control uses the new HTML5 Canvas tag to plot funnel charts on web pages and makes it easy for end users to illustrate value "fallout" in the sales process or bottlenecks in the flow of a multi-step process.

Funnel charts are very similar to pie charts in that that they display the values associated to different categories of items. They are different though because the sum of values shown on a funnel chart is not necessary to be the total of some larger entity. Funnel slices are usually displayed sorted by value from the largest down to the smallest or in reverse. They can appear with the same height or the height may be proportional to item value. The funnel chart usually has a conic shape but it allows a Bezier curve to form the contour of its left and right sides.

Key Features of the Funnel Chart

Weighted Slices– You can configure slices to be displayed with different height based on their value. This display option allows for a more obvious visual clue for the value of a slice compared to other slices.
Slice Selection– You can enable slices to be selected and configure selected and unselected style for slices. Slice selection functionality can be enabled for the igFunnelChart control allowing the user to select slices with a single mouse click or screen tap. Another click or tap deselects the slice. Additionally, selected and unselected styles can be defined and applied to the slices depending on their state.
Bezier Curve Shape– You can add more visual appeal to a funnel chart by configuring the sides of the chart to take shape in the form of a Bezier curve as opposed to the regular trapezoid shape. Developers can also configure the position of the Bezier control points in order to control the exact shape.
Inverted Funnel– The funnel chart allows to be displayed with smallest value and on top as opposed to the regular view with largest value on top. By default a funnel chart displays the largest slice (the largest data value) on top and the rest of the slices going down sorted in descending order by value.
Styling – Built-in control styling where the Funnel chart attempts to obtain default values for some of its properties from CSS classes. The control, sub-controls and attributes can all be styled to match the desired look & feel of your Web application or site. This includes colors, fonts, borders, padding, opacity, background, text alignment and more.

New Control – Sparkline Charts (SparkLine, SparkBar, SparkArea, Win/Loss)

The new Sparkline control is a data-intense, design-simple graphic that allows end users to spot trends, variations and patterns in data in a clear and compact representation. What sets the Sparkline chart apart from its full DataChart cousin is its lightweight nature which allows dozens or even hundreds or Sparkline charts to be loaded without a list or grid, enabling quick trend lookup in Web applications and sites.

Key Features of the Spark Charts

Multiple Display Choices– The Sparkline Chart can be configured to display one of four baseline microchart types: Line, Area, Column and Win/Loss.
Data binding– Each Sparkline chart can be populated automatically by data-binding it to an igDataSource for both static and live data scenarios.
Markers Support– Display markers such as First/Last, High/Low, Negative and Normal.
Trend Lines– Many different trend lines can be applied to help users analyze their data, including linear, weighted, quadratic, cubic, quartic, quantic, logarithmic, exponential and more.
Adjust Ranges– Apply Normal, Minimum and Maximum ranges to any Spark Chart type.
Styling – Built-in control styling where the Sparkline chart attempts to obtain default values for some of its properties from CSS classes. The control, sub-controls and attributes can all be styled to match the desired look & feel of your Web application or site. This includes colors, fonts, borders, padding, opacity, background, text alignment and more.

New Control – Radial Gauge

Make your data visualizations and dashboards more engaging with radial gauges for iOS that show your key performance indicators (KPI) with rich style and interactivity. Create highly configurable, round or semi-round dials and gauges for your information dashboard with the look and feel of a clock, industrial control panel, automotive dashboard or aircraft cockpit. The Ignite UI Radial Gauge is powerful yet simple to use. Just drop it in your page and you’re ready to go with the default look & feel. Simply tweak the configuration options to your liking to meet whatever custom look you desire in your application.

The Ignite UI Radial Gauge for HTML5 & jQuery is compatible with the NucliOS (i.e. native iOS) and XAML (i.e. WPF & Silverlight) versions of the same Radial Gauge, both visually and in features, that Infragistics is introducing on multiple platforms.

Key Features in the Gauge control

Fully Configurable Radial Scale– The Radial Gauge control lets you control the Start and End positions of the scale, major and minor tick marks, labels, color ranges and sweep direction. You can create full 360 degree scales, or half circular gauges with 180 degree scales, 90 degrees, 45 degrees or any custom value you want.
Fully Configurable Needle– The Radial Gauge control lets you control various attributes of the needle, including the needle color, length, point, base, and cap. The following needle shapes are built-in:
- None
- Rectangle
- Triangle
- Needle
- Trapezoid
- Rectangle With Bulb
- Triangle With Bulb
- Needle With Bulb
- Trapezoid With Bulb
Configurable Backing– The Radial Gauge backing can be configured to control various visual attributes such as the colors, shape around the gauge edges (fitted or circular), over sweep and corner radius. You can additionally control the transparency and display any custom image from within your CSS.
Motion Framework Animations Support – The Radial Gauge control supports animated transitions between configuration states. The control gradually animates as it redraws changes to the needle, needle position, scale range, color range and more. You can control the speed of the animations by setting the desired Transition Duration.

New Series & Chart Types in Data Chart

The Ignite UI jQuery Data Chart is already the most powerful charting control for HTML5 developers. Release 13.1 brings even more goodness to Web and Hybrid app developers with new data series.

New Chart Series

This latest release of Ignite UI introduces 17 new chart types in the Data Chart control, enabling you to easily implement heavy-duty data visualization and analysis on large volumes of data with high performance in Web and hybrid HTML5 applications. The Ignite UI igChart now supports a total of 39 chart types, including the following new chart series introduced in release 13.1:

Category Series– The igChart’s collection of baseline Category series is being expanded to support the following chart type:

Category Point
Stacked Chart Category Series – The jQuery igChart now supports a whole range of stacked series for every day scenarios.
Stacked Area Series
Stacked Bar Series
Stacked Column Series
Stacked Line Series
Stacked Spline Area Series
Stacked Spline Series
Stacked 100 Area Series
Stacked 100 Bar Series
Stacked 100 Column Series
Stacked 100 Line Series
Stacked 100 Spline Area Series
Stacked 100 Spline Series

Scientific Charts – From wind patterns to performance metrics, Polar & Radial series can expose new insights in many scientific data sets. The new scientific charts supported include:

Polar Spline Area Series
Polar Spline Series
Radial Area Series

Chart Scatter Series - Also known as Scatter Plots or Scatter Graph, you can benefit from this type of mathematical diagram in your Web and hybrid apps using Cartesian coordinates to display values for two variables for a set of data. You can also enable trend lines to facilitate data analysis. The new scatter type supported is:

Scatter Spline Series

The Ignite UI data chart control for HTML5 and jQuery developers is designed for modularity using chart series. Multiple chart series are supported to create composite charts for better data comparisons on the same surface.

