DesireToFire Posted October 20, 2003 Posted October 20, 2003 I appologise if this question has been asked many times, I tried searching but didnt find an awfull lot. I've been given the task of deciding which (UI)component suite to buy or which free components that the company i work for will standardise on. The basic controls we want in Visual Studio.Net/Office XP and possibly Office 2003 style are as follows: Menus Toolbars Docking Tabbed MDI I'm aware of the controls available from http://www.divil.co.uk/net and I've tried a selection of the commercial controls such as dotnetbar. Since I'm not paying the cost isnt as big a concern, but its proving to be a tricky desicsion to make. I would be ver gratefull for youre oppinions on such controls, which controls are in youre toolbar? Quote
*Experts* Volte Posted October 20, 2003 *Experts* Posted October 20, 2003 I recommend divil's controls firstly, but if you don't like those: http://www.dotnetmagic.com/ Quote
DesireToFire Posted October 20, 2003 Author Posted October 20, 2003 I wouldnt say i really dislike any of the controls I've looked at so far. divil's controls are pretty good and for the price i dont think you could ask for much more, the only problems I've found with them are fixed(unmoveable) toolbars and when clicking on the top left corner of an application using the controls (The close/minimize/maximize menu) it kind of looks flatened with a white edge. I hope that made some sense. I'm somewhat less clear on the http://www.dotnetmagic.com/ controls, I've found an older version on sourceforge, but they appear to no longer be free. Do you have to purchase these controls or can the older version still be used for free? Quote
Hamburger1984 Posted October 20, 2003 Posted October 20, 2003 I think they (the old versions) are still free - since they were distributed with GPL-Lizenz (is it GPL? no idea.. they're free..) another library that looks very good (but I haven't used yet - due to its price) is available on this site: http://www.codejock.com/ Andreas Quote
*Experts* Volte Posted October 20, 2003 *Experts* Posted October 20, 2003 Huh, it looks like you're right. The newer version appears to cost $200. The older version is still good though, if you can find it. Quote
DesireToFire Posted October 20, 2003 Author Posted October 20, 2003 The http://www.codejock.com/ components certainly look very good, and they even have a an office 2003 style. I prefer the Office XP look myself but i think some of our coustomers would be impressed by the 2003 look. Sadly the price is not cheap that really would be hitting the limit of the budget ive been given. The older version of dotnetmagic is available here, i assume theres nothing wrong with this link. http://sourceforge.net/projects/dotnetmagic Any more oppinions? Im trying to narrow my search down to a few suites. I know i shouldnt be so lazy, but its hard to get a good feel for components without using them for a while first. Quote
*Experts* Volte Posted October 20, 2003 *Experts* Posted October 20, 2003 Maybe you should download the trial versions of those components and see which one you like best. Quote
DesireToFire Posted October 20, 2003 Author Posted October 20, 2003 Oh I have done, I'm trialling commercial components from the following companies, its proving to be quite a task. Codejock Developer DevComponents Infragistics Innovasys Syncfusion Xceed I've also looked at the ComponentOne stuff included in the VB resource kit, but we were pretty dissapointed with there menus. If you move between menus quickly you can still see the previous one with the new menu on top. Quote
AlexCode Posted October 20, 2003 Posted October 20, 2003 I think you should take a look at http://www.devexpress.com I have all their .net suite controls and there's nothing bad to say about them... :D I use specially the XtraMenus and the XtraGrid and there's nothing compared to that on the market... If you want, buy the source code and see for your self... About the companies you told I just worked with some Infragistics tools and most of them aren't trully .net... are some "masked" ald COM controls... Try DevExpress's controls... you wont regret! :) Quote Software bugs are impossible to detect by anybody except the end user.
DesireToFire Posted October 21, 2003 Author Posted October 21, 2003 Well we defenitley want something 100% .Net so if thats true about Infragistics then theyre off the list. The only complaint I have about the DevExpress components is that the toolbars have a rather thick title bar when dragged off of a form, i havent had an oportunity to see if this can be changed. I know im being far to picky about it, but we supply software to a number of other IT companies and they really pick up on the details. Quote
AlexCode Posted October 21, 2003 Posted October 21, 2003 I have the XtraBars component but I never notice that... mostly because I never allow the user to play around with my toolbar! I desable this property mostly regarding the support issue... They call telling that this button or this toolbar just desapeared! :D A serious thing about DevExpress it's it's support, they reply to you on max 24 hours... very nice... I may sound like I get something out of this publicity but I really like these controls and I see so many people buying junk controls like I did in the past. Just to finish, last year, here on the office, we got the professional suite of ComponentOne and... it really really really sucks. The controls sucks, the suports sucks... they make 1 update per week minimum!! It may soud great but if you develop a control that you have to deploy weekly updates... It really sucks... :D Quote Software bugs are impossible to detect by anybody except the end user.
Morlem Posted October 21, 2003 Posted October 21, 2003 The most stable components IMHO are from Infragistic... I would suggest u to uz 'em. =) best regards Quote
*Gurus* divil Posted October 21, 2003 *Gurus* Posted October 21, 2003 I used to use DotNetBar, I would recommend it as a comprehensive suite of UI controls. Its downsides are that its designer support isn't too great, and you have to include a ~900kb dll with your application. I even have a license I might be able to sell you since I don't use it myself any more. If you're not in a hurry, there will be a major new version of my own menu and toolbar library which supports floating etc sometime in the next few months. Quote MVP, Visual Developer - .NET Now you see why evil will always triumph - because good is dumb. My free .NET Windows Forms Controls and Articles
DesireToFire Posted October 21, 2003 Author Posted October 21, 2003 DotNetBar does seem pretty good. I'd say the docking in youre controls is probably closer to Visual Studio.Net than DotNetBar's, you also certainly win on pice too. DevComponents are doing a 40% off discount until the end of the month, which would be quite a nice saving. We are looking at getting a license for 10 developers , I guess you have a single developer license. We are in a bit of a rush sadly, I'll certainly keep an eye out for updates on youre web site. The designer integration on youre components is particularly impressive. Quote
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