What's everyone's experience with the Telerik controls?
I'm seriously getting bogged down with too many bugs with the Telerik controls. While Telerik is right on top of these bugs and has offered to give me immediate support, in the interest of time, I'm really thinking of removing all the Telerik controls and sticking with the basic Microsoft ones.
We mainly bought these controls for Web Apps anyway. I just thought, hey I'll use Telerik ones for WinForms too... well I'm starting to regret that as I see constant errors popping up in design mode. Things that are causing me to have to re-create entire forms. Well, I've gotten smarter and started to use a lot of user controls, so I'm not losing much time by deleting and dropping the control back on the form if something screws up.
I also think the designer in VS.NET is partly to blame too -- and my need to use TableLayoutPanels and SplitContainers, which seem to make things disappear -- and don't even try to rename these!
I'm seriously getting bogged down with too many bugs with the Telerik controls. While Telerik is right on top of these bugs and has offered to give me immediate support, in the interest of time, I'm really thinking of removing all the Telerik controls and sticking with the basic Microsoft ones.
We mainly bought these controls for Web Apps anyway. I just thought, hey I'll use Telerik ones for WinForms too... well I'm starting to regret that as I see constant errors popping up in design mode. Things that are causing me to have to re-create entire forms. Well, I've gotten smarter and started to use a lot of user controls, so I'm not losing much time by deleting and dropping the control back on the form if something screws up.
I also think the designer in VS.NET is partly to blame too -- and my need to use TableLayoutPanels and SplitContainers, which seem to make things disappear -- and don't even try to rename these!
18 Answers, 1 is accepted
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Hello Jason,
Firstly, we would like to apologize for the glitches you have found and for the troubles you are experiencing with our WinForms tools. There are certainly some issues related to design time of our controls that are difficult to workaround, however we are doing everything we can to fix them, especially if they are related to our products, rather than the IDE.
Regrettably, our WinForms controls are still in their infant stage and this leads to some of the problems. Most issues however will be addressed in the upcoming service pack, scheduled for next week (May 15th). In case you find any problems, please feel free to report them so that they get addressed.
Again, we are sorry for the troubles caused.
Kind regards,
Mike
the telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
Firstly, we would like to apologize for the glitches you have found and for the troubles you are experiencing with our WinForms tools. There are certainly some issues related to design time of our controls that are difficult to workaround, however we are doing everything we can to fix them, especially if they are related to our products, rather than the IDE.
Regrettably, our WinForms controls are still in their infant stage and this leads to some of the problems. Most issues however will be addressed in the upcoming service pack, scheduled for next week (May 15th). In case you find any problems, please feel free to report them so that they get addressed.
Again, we are sorry for the troubles caused.
Kind regards,
Mike
the telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
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PortVista
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answered on 08 May 2007, 01:47 PM
Thanks -- again it's really nothing against Telerik -- I know it's a new product. I'm wondering what everyone else's impression is though. I suppose I'm one of the few using the controls. :)
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Marek
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answered on 09 May 2007, 03:47 PM
We've just started using the Telerik WinForms controls and have run into some of the issues you mention. However, I have found that by closing all open windows and then reopening the form/user control in question the problem has gone away (lucky perhaps?). There were issues around this addressed in the VS2005 service pack - I'm assuming you have that.
Generally though, we have been using a similar, more established Windows Forms offering for a while, but have decided to standardise on Telerik. Any problems we have identified or features requested have been added to the todo list. One of the reasons for [probably] going with Telerik has been the excellent support they provide.
I guess for us the service pack next week will determine whether we stick with the Telerik controls or revert back to the other offering.
Generally though, we have been using a similar, more established Windows Forms offering for a while, but have decided to standardise on Telerik. Any problems we have identified or features requested have been added to the todo list. One of the reasons for [probably] going with Telerik has been the excellent support they provide.
I guess for us the service pack next week will determine whether we stick with the Telerik controls or revert back to the other offering.