New Control – Pivot View

The new igPivotView is a two-panel control that combines the new igPivotGrid control and the new igPivotDataSelector controls, separated by the new igSplitter control. The igPivotGrid, igPivotDataSelector, and igSplitter – assembled together to provide in one place all needed tools for manipulating multidimensional (OLAP data) in a pivot grid.

Key Features in the Pivot View

Browser Based Business Intelligence– Bind to server-side XMLA data sources like Oracle, SAP & SQL Server Analysis Services, or server & client-side Flat data sources.
Rich Data Discovery– Enable rich data discovery with drilldown, sorting & data filtering.
Multiple layouts- Change how the row headers are arranged for display with regards to the amount of space they occupy with the Standard or default Compact View.
Data Selection- The igPivotDataSelector provides drop-downs to select a database to connect to, cube to extract data from, and a set of measure groups.
Metadata Tree– Display available dimensions with their respective hierarchies along with a list with all the available measures are loaded in a tree once the user chooses a database, cube, and measure group.
Deferred Update– Immediate and Deferred mode are supported, which give control to the user on the frequency of the grid updates.
Configurable Panel Views - Swap the pivot grid and the selector using the dataSelectorPanel properties of the igPivotView.

New Control – Pivot Data Selector

The new igPivotDataSelector is an interactive jQuery based UI control that enables users to select data slices, typically, when data is being visualized in an igPivotGrid. All of the UI features that you would expect to be used to interact with an actual OLAP or flat data source are wrapped up in this control. They include:

Drop-downs for selecting database, cube and measure group
A metadata tree displaying all dimensions, measures, hierarchies and levels
Drop areas for selecting of hierarchies and measures
A deferred update checkbox
An update button to refresh the view connected to the data selector

Key Features in the Pivot Data Selector

Data Selection- The igPivotDataSelector provides drop-downs to select a database to connect to, cube to extract data from, and a set of measure groups.
Metadata Tree– Display available dimensions with their respective hierarchies along with a list with all the available measures are loaded in a tree once the user chooses a database, cube, and measure group.
Deferred Update– Immediate and Deferred mode are supported, which give control to the user on the frequency of the grid updates.
Visualize Your Cube - Use the same data source instance as other Ignite UI controls, such as igPivotGrid, which enables you to build complete OLAP data visualization applications.

New Control - Pivot Grid

The igPivotGrid control is a jQuery based data presentation control for displaying data in a pivot table. It enables users to perform complex analysis on the supplied data. The igPivotGrid uses the Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) approach to present the results of multi-dimensional queries in an easy to comprehend manner. The igPivotGrid control uses an instance of either igFlatDataSource™ or igXmlaDataSource™ component as data source.

Key Features in the Pivot Grid

Rich Data Discovery– Enable rich data discovery with drilldown, sorting & data filtering.
Multiple layouts- Change how the row headers are arranged for display with regards to the amount of space they occupy with the Standard or default Compact View.
Build the Complete Experience - Combine with the igPivotDataSelector control to provide users with the ability to add/remove hierarchies and measures to/from the pivot grid.

Grid New Features & Enhancements

We are not resting on our laurels as the market leader in performance and features in our HTML / jQuery Data Grid. In 13.1. we are continuing to match the pace of the fast and furious Web world with new features and enhancements to existing grid features.

Key Features

Responsive Design– Taking from popular responsive UI frameworks like Twitter Bootstrap, we’ve added support that allows CSS classes to trigger visibility of columns based on the size of the grids container. A developer can also that the row template based on the container size.
Cell Merging CTP to RTM – Enable a slick hierarchical view based on the sort of a column.

Column Fixing CTP – Deliver an Excel like, interactive fixed column view.

KnockoutJS CTP to RTM – let KO do the data binding magic for you with the Grid.

WebUpload Enhancements

WebUpload gets one of the most sought after feature requests in 13.1 – we’ve added support for multiple file selection.

KnockoutJS Support

We’ve added / updated Knockout support to the following controls:

WebCombo
Editors
Tree
Grid

I know your next question is “what about Chart”? I’ve talked to the team about this, and we are going to get that into a checkpoint release very soon. So stay tuned. I want it as much as you do.

New Control - Splitter

The splitter is a component which create dynamic layout with resizable and collapsible panels. This component is a nice addition for Ignite UI’s toolbox because it is not available in the jQuery UI’s toolset and customers have no alternatives for acquiring this component from another source for free. The Splitter control can be horizontal or vertical, can include buttons for Left, Right or Collapse, and can be dragged accordingly to resize a containers widget. The Splitter is designed with programmable events for Collapse, Expand & Resize, and has full keyboard support for interactions.

Key Features in Splitter

Horizontal & Vertical Splitters
Nested Splitters

New Control - Layout Manager

The Layout Manager is a jQuery UI widget, which implements several major layout modes, and does not have any UI on its own. The layouts can be used for laying out web pages, as well as single page applications. All of the layout modes that are implemented are responsive and fluid by design, meaning the layout adjusts based on the resize events on the browser.

Key Features in Layout Manager

Layout Customization– Design Flow, Border, Vertical or Column layouts based on the resizing algorithm that suites your needs.
Interactive Grid - Create an absolute positioned layout that can be interactively minimized & maximized in a non-visual Tile Manager like UI.

New Control – Tile Manager

The web has evolved into richer experiences for end users. No longer is a static, even responsive UI enough for high-end user experiences. Controls like the new Tile Manager deliver on this new type of richness that can be delivered in HTML pages. Based on our new LayoutManager control, the TileManager gives a touch friendly, tablet-ready, interactive UI that allows the end user to expand, collapse and move widgets on the page. This is enabled by giving developers the ability to create a grid based layout in HTML that allows widgets to be hosted in defined column spans & row spans.

Key Features in Tile Manager

Tile Layout- Arrange tiles explicitly as regimented columns and rows like in a Grid panel, even span multiple columns and rows or display them as a data-bound Items Control that automatically creates a series of tiles.
State-Based Customization - Define different item templates and size constraints to your tiles and have them automatically applied when the state changes between minimized, minimized expanded, normal and maximized.

jQuery Mobile Enhancements

We are continuing to polish our mobile control offering with enhancements to the jQuery Mobile List control. In 13.1 we’ve implemented events as properties on list view MVC wrapper and the ability to create a collapsible listing on the Mobile List control.

