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Frederic Latour
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Frederic Latour asked on 31 Jul 2007, 03:10 PM
Hi,
The various deployment options of telerik controls (problem would occur with other 3rd party controls as well) with Moss may cause some problems at some time. Either for Web Part development or specific apps in layouts folder one is facing the following limitations:
1) if not deploying in GAC, several versions of the same control may not cohabit. The latest deployement will override the previous ones and will break possible web parts or apps using that specific version.
2) If deploying in GAC still you may encounter a problem in the following scenario. Let's say a Web Part using some radcontrols has been deployed. Another web part using some radcontrols - some of them being used  as well by the first web part - is also deployed afterwards. In case, one of this web part is removed (solution is retracted), the radcontrols that were deployed alongside this web part will be removed from the GAC thus breaking the other web part which was relying on some radcontrols that have been removed.

Can you confirm my scenario?

In order to get rid of this dependency, I made some tests using ILMerge:
I built a web part and merged it with the radcombobox control assembly and then deployed this web part on Moss.

When using embeded sripts, it didn't work. For some reason, I am getting a script error on the page. There must be some good reason why but I didn't get further.
I then decided to use scripts from from radcontrols "dir". I had to rename the script version folder using the version of the resulting merged assembly. That seems quite logical as you must asked for the current assembly version. Though it seems to load the script correctly and be overall working, I have some strange results.
More specifically, regarding radcombobox, the drop down does not expand adjacent to the input field like if I had applied a 200 OffsetX.

I did not test other radcontrols using ILMerge as there seems to be some side effects.

Any idea of what could be the reason?

What do you think of the ilmerge scenario? It could solve some deployment problems when using development frameworks like Moss and could also make it possible to prevent possible reuse of your controls by internalizing them when merged.

Thanks in advance for any input.
Regards,

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Dimitar Milushev
Telerik team
answered on 01 Aug 2007, 02:26 PM
Hello,

What you have described is a common problem with various frameworks that allow customization through third party products. Another example of the same scenario is DotNetNuke and its module system.

As you already pointed out, you will need to deploy the controls assemblies to the GAC, so multiple versions of the same assembly can coexist. However, if another solution is retracted and it uses the same control version, the control will be removed from the GAC (we have tested this with our RadEditor control). In this case, you need to instruct the SharePoint admin to re-deploy your solution in order to restore the missing GAC assemblies (or alternatively, copy them in the GAC manually).

As for ILMerge - it is possible to use it, but indeed it does not work with embedded resources. You seem to have figured out how to use the RadControlsDir instead.

I don't the think the problem you are experiencing is caused by the merging, though. It is probably a CSS problem - MOSS tends to have a lot of CSS styles that are too generic (e.g. affecting all DIVs) and tend to interfere with third-party CSS styles quite often. Can you please try switching to another MasterPage, for example the default.master? Or you can try using a clean page with no MOSS styles. If this fixes the problem, it's definitely a CSS problem.

Let us know how it goes.

Sincerely yours,
Dimitar Milushev
the Telerik team

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Frederic Latour
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answered on 01 Aug 2007, 03:01 PM
Hi,
Thanks for answering.

The fact is that the exact same web part with the exact same radcombobox works fine (no unexpected X offset) when not ilmerged (ie using GACed radcombox.Net2.dll). I'm using this web part for some time without any problems.

I tought you may have an idea of possible interactions in this specific scenario. Maybe the "html" that is emitted could rely on the original assembly to some extent? (This is just an idea as I'm really not an expert regarding html emitted by server controls).

More generally, are they any problem you may think off when ilmerging serveral radcontrols together?
Regards,
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Dimitar Milushev
Telerik team
answered on 02 Aug 2007, 11:07 AM
Hello,

Generally, the ILMerge scenario is unsupported. In the Combobox case, you can open a support ticket and send us the generated HTML from the two cases so we can compare it and eventually recommend a solution.

Best wishes,
Dimitar Milushev
the Telerik team

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Frederic Latour
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Dimitar Milushev
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Frederic Latour
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