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Lance Tofsrud
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answered on 15 May 2007, 03:39 PM
I can totally sympathize with you PortVista when it comes to the errors that sometimes pop up from time to time when using the new WinForm components.
I am in the same boat as Marek, where I have opted to standardize on a single (or maybe two) vendors for my components and I've also made the switch from what could be considered a leading competitor. But, I am also in it for the long haul and like you said, Telerik has been great in their customer support role as well for me too. They've been quick to respond with either a great workaround/fix or a timeline as to when it will be patched.
They've undertaken a huge step by also moving into the WinForm and Reporting components and it will take some time for the bug count to dwindle but soon enough we'll get a series of new products that match the quality of their ASP .NET components.
Just wanted to let you know that we're all in the same boat. Group hugs all around. LOL!
I am in the same boat as Marek, where I have opted to standardize on a single (or maybe two) vendors for my components and I've also made the switch from what could be considered a leading competitor. But, I am also in it for the long haul and like you said, Telerik has been great in their customer support role as well for me too. They've been quick to respond with either a great workaround/fix or a timeline as to when it will be patched.
They've undertaken a huge step by also moving into the WinForm and Reporting components and it will take some time for the bug count to dwindle but soon enough we'll get a series of new products that match the quality of their ASP .NET components.
Just wanted to let you know that we're all in the same boat. Group hugs all around. LOL!
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Hello Lance,
Thank you for your kind words.
We have two main goals at this time: to provide all essential controls in the first couple of releases (we are almost there, although new controls will be added with each release), and to reach the proven reliability record of the ASP.NET suite. The Winforms is a very new product for us and we are still learning from our mistakes, but things are looking very promising and we will be fulfilling our goals with each release, be it minor or major.
We are open to any feedback as this will help us reach our goals faster. As you all know, our team is very responsive and we will help you guys get over the issues you have stumbled upon.
Sincerely yours,
Vassil Petev
RadControls for WinForms Product Manager
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
Thank you for your kind words.
We have two main goals at this time: to provide all essential controls in the first couple of releases (we are almost there, although new controls will be added with each release), and to reach the proven reliability record of the ASP.NET suite. The Winforms is a very new product for us and we are still learning from our mistakes, but things are looking very promising and we will be fulfilling our goals with each release, be it minor or major.
We are open to any feedback as this will help us reach our goals faster. As you all know, our team is very responsive and we will help you guys get over the issues you have stumbled upon.
Sincerely yours,
Vassil Petev
RadControls for WinForms Product Manager
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
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Sasa Milovic
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answered on 07 Jun 2007, 07:29 AM
I have motivated our department to standardise on telerik because of their great web controls. Seeing that telerik had also released wincontrols, we though we may as well try those too. Unfortunatly there are many disgruntled co-workers moaning about the stability of the Winforms controls, since starting to use them.
I have commited myself to keep working this these controls, but I am must admit it will be difficult to convince people here to stick with telerik if some of these "bugs" don't disappear soon. I can understand a complex fearture behaving a bit unreliably, but basic designer functions etc should at least work, but even this core functionality doesn't work properly. Should these controls not maybe be name "Telerik WinControls Beta"? When is a release coming out which we can use with confidence? To be honest we could do with less "flash" and more solid functionality.
Please bear in mind, that I really like the Telerik Webcontrols, and Teleriks quick and helpful support is great, but these Wincontrols are a real let down thus far.
I have commited myself to keep working this these controls, but I am must admit it will be difficult to convince people here to stick with telerik if some of these "bugs" don't disappear soon. I can understand a complex fearture behaving a bit unreliably, but basic designer functions etc should at least work, but even this core functionality doesn't work properly. Should these controls not maybe be name "Telerik WinControls Beta"? When is a release coming out which we can use with confidence? To be honest we could do with less "flash" and more solid functionality.
