Web controls

Hi!

This is not a .netTiers specific question. It is about ASP.NET web controls in general. If I submit it here, it is because I know that many participants in this forum are excellent developers. I am working on my first ASP.NET project and I must say that I encountered quite a few problems. In fact, I am quite disapointed with ASP.NET. I even came to the point of considering switching technology despite all the time invested in the project (a few months). Before doing so though, I hired an ASP.NET developer of experience to chat a bit with him about the kind of problems I encountered. The main problem seems to be lieing in the use of the web controls provided with ASP.NET. He highly recommended to buy third party controls that are well supported. He's using controls from Infragistics. It seems to be the Rolls-Royce of controls. However, he said that the learning curve to use Infragistics' package is quite steep. And the question is: What is your experience with Microsoft's web controls and third party's web controls? Are there some that are quite good and quite easy to use? I cannot afford too much learning time.

By the way, if I were to switch technolgy .netTiers would be the toughest part to let go. I really find the .netTiers team is doing a tremendous job in implementing best practices and patterns!

Cheers!

JF,

 

It depends on the complexity of your application and what you're requirements are.  This being your first ASP.net project, I'm certain that it's a huge learning curve.  It's a large set of controls to try to learn on your own for a large project.  Even if you move to a 3rd party suite, 3rd party controls can be great, the downside is yes, the learning curve and introducing yet another layer of non-standard complexity into your application.  I personally favor the telerik control suite myself, but you should also check out the ComponentArt suite as well, to give a couple more options.  I recommend, if you've already invested a bunch of time into this project to hire someone to give you lessons like 3 hours a day for at least a week to get you deep in the know on asp.net controls or a control suite.  Once you understand how they work, and all the little nuances, then it becomes easier.   The time it takes to probably rewrite what you've already invested 3 months into is too large of a hit.  So in reality, there's no easy solution for this, you either take the time away from the project to ramp up for a week, or you lose out on at least 480 hours of work already invested in this project.

Hi Robert!

Thanks for that hindsight! In fact, my situation is a bit special. I am my own customer. A good part of the work is building a specialized CMS for a web sight I am building with partners. This custom CMS consists of a database with about 60 tables, and we need around 75 interfaces (forms: GridViews, and FormViews) to manage the content. Part of these forms are quite simple, and are there just to populate list tables. Others are more complex to facilitate the data entry ergonomy. But, we are not using anything too fancy. It is mainly the FormViews and the GridViews that should be easier to work with and more complete than the Microsoft ones. And of course, 2-way databinding should work all the way (I am refering to the DataBinding of MS DrowpDownLists which is breaking if you try to put them in an insert row of a modified MS GridView).

In fact, I haven't put 480 hours of my time in the programming. I am working only part time on the project. But it is a good suggestion you are making. The reasons for thinking of using another technology was that I can evaluate more easily how much time this project will take me in a technology I know (PHP, ASP). With ASP.NET, it is very hard to know how long the path will be with all my stumbling.

I can believe that .Net is a good technology for application programming. All along the way though, and mainly recently, I have been wondering whether it was such a good technology for web development. I wish I knew a senior developer who would have done important projects with various technologies (PHP, ASP, ASP.NET and Ruby On Rails) to hear him tell me the pros and cons of each one. Someone with a good sense of objectivity...

Thanks!

JF

 

Hi!

One improtant question: Will the .netTiers relationship controls (OneToOneViewRelationship, OneToManyGridRelationship, etc.) be compatible with third parties web controls?

Cheers!

JF

 

Thanks John for your advices!

I will try to open my mind to event model programming. You're right in saying that I am more comfortable with the declarative approach. I must admit that up to now, I was embracing OOP, but that I was very reluctant to event model programming. The thing I find difficult with event model programming is that you need to know by heart when what event is happening, otherwise you don't understand what is happening. I remember switching the sequence of two lines in my code, and it changed everything. I could not understand why because, to my eyes, the sequence did not matter in that case. It is a bit like saying: a=2; b=3; c=a+b; is the same as b=3; a=2; c=a+b. However, one of the lines was triggering DataBinding. That was quite odd to me, as event model programming was new to me.

The good thing about my project is that the first part is for an Intranet, so I have more room for trying things. The second part though will be a web site.

Have a good weekend!

JF

 

Hi Robert!

I read about quite a few web control toolboxes today, and my fovarite is the one from Telerik too. Well, they have the site that is easiest for me to understand and find information. Thanks for the hint! So I tried their control box, but not everything was working. I don't know if it is because of my lack of experience or because of incompatibilities with the controls. I think I will follow your advice of hiring a consultant to get me up to speed with these controls. However, I would like to make sure first that the Telerik controls are compatible with .netTiers. I would think you are using both tools together, but I prefer to ask you just to be certain.

In a RadGrid, I replaced this binding <%# DataBinder.Eval(Container, "DataItem.ModuleID") %> with the wollowing one: <%# DataBinder.Eval(Container, "DataItem.ModuleIDSource.ModuleNomFR") %>, but it did not work. With the new binding, I should see Module Names instead of Module IDs in the column, but it is empty. On the same page, I also have an ASP GridView with this binding: <%# Eval("ModuleIDSource.ModuleNomFR") %>, and it is working, so I know for sure that ModuleIDSource.ModuleNomFR does contain values.

On another page, I replaced an asp:DropDownList with a radC:RadComboBox, using the same properties. But I am getting an error. Here is the control:

                        <radC:RadComboBox ID="TypeModuleDropDownList" runat="server" DataSourceID="ModuleDataSource" SkinsPath="~/RadControls/ComboBox/Skins"
                            AppendDataBoundItems="true"
                            SelectedValue='<%# Bind("ModuleID") %>'
                            DataValueField="ModuleID" DataTextField="ModuleNomFR"
                            OnSelectedIndexChanged="OnSelectedTypeModuleChanged" 
                            AutoPostBack="true">
                            <Items>
                                <radC:RadComboBoxItem  Value="" Text="Tous les types de module" Selected="True" />
                            </Items>
                        </radC:RadComboBox>

Here is the error:

Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: 1

1 is supposed to be a valid value. It is working with a DropDownList 

This is why I am wondering whether these controls are compatible with .netTiers. I would like to have this confirmed before I buy a set of controls for 800 $.

Cheers!

JF