Release 13.1 Looks Awesome! When Can I Get it?

So hopefully you see the same awesomeness as I do in this release. I can’t wait for you to start using it and most of all giving us feedback. We are about 3 weeks away from the official marketing release of April 16th. If you can’t wait to get your hands on the controls, you can shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.comand let me what control and/or feature you really want to work with now and we’ll get you early access to the bits.

If you have ideas about new features we should bring to our controls, important issues we need to fix or even brand new controls you’d like us to introduce, please let us know. Follow and engage with us on Twitter via @infragistics. You can also follow and contact me directly on Twitter at @jasonberes or shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com. Also make sure to connect with our various teams via our Community Formswhere you can interact with Infragistics engineers and also other customers.

Lastly, when you do build something cool with our controls, please make sure to let us know, we always love to hear from you.

TechEd India 2013: Infragistics Sessions & Sponsorship

Jason Beres — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 04:54:00 GMT

Infragistics is continuing its tradition of supporting TechEd, the largest tech event in India that happens every year. For 2013, TechEd is taking on a slightly different look than previous years – it is being held in multiple cities, both Bangalore & Pune are official TechEd sites. As a follow on, there are a series of smaller, local events that will cover the TechEd content. So everyone will have a chance to see the great content being presented this year.

This year, I will be doing 6 talks during TechEd week at various locations.

TechEd Bangalore

3/18/2013: 11:45am - 12:45pm - User Experience Essentials for Designing Modern Apps
3/19/2013: 1:45pm - 2:45pm - Building MVVM JavaScript Apps

Tech Days Delhi

3/22/2013: 4:00pm-5:00pm - Building MVVM JavaScript Apps

C# Corner MVP Summit – Noida

3/23/2013: 12:20pm - 1:00pm - HTML5 & jQuery / Ignite UI

TechEd Pune

3/25/2013: 11:45am - 12:45pm - User Experience Essentials for Designing Modern Apps
3/26/2013: 1:45pm - 2:45pm - Building MVVM JavaScript Apps

We also have a booth at each location, various folks from our team in the Bangalore office will be at each event. Yesterday we had a booth frenzy when TechEd officially opened, here is a view of what it looked like.

For my talk on the “10 UX Essentials for Modern Apps”, the room was so full they needed to do an overflow in the hallway and an encore presentation was actually scheduled for later in the evening!

This week we are also a Gold Sponsor for the C# Corner MVP event. This event was started a couple of years ago by local MVP’s and has grown into something pretty special. I’m glad that Infragistics can be part of this event and take part in the vibrant MVP community in India.

If you are at TechEd India or at any of the events we'll be at this week, please stop by the booth or one of my sessions and say Hi, or just shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com or get me on twitter @jasonberes.

Ignite UI: The World’s Most Advanced JavaScript & HTML5 UI Framework

Jason Beres — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:53:00 GMT

I am very excited to unveil the world’s most advanced and feature complete jQuery based UI framework: Ignite UI.

With Ignite UI, developers can create next generation, browser based, touch-enabled tablet, mobile & desktop experiences. At it’s core, Ignite UI is a set of full featured, advanced HTML & JavaScript user interface controls based on jQuery Core, jQuery UI and jQuery Mobile JavaScript libraries. We didn’t stop there though, with Ignite UI controls, we also ship MVC & ASP.NET server side wrappers, so if you are not ready to make the jump to pure HTML & jQuery client side development, you can use all of the great features in the Ignite UI controls in your current ASP.NET MVC applications. On top of that, Ignite UI includes a complete set of Mobile controls with adaptive CSS, so you are covered when building your iPhone, Android & Windows Phone applications.

So what’s in Ignite UI? Let’s take a look at the UI controls and frameworks that are included.

Ignite UI Core

At it’s core, Ignite UI controls include the following:

Touch Support – we test against multiple devices, form factors and processors. No matter what type of application you are building – desktop, tablet, mobile – we make sure the controls perform as you would want them to.
Browser Support – Firefox 3.0+, IE 6+, Safari 3.2+, Chrome 2.0+, Opera
Theme Roller- since we’re jQuery based, all of the controls integrate into your existing ThemeRoller themes. No changes necessary to make our stuff look good with your stuff.
Server Wrappers – ASP.NET MVC wrappers are included if you are not ready to go all-in on the client-side HTML & jQuery development.
Optimized Rendering – using the Loader component, you have granular control over how much JavaScript is sent to the client. For example, if you just want the Grid to include Sorting, just say “Grid.Sorting”, and only the Sorting JavaScript file will get sent to the client, not all of the JavaScript files for every grid feature.

Control Configuration

For many developers coming from server-side coding, we recognize that writing JavaScript is not a favorite task. We’ve added a Control Configurator that let’s you configure controls in a WYSIWYG editor, with a complete Property Window and Events Window. You just select a control, set the properties and events, and we generate the JavaScript. It’s that easy!

Data Chart

The HTML5 data chart control (igChart) is a HTML Real time charting, high data volume, multi-touch enabled high performance HTML5 graphing control. We’ve based this on our award winning XAML charting core, with rendering speeds of millions of data points in milliseconds. There is not a chart in the marketing today that can match the performance and feature set of this jQuery Chart control. Here is what you get in charting features:

Mouse / Touch Range Selection & Pinch Zoom
Overview + Detail Window (OPD) with Mobile View
Composite / Hybrid Charts
Motion Framework
Pie Chart
Category Series – Area, Line, Spline, Bar, Waterfall, Spline, Spline Area, Step Line, Step Area including Stacked & Stacked 100 Series
Scatter Series
High-Density Scatter Series
Polar Series
Radial Series
Financial / OHLC Series
35 Financial Indicators
Financial Overlays
Linear & Log Axis Scales

This versatile HTML5 Chart controls lets you create basic line of business displays, high-performance real-time monitoring displays, and interactive data immersion applications.

Geospatial Mapping

The underlying rendering engine of the Geospatial Map (igMap) is the same as the Data Chart, so in addition to a wide variety of tile sources, you can also bind & render thousands to millions of data points on the map. Bing, CloudMade, OpenStreet, ESRI Shape Files and custom tiles are supported, as well as the following series types:

Contour Line
Polyline
Scatter Area
Geographic Shape
Geographic Symbol

Data Grids, Data Access & Data Binding

Data Grids are the backbone of almost every line of business applications, and Ignite UI has you covered for every grid scenario. With our almost 25 year history of building the best grids in the world that run the largest and most demanding applications, we know that performance matters. We’ve built the Ignite UI grids with performance as a core feature, so make sure to read our jQuery Grid Performance Whitepaper and see what you should expect with you build the Ignite Grids in your applications.