Please bear in mind, that I really like the Telerik Webcontrols, and Teleriks quick and helpful support is great, but these Wincontrols are a real let down thus far.
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Guys, I just wanted to jump in and post what we have in our plans for Q2 2007, due in September. The public Roadmap will be updated with this information next week.
We have gathered quite a bit of feedback from other clients through the support system, as well as from the Winforms survey which is currently running, and we have a pretty good picture of what is going on.
It seems that most of you are accustomed to the quality of our ASP.NET controls and expect the same from the Winforms controls. Although this is a very valid expectation, we have to take into account that the ASP.NET suite is quite mature, being on the market for more than 4 years. The Winforms suite was officially released in November, which makes it just 8 months old. Indeed, it needs some polishing, but in reality we have not had any major issues reported after Q1 SP1, which means that we are getting closer and closer to our ASP.NET counterpart.
Best wishes,
Vassil Petev
The Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
We have gathered quite a bit of feedback from other clients through the support system, as well as from the Winforms survey which is currently running, and we have a pretty good picture of what is going on.
It seems that most of you are accustomed to the quality of our ASP.NET controls and expect the same from the Winforms controls. Although this is a very valid expectation, we have to take into account that the ASP.NET suite is quite mature, being on the market for more than 4 years. The Winforms suite was officially released in November, which makes it just 8 months old. Indeed, it needs some polishing, but in reality we have not had any major issues reported after Q1 SP1, which means that we are getting closer and closer to our ASP.NET counterpart.
This said, Q2 2007 will see quality in terms of:
- improved performance and stability all around
- major overhaul for RadTreeView, RadGridView, and RadComboBox to boost performance and ease of use
- enhanced API with more events, methods, and properties for all controls
- full revamp of the documentation
Best wishes,
Vassil Petev
The Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
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Brad
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answered on 10 Jul 2007, 04:28 AM
I feel very similar, after extensive use of telerik web controls I had very high expectations for their win from controls. An expectation that definitely has not been met!
That said telerik are very fast at making repairs to their controls, so as long as we all report our bugs and suggestions I’m sure they will have a polished product relatively fast. It will be interesting to see what Q1 2007 + SP2 will look like?
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Hi guys,
SP2 for WinForms is now Live and you can access it from your accounts. This has been the most thoroughly tested version we have released to date, and we think that you will be pleasantly surprised by the improvements we have added to the controls. All bug fixes that have been reported have been fixed as well (the Release Notes can be found here: http://www.telerik.com/products/winforms/release-history.aspx).
We will be happy to hear your feedback on the latest release.
FYI, last week we updated the WinForms Roadmap for Q2. We have taken into consideration your feedback from the WinForms survey and we believe that RadControls for WinForms Q2 2007 will match our ASP.NET offering in terms of stability, performance, documentation and examples.
Greetings,
Rob
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
SP2 for WinForms is now Live and you can access it from your accounts. This has been the most thoroughly tested version we have released to date, and we think that you will be pleasantly surprised by the improvements we have added to the controls. All bug fixes that have been reported have been fixed as well (the Release Notes can be found here: http://www.telerik.com/products/winforms/release-history.aspx).
We will be happy to hear your feedback on the latest release.
FYI, last week we updated the WinForms Roadmap for Q2. We have taken into consideration your feedback from the WinForms survey and we believe that RadControls for WinForms Q2 2007 will match our ASP.NET offering in terms of stability, performance, documentation and examples.
Greetings,
Rob
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
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PortVista
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answered on 10 Jul 2007, 06:28 PM
Thanks -- the release history and roadmap is a big help for me in not only re-evaluating the controls, but providing better feedback.
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xeon
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answered on 24 Jul 2007, 01:46 PM
I think it was a bad decision to put into the market this pre-mature product. It is still evolving, api changes, class refactoring, so i doubt QA team could validate a release. Definetly need a stable release and working on bug fix only , not implementing new things. (planned as Q2 ?)
