We Recap the Telerik DevCraft Q3 2015 Release Webinar

The landscape for .NET developers is fast changing and now more than ever, you need the best possible tools to get your job done. Just in time comes the Telerik DevCraft Q3 2015 Release—packed with goodies to enable you to build the next generation of amazing applications for desktop, web and mobile.

Fall/Autumn is a time to get out and enjoy nature, not be holed up in your cubicle. Here’s to Telerik DevCraft helping you deliver projects on time and above expectations. Q3 was a big release and you know the right tools make all the difference.

Relive the Content

On Oct 14th, Telerik developer advocates Michael Crump, Sam Basu & Ed Charbeneau unpacked the Telerik DevCraft bits during the Q3 Release Webinar. For our worldwide audience, we tried covering the content in two time slots this time​—and it looks like it paid dividends for most audiences in conflicting time zones. If you could not make it, you can relive the webinar in its entirety—we now have high definition recording available!

Prize Winners

What’s a Telerik webinar without some awesome prizes? In tune with what’s hot in the Microsoft devices space, we had picked Surface Pro 3 and Xbox One—developers need to be productive everywhere and have fun as well, right? We picked four random winners among webinar attendees for each of the two time slots. You win just for showing up!

11 AM EST Timeslot Winners:
Xbox One​—Dave Scholl
Surface Pro 3—Mark Aydelotte

6 PM EST Timeslot Winners:
Xbox One—Eric Zhuang
Surface Pro 3—Tom Franklin

Congrats winners. Hope you enjoy your prizes!

Additional Questions/Answers

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the webinars for us advocates is the Q/A at the end. We appreciate developers looking at our latest tooling and coming up with real-world questions on usage or product features. While we try to answer as many questions as we can on air, there are just way too many to cover​—here are some additional questions and answers on the most appropriate queries and expanding on product roadmaps.

Mobile:

Q: Do you have any examples of real-world apps for native controls?
A: Yes, you can check out our Windows Phone App Showcase and our customer apps in the spotlight for iOS and Android.

Q: When will UWP UI Controls be available in the Telerik Control Panel?
A: Right now, the new UI for UWP suite is in CTP. As the product becomes official, we will add it to your Telerik Control Panel for easy downloading.

Q: Are you working on a Grid in UI for UWP?
A: If you check the Windows 10 UWP Controls roadmap, you will see that the Grid is our top priority for Windows 10. Other highly prioritized controls are the Image Editor and the design templates from UI for Windows Phone.

Q: Is there sample code for UI for Xamarin?
A: Yes, it is included when you download the UI for Xamarin control suite.

Desktop:

Q: How do I implement themes like you did for the RadTimeSpanPicker?
A: We have 15 themes that are currently available. You can learn how to use a theme HERE. Have fun.

Q: What is the main use of Icon Set for WPF?
A: To provide icons for your app so that you won't need to buy them elsewhere or hire a designer.

Q: Please elaborate on Desktop Alerts for WPF.
A: It allows you to display notifications on the desktop if a specific event occurs in your application. For example, a new e-mail message, meeting request or task request. It is displayed as a small pop-up on a predetermined location for a short period of time and will disappear shortly thereafter. Please look HERE for more info.

Q: Tell me more about the Medical Sample App for WinForms.
A: The Medical App demo shows how to integrate several Telerik components to build a real world scenario of a doctor-patient management system, allowing doctors to manage their patient records, visits and appointments. You can find it in the integration example in our WinForms demo application.

Q: Do the Telerik UWP controls play nicely with most of the open source MVVM frameworks (like MVVM Light) out there?
A: Yes. Just like UI for Windows Phone and UI for Windows Universal, UI for UWP uses standard XAML property bindings and commands, which makes it easy to use with an MVVM architecture.

Web:

Q: Is it possible to use Spreadsheet control on a server without Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel DLL?
A: The new Spreadsheet widget in both UI for ASP.NET MVC and UI for ASP.NET Ajax are stand-alone UI components. They render HTML5-based spreadsheets in-browser and do not depend on any 3^rd party or Office components.

Q: What kind of apps can be developed using the Kendo UI framework?
A: Kendo UI is Telerik’s front-end HTML5, JS & CSS framework that aids in building modern web and mobile applications. Web applications built with Kendo UI can be for desktop or optimized for mobile. Kendo UI Mobile UI widgets can also be used to build Hybrid mobile apps for App store presence and full mobile device integration through Cordova plugins.

Q: Does the Web Components support in rendering Kendo UI widgets not work in IE/Edge?
A: Kendo UI embraces modern web technologies like Web Components and Angular 2. Keep in mind, however, that lot of these technologies have emerging specifications and not production-ready yet. As such support for upcoming specifications (like Custom elements, Shadow DOM etc. in Web Components) varies across browsers. Kendo UI simply wants to provide you with the most flexibility and acceptance of newer technologies should you wish to dabble.

Q: Can you explain the real benefit of MVC Scaffolding?
A: Kendo UI MVC Scaffolders for MVC Grid, Scheduler or Charts can be the developer’s best friends. The scaffolding solutions are meant to easily string together your Model, View and Controllers in an MVC application. Given a Model and Data Context, the scaffolding tools generate a lot of the plumbing code needed for seamless CRUD operations. This is code you would otherwise have to write by hand; the scaffolding tools simply give you a head start in the right direction.

Report Server:

Report Server has come a long way since introduction—consider it your one-stop shop for robust Report Management. This quarter, Report Server gained valuable features like Report Scheduling and WS Federation (AD FS) Authentication support.

The excitement for Report Server is palpable and we had a lot of questions from you all. To do it justice, the Report Server product team will take all the questions and make a separate blog post out of it. This will also answer your relevant doubts and spotlight some upcoming features coming up in the roadmap. Look out for it on the Report Server blog.

Resources

Webinar Recording - https://youtu.be/84iJN9EUDbs
Michael’s Deck - https://speakerdeck.com/mbcrump/devtools-q3-2015-webinar
Sam’s Deck - http://1drv.ms/1MXaubp
Ed’s Deck - http://1drv.ms/1Z7sgzg

That’s a Wrap

This may be one of the best times to be a .NET developer. The future is bright, cross-platform and developer-friendly. The types of applications you can build with .NET have the broadest spectrum of user reach ever. So, go ahead and build your next dream application in .NET for web, desktop or mobile—Telerik DevCraft tooling is right alongside to help you! We’ll talk to you again during the Telerik DevCraft Q1 2016 Release. Until then, adios and have fun coding!