The grids included in the toolkit are:

Data Grid – a jQuery Data Grid which support features like sorting, grouping, column pinning, cell merging, in-cell editing, row & cell selection, column resizing, custom templates and much, much more.
Hierarchical Data Grid – the jQuery Hierarchical Data Grid lets you easily create parent-child views of data. Each child grid is represented using the flat data grid, so you do not lose out on features or performance in child bands of data. Setting up hierarchical relationships is a breeze using the Data Source control.
OLAP / Multi-Dimensional Pivot Grid – if you need to give your users a better analytical drill-down capability with your jQuery Pivot Grid multi-dimensional data from SQL Analysis Services, Oracle or SAP, the igPivotGrid can do the job. It will even bind to flat data sources like SQL Server or Excel files. Features like XMLA & MDX are supported for getting data into the grid via the igXmlaDataSource. And since the data access and rendering pieces are separate, you can do literally anything you want with your OLAP data, you are no restricted to binding it to the Grid control, you can bind to an HTML table, a chart, or anything you can code.

The grids are supporting by our jQuery Data Source control (igDataSource), which makes it super simple to bind and mash up data on the client. The Data Source takes the complexity out of asking for data, parsing it on the client and binding it to your controls. Out of the box, we fully support:

oData
WCF
Web API
REST
JSON
XML
Arrays
HTML Tables

Since the Grids and the Data Source know about each other, features like local & remote sorting & filtering work with no additional code on your part.

The grids are also supported by our high-performance jQuery Templating Engine, which gives you complete flexibility & control over how data is rendered for each cell in a row when it is bound. The templating engine supports:

Conditional Row Formatting
Multi-Conditional Row Formatting
Nested Blocks
Nested Blocks with Images

Data Entry & HTML Editing

No matter what type of data input you need in your applications, we have you covered with a full set of controls that can handle simple input to richer validation, HTML WYSIWYG editing, Date inputs & dropdown and even an auto-complete, cascading data source supported Combo Box.

Date Picker – A jQuery dropdown date picker, with an editable text area, with prompt text & validation support.
Editors – Data entry, including watermark text capability, spin buttons, numeric & currency support, as well as data annotation & validation. For global web applications, localization is fully supported.
Combo Box – jQuery Load on demand combo box, with auto-suggest modes, text matching highlights, single & multi-select and full templating support. Also included is a cascading capability, which allows you to easily set parent-child relationships between combo boxes.
HTML Editor – full jQuery HTML editor with a full toolbar experience that includes tables, fonts, styles, colors, images, hyperlinks and more.

Word, Excel, XPS, PDF Engines and Exporters

Creating in-memory documents or exporting data grids to almost any format is simple with the various document engines included with Ignite UI. These document libraries run on the server, and send the newly created document to the browser for consumption.

PDF & XPS – create in-memory or export data grids to jQuery PDF or XPS formats.
Microsoft Excel – Export data grids to Excel, or import data to Worksheets in XLS Excel 97 (BIFF8), XLSX Excel 2010 or higher or ExcelML. The Excel library includes an entire Excel object model, so you can easily create Workbooks, Worksheets, and interact with Excel features. All of this is support without the need for Excel on the client or the server, this is a self-contained jQuery Excel library.
Microsoft Word – Create & export data into .DOC, .DOCX and WordML formats with the 100% managed jQuery Word Library. Use the Word Document Object Model to create documents, insert tables, images & format text.

Controls that Complete an Application

As well as data visualization, grids, and data entry & editors, there are supporting controls that complete an application. We’ve included additional controls in the toolkit that will help you round out the user experience of your applications.

Dialog Window – a floating jQuery dialog window that supports modal or non-modal display, nested dialogs, custom header & buttons, as well as complete programmatic control over positioning.
File Upload – allow users to asynchronously upload single or multiple files from the client to a server with features like cancel, progress of bytes / total bytes, and file information.
Rating – give users the ability to rate anything, customizable with images, precision and continuous selection.
Video Player – using the HTML5 video tag, this control will play H.264, WebM & Ogg Theora formats. Advanced features like full-screen mode, bookmarking, commercial insertion, and scrubber with play / pause / continue toolbar.
Tree – load-on-demand high-performance rendering of jQuery Tree View with multi-selection, checkboxes, images, drag & drop support.

Mobile Controls for Phone Apps

All of the Ignite UI controls are tested across multiple devices and multiple browsers, but if you building an application that will deploy to a phone, you need controls that will fit the form factor and UI patterns expected on a phone. Ignite UI includes a complete set of 22 jQuery Mobile based controls that will deliver a complete phone application experience. We didn’t stop at just the controls, we include adaptive CSS support for iPhone, Android (Light, Dark, Light / Dark) & Windows Phone (Light, Dark), so when your application renders on the device, the style will match the end-user expectation.

The controls included in Ignite UI for jQuery phone development are:

List View
Rating
Input
Button
CheckBox
CheckBox Group
RadioButton Group
SelectMenu
Slider
ToggleSwitch
TextBox

Layout
Collapsible
Collapsible Set
Page
Page Content
Page Footer
Page Header
Popup
Navigation
Link
NavBar

Get Ignite UI Today!

You are probably thinking, how do I get my hands on Ignite? It’s easy.

Click on this image to get a fully support trial version:

To view all the samples and code for HTML, MVC & ASP.NET, click there:

http://www.infragistics.com/products/jquery/samples

If you want something you don’t see, or if you have any question, shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com!

We hope you enjoy Ignite UI as much we did building it and delivering this new version!

Announcing Coded UI Support for Windows Forms

Jason Beres — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:33:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that we will be shipping CodedUI Test support for major controls in the upcoming NetAdvantage for Windows Forms 12.2 release slated for early October 2012. If you are not familiar with CodedUI Tests (CUIT), here is a summary from MSDN:

Automated tests that drive your application through its user interface (UI) are known as coded UI tests (CUITs). These tests include functional testing of the UI controls. They let you verify that the whole application, including its user interface, is functioning correctly. Coded UI Tests are particularly useful where there is validation or other logic in the user interface, for example in a web page. They are also frequently used to automate an existing manual test.

What Visual Studio gives developers and testers is an easy way to record and playback tests, which can uncover bugs or regression in the UI behavior. The reason that Infragistics controls do not work ‘out of the box’ with CUIT is simple – the CUIT infrastructure in the .NET framework doesn’t know what to do when a complex control with a nested hierarchy of UI elements is being tested. So we had to do a lot of work to make sure out controls work as you would expect.