I have evaluated other products also, they had lots of bugs too, so
i think you could have a good position in the market when succeded to
stabilize winforms suite.
I have evaluated other products also, they had lots of bugs too, so
i think you could have a good position in the market when succeded to
stabilize winforms suite.
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Thank you for the feedback, xeon.
We are quite confident that we have a stable product at this stage. I agree that we still have a few glitches to work out, and I can ascertain you that they will be fixed in the Q2 release. The remaining items on our bug list are indeed few, so we will appreciate it if you share any problems that you have stumbled upon while using the latest Q1 SP2 release. We have enough time to address whatever issues remain and to focus on the last set of QA tests.
Our WinForms suite is gathering momentum and we are happy with the adoption rate. We also get good feedback on the latest Q2 SP2 release that our controls are shaping up really well, and that the potential is there. It is still a relatively new suite, having been on the market less than an year. As such, it may lack some features, but most of our clients are already seeing the benefits of our controls in terms of stability and performance. For example, RadTreeView is now 5 times faster than the standard treeview with 50,000 nodes. The Grid and the Ribbon got a nice performance boost as well. We are also working on new layouts, which will provide you with easier development experience, as well as standardized looks.
I am sure you will find the Q2 version to be much more mature and enhanced, as the main focus will be on performance, stability, and QA.
On a side note, we are running a new poll, "Help us shape v4 of RadGridView!," which we would like you to fill out. It will help us decide which features are most important for you so that we can plan their development. We will share the results of the poll weekly in order to keep track of what the next GridView will be like.
Again, thank you guys for your feedback.
Regards,
Vassil
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
We are quite confident that we have a stable product at this stage. I agree that we still have a few glitches to work out, and I can ascertain you that they will be fixed in the Q2 release. The remaining items on our bug list are indeed few, so we will appreciate it if you share any problems that you have stumbled upon while using the latest Q1 SP2 release. We have enough time to address whatever issues remain and to focus on the last set of QA tests.
Our WinForms suite is gathering momentum and we are happy with the adoption rate. We also get good feedback on the latest Q2 SP2 release that our controls are shaping up really well, and that the potential is there. It is still a relatively new suite, having been on the market less than an year. As such, it may lack some features, but most of our clients are already seeing the benefits of our controls in terms of stability and performance. For example, RadTreeView is now 5 times faster than the standard treeview with 50,000 nodes. The Grid and the Ribbon got a nice performance boost as well. We are also working on new layouts, which will provide you with easier development experience, as well as standardized looks.
I am sure you will find the Q2 version to be much more mature and enhanced, as the main focus will be on performance, stability, and QA.
On a side note, we are running a new poll, "Help us shape v4 of RadGridView!," which we would like you to fill out. It will help us decide which features are most important for you so that we can plan their development. We will share the results of the poll weekly in order to keep track of what the next GridView will be like.
Again, thank you guys for your feedback.
Regards,
Vassil
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
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xeon
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answered on 26 Oct 2007, 02:14 PM
I have downloaded Q2 SP1 and it's hard to say but it seems no change how telerik manages releases. Maybe older things are stable now but new features (like hierarchical grid, databinding with bindingsource) not well polished at all. I don't want to go into details but i have around 10000 telerik points for bug submitting.
To conclude if i were telerik i would offer a small set, but well tested (in real word project) components with a less feature. Yes, that is less customer also, but in a constantly growing numbers as new (well tested) components arrive.
The current way you have result maybe more customers with that huge set of controls, but i think you are loosing some of them with the mentioned bugs and pre-mature features.
This was not intended as offence rather than an advice for the future.I personally evaluating other ui-suites as well and hopefully leave telerik.
Best wishes
To conclude if i were telerik i would offer a small set, but well tested (in real word project) components with a less feature. Yes, that is less customer also, but in a constantly growing numbers as new (well tested) components arrive.
