Hi Guys,
We started our application development in 2006 using the "NetAdvantage for ASP.NET" classic controls like ultrawebgrid, ultrawebmenu, ultraweb editors, ultrawebtree etc. At that time, multi browser support was not a priority so we didnt consider it while developing our application. Our application supports only IE browser.
Now after five years, we need to support all major browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc. After going through forum posts and comminucations with Infragistics support, it seems that we need to upgrade all our infragistics controls to new Aikido controls which are supported with those browsers. Also Infragistics is saying that old "ultra" controls will soon be retired, so it seems that it is necessary to upgrade these controls.
But upgrading to new controls doesnt seems to be easy from the forum posts. Also we tried upgrading the controls on one page of our application and found that these new controls are very different in functionalities, methods, properties etc. Many of our pages has rich client side functionalities developed with the help of client side API's of controls like ultrawebgrid. For every small thing - we need to go to Infragistics support to tell the problem, provide sample application and then work with them to resolve the issues. If we go by this method - I think it will lot of time for upgrading the classic controls to new Akido controls. Because currently there doesnt seems to be a proper guideline or documentation on how upgrade should be done.
With this post, I would like to know opinions/views, issues in upgrading from classic controls to new Akido controls.
Thanks,Bhimraj
Hello Bhimraj,
I have a few links for you that will help in the upgrade process. The first is the Known Issues and Breaking Changes page. It is a list of issues and things that have changed on the controls that you can be aware of and avoid if possible.
http://help.infragistics.com/NetAdvantage/ASPNET/2011.1/CLR4.0/?page=Known_Issues_Known_Issues_and_Breaking_Changes.html
Next is a link to the help documentation on the ASP.NET AJAX controls. http://help.infragistics.com/NetAdvantage/ASPNET/2011.1/CLR4.0/?page=Web_ASPNET_AJAX_Controls.html
Finally is the Grid Cheat Sheet, which can be helpful when upgrading from the UltraWebGrid to WebDataGrid or WebHierarchicalDataGrid.
http://dl.infragistics.com/pg/cheat-sheet/InfragisticsNAforASPNETGridCheatSheet.pdf
Please let me know if I may be of further assistance with this matter.
Sincerely,Mike P.Developer Support EngineerInfragistics, Inc.www.infragistics.com
I am following up to see if the information provided answered the question you had about this matter.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the information and links. We are working with Infragistics support to get help on the issues that we are facing.
Bhimraj
I'm in a similar position whereby my main web app has just broken because of the Firefox v10 release. I've known that the classic controls were going to be retired but I was kind of hoping that they'd hang in a bit longer but sadly not.
I know that the new Akido controls are better, cleaner and that we all need to "start again" sometimes but I'm in a bit of a quandary right now. Should I actually rely upon 3rd party controls. It's a fundamental question any developer has to ask themselves.
As I said, whilst I can appreciate the rational behind it all, my customers aren't quite so forgiving. I produced web site for a small organisation on a small budget which was launched two years ago. And now it's stopped working with Firefox and yes, then can use IE (Safari never goes down well), it leaves a bad taste.
So before I launch into upgrading everything to Akido, is there some kind of reassurance from Infragistics that they will continue to support Akido for at least five years? Yes, I'd prefer not to have to keep releasing new versions with service releases (so that would be an aspiration for the dev team) but that's still better than having a dead web app. As I developer, I know it's darn hard to write future proof code esp. in the world of the web browser. Even the web browser developers can't decide what the standards are!
Cheers, Rob.
Hello Rob,
I have contacted our product Management Team concerning this matter to see what they have to say about this. I will update you with the information provided to me.
Concerning Firefox v10 support for the classic controls can you please tell me what version of the NetAdvantage product you are using?