When you install Windows Forms 12.2, and you’ll see that the CUIT feature will involve two main parts:

A plug-in for the CUIT Framework
UI Automation (UIA) implementation for Infragistics controls

The plug-in for the CUIT Framework will be a separate assembly we provide that tells the CodedUI framework to use UIA for Infragistics controls instead of the standard and limited MSAA which is not robust enough to handle Infragistics controls. As a result of adding UIA capabilities to our controls we will be able to better support CUIT but at the same time update our Accessibility support.

The architecture looks like this:

When Does it Ship & What Do You Get?

This will ship with v12.2 in October, so we are about 1 month away from getting this into your hands. Over the last 18 months we’ve surveyed customers who have expressed interest in CUIT support, and prioritized the order of the controls we worked on and are shipping in V1 of this feature. In October you will see support for:

Grid
Combo
Editors (Text, Numeric, DateTime, etc)
Combo Editor
Tab (high risk)
Tab Strip (high risk)
Drop Down
Button
Scroll Bars
Progress Bar

Our plan is to roll out CUIT support for controls with each monthly Service Release, so you will continue to get updates until we achieve 100% coverage over the next couple of releases. The next major controls in the roadmap are ToolbarsManager, Ribbon & DockManager.

Licensing

The licensing follows the same model as our other testing tools – if you are a tester you need a license for the Infragistics Technology Manager to record or replay tests. We are including this as part of the developer license, so a developer gets this as part of the NetAdvantage for Windows Forms product. Each Tester on your team will need a license of NetAdvantage for Windows Forms (which includes the Infragistics Technology Manager) to record and replay tests.

Wrap Up

This is a huge addition to Windows Forms, we’ve been working on this with Microsoft for well over a year now to get the right support for the rich controls in the product. If you have any questions on how this will work, the licensing, or the controls, please shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com.

Webinar Recap: jQuery Hierarchical Grid

Jason Beres — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:18:00 GMT

I want to thank everyone again for spending time with us to learn all good things about the igHierarchicalGrid.

To get started, make sure to download a trial version of the product:

http://www.infragistics.com/products/jquery/downloads

To view all of the online samples that ship with the product (HTML & MVC) go here:

http://www.infragistics.com/products/jquery/hierarchical-grid/

Here is the link for watching the webinar again and sending to friends:

https://www149.livemeeting.com/cc/8002574606/view?id=NFFDZ3

Here is a link to the slide deck:

http://users.infragistics.com/JasonB/Infragistics%20-%20Using%20the%20igHierarchicalGrid.pdf

For all the demos and samples I showed off:

http://users.infragistics.com/JasonB/HTML-JS-Examples-Download.zip

If you have any issues, please shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com.

Thanks!

Jason

SharePlus + SharePoint: The Secure Dropbox Replacement

Jason Beres — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:27:00 GMT

DropBox is in the news again, with major questions around the security of the application. I wanted to re-post this blog that I published originally for the SharePoint Conference in Australia in March.

SharePlus - The Trusted, Secure & Native Mobile Client for SharePoint

Working with enterprise customers who have massive investments in secure SharePoint infrastructure, I've been involved in meetings where the security issues around cloud-based document sharing applications like Dropbox or even Live Mesh come up. Corporate data is all about security, and pretty much every corporate IT department has data security at the top of their minds - all of the time. Which is where the easy access to applications like Dropbox on mobile devices can wreak havoc on an existing security infrastructure – anyone with Internet access can install Dropbox, copy files to it, and in turn sync with any of their personal computers and mobiles devices that live outside of the corporate firewall. Next thing you know, they are sharing a folder with a customer because the email system doesn't allow large files as attachments, so in turn, not only are files in an unsecure cloud storage that corporate IT has no controls over (and most of the times no knowledge of its use), but the unknowing end user has involved customers with this potential security gap.

A seemingly easy route to avoid this potential security headache is to give your users a secure, familiar and easy to use mobile solution to access corporate data: SharePoint Personal folders + Infragistics SharePlus. It's super-simple to add a SharePoint documents library as a shared folder in Windows Explorer allowing easy drag & drop of files, and it's even easier to securely access and synchronizes SharePoint sites with SharePlus.

So the argument for using SharePoint as a Dropbox replacement is hardly an argument – your corporate data is already secure on SharePoint, so why not make that secure access ubiquitous across corporate and personal devices? You might say "well, that sounds easy, but even with SharePlus, documents can be synced and stored locally with an iPad, so my content is still in the open". That is partially true, however, with SharePlus under the control of corporate IT, you have multiple security options:

Windows & Forms Based Authentication
Microsoft ISA Server & Forefront Authentication
Client Certificate Authentication, HTTPS SSL Self Signed Certificates
Hardware based encryption of locally stored SharePoint files
Centralized configuration management – including top level and sub-level site access
Passcode lock at application level – with reset option after multiple attempts
Multi-factor authentication with challenge / response questions like 'where were you born'
Integration with 3rd party security and encryption tools
Most SharePoint infrastructure is behind a firewall as well, so even better is that SharePlus access to documents needs to happen via a secure VPN tunnel in a firewall configuration

I am not implying that a silver-bullet security solution exists, but there are plenty of options, which also happen to integrate nicely with your current IT infrastructure – no need to build secondary infrastructure to enable secure access to corporate documents. There will be IT folks that say there is a silver-bullet: don't allow mobile device access to corporate data. Unfortunately, this argument will never win. Tablets and phones are everywhere; every executive has an iPad2 and is waiting for his new iPad3. You can't stop the move to mobility and tablets. It's the future and it's happening now. Eventually the issues of secure access to documents on mobile devices will have to be addressed by every security czar in every corporation.

SharePlus + SharePoint solution is a solution that works for you.

Read this post for a complete technical whitepaper on how SharePlus handles security and how you can ensure your data is protected.

jQuery + HTML5 + Infragistics Webinar Week Follow-up: Get Code and Decks

Jason Beres — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:39:00 GMT

I want to thank everyone that attended Thursdays webinar on Building Apps with jQuery, HTML5 & Infragistics. It was a very interactive session, and the questions were great. During the 3 webinars (6 different sessions) this week, we had a lot of great questions that will help us drive content for future samples, webinars and blogs. Over the 3 webinars, we had almost 4,500 attendees! It's real important that you help me drive the content, so please keep me posted jasonb@infragistics.com for what you'd like to see in these sessions. I'd also like to thank my teammates Mihail Mateev and Angel Todorov, without their help the Q&A & demos would not have been the same!

To get the product so you can run all the demos, download from here:

http://www.infragistics.com/downloads/default.aspx and grab the NetAdvantage jQuery 2012 Vol. 1 Product And Samples.

Here is a link to the zip file which contains the demo code and PowerPoint deck.

http://users.infragistics.com/jasonb/blogs/building-real-world-apps.zip

The recording of the webinar is here, you can watch the webinar on-demand for up to a year:

https://www149.livemeeting.com/cc/gc_pro_namewreg_infragistics/view?id=SBCKB7&pw=8dr~~%3EW

The recording for the weninar on igDataSource is here:

https://www149.livemeeting.com/cc/gc_pro_namewreg_infragistics/view?id=92QNKD&pw=8dr~~%3EW

And the source code and PowerPoint for the igDataSource webinar is here:

http://users.infragistics.com/JasonB/Blogs/igDataSourceDemos.zip

You can get the code samples and other artifacts as well as watch the recording for the HTML5 & jQuery Fundamentals webinar here:

http://blogs.infragistics.com/blogs/jason_beres/archive/2012/06/19/jquery-amp-html5-fundamentals-webinar-followup.aspx

I'll be doing more webinars like this in July and August, around charts, grids and data entry, so keep an eye out for those announcements.

If you have any other questions or have ideas for other webinars, please send me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com. Thanks again for watching!

Webinar Followup: Working with Data in jQuery & HTML with igDataSource

Jason Beres — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 01:40:00 GMT

I want to thank everyone that attended today's webinar on igDataSource & working with data in your jQuery applications. It was a very interactive session, and the questions were great.

To get the product so you can run all the demos, download from here:

http://www.infragistics.com/downloads/default.aspx and grab the NetAdvantage jQuery 2012 Vol. 1 Product And Samples.

Here is a link to the zip file which contains the demo code and PowerPoint deck.

http://users.infragistics.com/JasonB/Blogs/igDataSourceDemos.zip

The recording of the webinar is here, you can watch the webinar on-demand for up to a year:

https://www149.livemeeting.com/cc/gc_pro_namewreg_infragistics/view?id=92QNKD&pw=8dr~~%3EW

You can get the code samples and other artifacts as well as watch the recording for the HTML5 & jQuery Fundamentals webinar here:

http://blogs.infragistics.com/blogs/jason_beres/archive/2012/06/19/jquery-amp-html5-fundamentals-webinar-followup.aspx

Remember there is 1 more awesome webinar scheduled for this week:

Building a Real World App (Advanced Level) - Thursday, June 21 @ 2pm Eastern

Learn how to implement a customer management, order lookup & dashboard application using the HTML5 and jQuery skills demonstrated in the previous webinars. In this end to end scenario, you will learn how to connect multiple Infragistics jQuery controls together on a page using the igDataSource and the KnockoutJS MVVM library. You will also learn how to respond to events in various Infragistics controls and update multiple controls on a page, implement customer lookup, order data entry & data validation, and create a dashboard for monitoring sales person activity.

If you have any other questions or have ideas for other webinars, please send me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com. Thanks again for watching!

jQuery & HTML5 Fundamentals Webinar Followup

Jason Beres — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 02:40:00 GMT

I want to thank everyone that attended today's webinar on jQuery & HTML5 Fundamentals. It was a very interactive session, and the questions were great. Attached (at the bottom of this post) is the zip file which contains the demo code, PowerPoint deck in PDF format & the Cheat Sheets I showed.

Here is a link to watch the recording. There were some latency issues in the recording, so I apologize that it's not a great viewing experinece.

https://www149.livemeeting.com/cc/gc_pro_namewreg_infragistics/view?id=PCH642&pw=8dr~~%3EW

Remember there are 2 more awesome webinars scheduled for this week:

Working with Data Using igDataSource (Intermediate Level) - Wednesday, June 20 @ 2pm Eastern

Learn various ways to get data to your HTML / jQuery based applications using the igDataSource control. You will also learn how to implement a CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) scenario using MVC3 and Entity Framework. At the end of this webinar, you will feel very comfortable with accessing multiple data sources and binding this data to controls like the Infragistics jQuery Grid, Hierarchical Grid and Editors on a page.

Building a Real World App (Advanced Level) - Thursday, June 21 @ 2pm Eastern

If you have any other questions or have ideas for other webinars, please send me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com. Thanks again for watching!

Learn HTML5 & jQuery - 3 Webinars This Week!

Jason Beres — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 03:34:00 GMT

Start building awesome HTML5 apps with our upcoming HTML5/jQuery Webinar Week

Take your development skills mobile with our HTML5/jQuery Webinar Week! Whether you are an HTML5 novice - or consider yourself a jQuery pro – we guarantee you’ll walk away with new skills for creating your best apps across any browser, platform, or device.

Register now for the level that’s right for you, and learn how to:

Get (or stay) on the right page with the basics of HTML5;
Dynamically present data from sources such as WCF, JSON, and more using the igDataSource Control; and
Build HTML5 apps that look and perform better than anything else on the market today!

Getting Started with HTML5 & jQuery (Beginner Level)

Tuesday, June 19 @ 2pm Eastern

Gain an understanding of the basics of HTML5 & jQuery. We will talk through the new HTML5 tags, JavaScript capabilities and CSS3 features in this latest HTML spec. In HTML5, key tags like Canvas, Video and Article will be examined, as well as JavaScript features including Web Workers, WebSockets and GeoLocation will be covered. You will learn how to incorporate the jQuery library into your application, how to handle and listen to events, and how to implement jQuery functions and how to interact with HTML elements in your pages.

Working with Data Using igDataSource (Intermediate Level)

Wednesday, June 20 @ 2pm Eastern

Building a Real World App (Advanced Level)

Thursday, June 21 @ 2pm Eastern

*Seats for our 11:00am US Eastern session went fast! So we created a second session at 2:00 pm Eastern/11:00 am Pacific to meet the huge demand of this webinar series. Don't miss your last chance to register now!

See below for quick reference as to when to join in your part of the world! (Can’t make it live? Register here, and a link to the recording will be sent to you after the webinar for on-demand viewing.)

2:00 PM US Eastern (New York, Montreal)
3:00 PM UYST/ART (Montevideo, Buenos Aires)
1:00 PM CDT (Chicago, Austin)
11:00 AM US Pacific (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver)
19:00 BST (London, Edinburg, Lisbon)
20:00 CEST (Berlin, Paris, Rome)
23:30 IST (Bangalore, New Delhi)

Space is limited. Reserve your spot today!

5 Reasons Why the Microsoft Surface is coming to a Microsoft Store near You

Jason Beres — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 19:13:00 GMT

With the rumored June 18^th announcement of their own branded Windows Tablet at an exclusive invite only event in Los Angeles, Microsoft is finally getting around to what it needs to stop the bleeding of their customers having to choose the iPad as the only viable tablet option on the market. With the Q1 2012 iPad sales showing a strong 15.4 million units shipped, there is no sign that the dated user experience and high price is stopping anyone from buying an iPad, so the only thing stopping Microsoft from delivering on a tablet was the lack of a great tablet OS experience. With Windows 8, the time is now to deliver on a serious tablet competitor.

Granted, even as late as Q4 2011, analysts were largely ignoring that fact that Windows 8 even existed - all predictions were for unhindered iPad growth forever.

2011 Q4 predictions – when the Windows Tablet didn’t register.

But with the nothing-but-positive reviews around the release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview in February and the Windows 8 Release Preview in June, that has changed. Analysts are now predicting a very strong uptake in Windows 8 on tablets, some even suggesting that Microsoft will leap to to a 25% market share very quickly and overtake Android.

So why does it make sense that Microsoft will ship its own tablet? Here are 5 reasons.

First and foremost - Microsoft can’t depend on its hardware partners. With Samsung’s S9 ultra-thin laptop being the only example of a sexy Windows machine, I don’t expect that we’ll suddenly be inundated with awesome tablets from hardware giants like Dell, Toshiba, Asus, HP & Nokia. Though each of them is rumored to have tablets in the waiting for Windows 8 Metro, their past history isn't a good story of execution in lock-step with Microsoft's plans. If they were on the ball, they'd have something out already, every geek in the world (that includes me) would be lined up to buy it. With Nokia’s latest announcement of 10,000 layoffs, and with Moody’s downgrading their debt to junk status, I wouldn’t hold my breath for the sweet looking turquoise tablet that looks like a giant Lumia 900. And would you place any money on HP executing on anything with their recent track record? I didn’t think so. If Microsoft builds and ships their own hardware, they can ensure a great experience and on-time delivery with Windows 8.

There needs to be a more powerful (iPad like) hardware alternative to the Nook. Microsoft’s $300 million dollar investment in the Nook business at Barnes & Noble was huge, and we should all expect Windows Metro based e-Readers available in the holiday selling season, all loaded up with XBox Music & Video Marketplace and the other goodies that come from the Windows Store, like Mail, Calendar and loads of beautiful apps. But the Nook hardware spec is more smartphone-like than tablet - definitely not the same hardware experience as an iPad, which is what people want.

Everyone wants (and arguably needs) Microsoft Office on their tablet – and Microsoft needs to make sure there is a viable Windows Tablet running office. The worst kept secret of an iOS version of Microsoft Office coming in the fall (or at least a fall announcement) means the multi-billion dollar Office business is protected on all platforms – but nothing can run Office like a Windows machine. Have you tried OneNote on your iPad? The experience is a 6 out of 10 at best. Office needs Windows as much as Windows needs Office.

The Microsoft Server business is built on the premise of seamless integration with Microsoft infrastructure – but right now in IT departments all over the globe, there is a mad scramble to secure and enable iPad access to corporate networks. Corporate IT doesn’t have the time or money to figure this stuff out. By announcing that a Microsoft Tablet is on the way (and hopefully shipping very soon), there is an opportunity for corporate IT to recommend this solution since it plays nicely with existing infrastructure. No extra cost in hardware or software to secure & support the devices.

Microsoft can set its own pricing on its own tablet and take market share. Along with a well-positioned Metro Nook, a sub-$500 Metro tablet will do extremely well against the male, pet-owning elitist $600 to $900 iPad. If Microsoft was really smart, and wanted market share, they’d price the Windows tablet around $400, which would be twice the cost of the $199 Kindle Fire, but certainly deliver a superior user experience and Apps offering (think Microsoft Office) than the Kindle and the not-so-smooth-as-Silk browser experience.

I’ll add a 6^th reason, because I think it’s the biggest reason this is going to happen.

Steven Sinofsky. Like him or not, he gets things done. He does it his way, and it works. He is pure Microsoft, and he wants to see the company he’s invested his life’s work to get back on top like it was in the 90’s when he walked trade show floors with Bill Gates. 2012 is a pivotal year for the products he is responsible for delivering – Windows, Internet Explorer, Live, as well as influence on the new Office 15 and SharePoint 15. He’s delivering the goods on the software side, so who says he can’t do the same on the hardware side?

So what will this big announcement be on June 18^th? Will a Windows Tablet The Microsoft Surface announcement continues the Microsoft streak of brilliance in the last 12 months with the Skype purchase, Nook investment and pending Yammer deal?

Stay tuned.

TechEd 2012: Get Demos, Win Cash & Learn!

Jason Beres — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:50:00 GMT

This week in Orlando, Florida is TechEd 2012. I am here with the Infragistics Marketing Team, Product Managers, Technical Evangelists and Solutions Engineers to talk to customers, answer questions and stay on top of what is important to Microsoft.

If you are here in Orlando, come by the Infragistics booth and get you 'I AM INFRAGISTICS' button. If you wear this during the week, and are spotted by one the Infragistics crew on the trade show floor, you could win cash or software licenses! We are at booth 625 … it’s a big one, so it will be hard to miss. Come by and get your button!

We are doing technical demos all day, every day, and are here to answer questions, but we also have schedule slots:

Monday 12:45pm – Brian Lagunas will do a demo a XAML
Tuesday 12:45pm – I will do a demo on jQuery
Wednesday 12:45pm – Nick Landry will do a demo on Mobile
Thursday 12:45pm – Anand Raja will do a demo on SharePlus

If you are here and want to chat, shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com or a DM on Twitter @jasonberes.

I hope to see you here at Tech-Ed!

Thanks

Jason

Updated Support for CLR Versions and Visual Studio Versions

Jason Beres — Tue, 29 May 2012 16:08:00 GMT

As most of you know, we survey customers every year and ask questions about your current platform usage, your future plans and of course where you’d like to see us invest in platforms and technologies. Based on the trends that you’ve reported, and with introduction of CLR 4.5 later this year, we are updating our support policy for older versions of the CLR. These are large changes for some of you, but won’t affect most of you, since the majority of the data we’ve collected shows you are using the latest and greatest CLR and Visual Studio versions from Microsoft.

So onto the meat of this post … starting with the fall 2012 12.2 release, we are changing what we ship in terms of CLR assemblies.

Full CLR 4.0 / 4.5 Support

Starting with 12.1, we added support for Visual Studio 11 and CLR 4.5. This will of course continue, as well as continued support for Visual Studio 2010 and CLR 4.0. The following products are in a full support cycle for Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 11, CLR 4.0, CLR 4.5:

Windows Forms
ASP.NET
WPF
Silverlight (Silverlight 5 only)
LightSwitch
Windows Phone
jQuery / HTML5

In these products, we will ship documentation samples, project files and source code in CLR 4.0. We will support both CLR 4.0 and CLR 4.5.

ASP.NET Support

In the 12.2 release, we will be shipping version-less assemblies for ASP.NET controls for the following CLR’s:

CLR 3.5
CLR 4.0
CLR 4.5

12.2 will be the last release for CLR 3.5 assemblies. In 12.2, all of the documentation, samples, project files and source code will target CLR 4.0.

We are not shipping CLR 2.0 or 3.0 assemblies after the 12.1 (May 2012) release. CLR 2.0 and CLR 3.0 assemblies are supported through May 2013 for bug fixes and through May 2015 for general support issues.

Windows Forms Support

In the 12.2 release, we are shipping version CLR 4.0 assemblies. We will ship documentation samples, project files and source code in CLR 4.0. We will fully support CLR 4.0 and CLR 4.5.

We are not shipping CLR 2.0 or 3.5 assemblies after the 12.1 (May 2012) release. CLR 2.0 and CLR 3.5 assemblies are supported through May 2013 for bug fixes and through May 2015 for general support issues.

WPF Support

Since June 2011, most of the controls we shipped in WPF were CLR 4 only, and many of the new controls (like the Syntax Parser / Code Editor) are using CLR 4 specific features. Starting with the 12.2 release, we are shipping version CLR 4.0 assemblies. We will ship documentation samples, project files and source code in CLR 4.0. We will fully support CLR 4.0 and CLR 4.5.

We are not shipping CLR 3.5 assemblies after the 12.1 (May 2012) release. CLR 3.5 assemblies are supported through May 2013 for bug fixes and through May 2015 for general support issues.

Silverlight & LightSwitch Support

Since Silverlight does not depend on a CLR version, we have the following support for Silverlight & LightSwitch:

Silverlight 5 support and Visual Studio 2010 plus Visual Studio 11 support for the NetAdvantage for Silverlight product. With the last release of 12.1 (May 2012), we dropped support for Silverlight 4. So there is no change to the Silverlight support.
Silverlight 5 support and Visual Studio 11 support for the NetAdvantage for LightSwitch product. In 12.2, we will no longer ship Visual Studio 2010 add-ins for LightSwitch, thus closing the door on Silverlight 4 LightSwitch releases.

Reporting Support

Our NetAdvantage Reporting product ships with CLR 4 and Visual Studio 2010 support. Visual Studio 11 will be fully supported for 12.2. So there is no change to the Reporting support.

Windows Phone Support

Windows Phone currently is supported under the Windows Phone 7.5 SDK & Visual Studio 2010. There are no changes to the Windows Phone support at this time.

jQuery / HTML5 Support

Most of the adoption on this product is around the HTML / jQuery components, but we also ship MVC wrappers for all of the controls. Beginning with the 12.2 release (Fall 2012) we will only ship MVC 3 and MVC 4 wrappers for the HTML / jQuery controls. This means full Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Studio 11 support for building modern web based apps.

Understanding the Support Policy

Our support policy is designed to maximize the bug fixes and updates in the initial year of your subscription, and to give you longer term 3 year support on issues as you need help.

You get:

Bug fixes / service releases / new controls / new features in the initial year after you purchase or renew your subscription
3 years of developer support on every product from the date is was released

In the case of assemblies that we are no longer shipping as part of the product, you still receive 12 months of bug fixes and services releases, and you get 3 years of developer support.

For all CLR 2.0, 3.0 & 3.5 assemblies that shipped in 12.1 (May 2012), you will get fixes until May 2013, and support until May 2015.

If you have any questions or comments on these changes, shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com.

Thanks!

Jason

Announcing NetAdvantage 12.1–Available for Download

Jason Beres — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:57:00 GMT

I am very excited to announce the release of NetAdvantage 12.1. Subscribers can log in and download the latest bits immediately from MyIG or from the Downloads Page.

Not only did we add major new features across all web, desktop, reporting, mobile & HTML5 platforms, but we've expanded the value of what you get in the box as part of your subscription. Starting with 12.1:

Our XAML Data Visualization products (Silverlight & WPF), which we previously sold separately and were part of NetAdvantage Ultimate, are now included in the NetAdvantage for Silverlight & NetAdvantage for WPF product.
NetAdvantage Ultimate subscribers will get a 5 user Quince Pro subscription and all 8 of our Icon Packs in their subscription.

Read about the details of these awesome product enhancements here.

On top of that major addition, we’ve also changed the pricing on our Windows Phone & jQuery / HTML5 products:

NetAdvantage for Windows Phone is now $195
NetAdvantage for jQuery is now $595

Nick has a blog with all of the details that you can read about here.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve been posting blogs about how to use all of the new 12.1 features and what you should expect when you install, so make sure to page though http://blogs.infragistics.com/ to review the technical how-to posts.

For a quick review of the features in each platform, visit the What’s New pages here:

We think you’ll like what you see! We are now hard at work on 12.2, which will ship in the fall. If you have any questions or comments on 12.1 (or asks for 12.2), post them to this blog or shoot me an email at jasonb@infragistics.com.

From the entire Infragistics team, we hope you enjoy 12.1!

HTML5 Grids & Chart Dashboards Webinar Follow-up

Jason Beres — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:03:00 GMT

I want to thank everyone who came out to the HTML Grid & Chart Based Dashboards webinar last week. We had big numbers for the webinar, we appreciate the time you took out of your bust schedule to check out what how we are innovating the Web / HTML5 space. I am sorry to the folks that couldn’t connect in to the video and the audio, as we maxed out at the 1,250 attendee limit for the webinars. We’re looking into making sure that we can accommodate the numbers next time. We also did the webinar at 2 different times, both live, to accommodate the worldwide audience. Did that work for you? Were the times good / bad? Shoot me an email jasonb@infragistics.com and let me know.

Below is all the goodness from the webinar, let me know if I missed anything else that you’d like to see.