The current way you have result maybe more customers with that huge set of controls, but i think you are loosing some of them with the mentioned bugs and pre-mature features.
This was not intended as offence rather than an advice for the future.I personally evaluating other ui-suites as well and hopefully leave telerik.
Best wishes
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PortVista
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answered on 26 Oct 2007, 03:41 PM
I am hearing that the Q3 release should be cleaned up.
I'm wondering if there should be two versions of such controls as the datagrid. A simple one without any hierarchical functions is all I need.
I'm wondering if there should be two versions of such controls as the datagrid. A simple one without any hierarchical functions is all I need.
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Brad
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answered on 27 Oct 2007, 01:11 AM
At the moment I have to sacrifice cute furry little animals every time I alter the telerik win forms controls in the designer.
I think the win forms controls still pale in comparison to the asp.net ones. My largest issue is with the instability of the telerik win forms controls in the Visual Studio IDE. Occasionally I will make a change to the controls in the designer leave the page and when I return the page will no longer display the form in the IDE. (Errors) I will then have to go back to my version in source and make the changes again or fix the code directly in the designer code behind file.
Enough with the negative, now for the positive! Despite the current issues, I have still been willing to use these controls in my applications because I have confidence in the telerik team and their ability to follow RAD (rapid application development) methodologies successfully. As long as we (Telerik Community) continue to report our problems in detail, this set of tools will soon become viable in production systems/applications.
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PortVista
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answered on 27 Oct 2007, 01:44 AM
I'll agree with support being really top notch here. I just wanted to point out, aside from Telerik's problems, that there are a great many "bugs" within Visual Studio 2005 anyway if your project grows beyond a simple sample type app. I've got quite a large client/server app that's taken me over a year to tame by maintaining a modular design (i.e. user controls, classes, modules, etc). Oh it's easy to drag and drop yourself a nice data grid, create a table adapter, etc, but do anything like change the connection string and you're faced with 100's of errors because the VS's code generator can't keep up. Here's hoping 2008 fixes this.
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Brad
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answered on 27 Oct 2007, 03:54 AM
Well I don’t think telerik can do much for our Visual Studio problems. Except maybe sacrifice a few large furry animals to the gods of Microsoft. I have to say that I’ve had my fair share of VS nightmares over the years. Personally I try and avoid a number of their (MS) data controls in production systems. (Have my own classes...) The MS data controls are handy for quick demos and mock-ups though!
I’m not sure how many developers are trying to use the telerik win forms controls in production or soon to-be production applications. And without a decent user base it can be difficult to solve some issues… I would imagine that a number of bugs wouldn’t raise their heads until the controls are being pushed hard.
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I agree wholeheartedly with you, guys.
We have fixed many issues based solely on your feedback and we cannot be more thankful for your push for better controls. As a result, and as Jason knows, we are now actively working on RadGridView – the most used control in the suite - to make it better and more usable. Refactoring will be done to the GridTableBodyElement, to the mouse and keyboard event notifications, to the update/repaint/synchronize mechanism, and possibly to caching. The data layer and the logic layer will be merged into a single mold business layer, which we hope would improve performance. We will also overhaul the editor sub-system, as well as the scrollbars, which are a bit slow in their current implementation. Themes will also be optimized a bit, as well as other small optimizations that are awaiting in the pipeline. We are doing this to make your (and our for that matter) life easier. If all goes well, we will release these improvements with a Q2 SP2 tag soon.
The Visual Studio problems, however, are outside of our reach. Still, we would ask you to forward your problems to us so that we report them to Microsoft, especially if you are not sure whether VS2005 is causing them. Hopefully Microsoft will be able to fix the design issues for the official launch of VS2008.
Jason, the hierarchical grid model significantly changes the complexity of the control and its API. Nevertheless, when working in non-hierarchical mode you should not experience any hierarchy-related problems. For this reason, we do not intend to provide a separate "lite" version of the grid at this point.
Yours,
Vassil
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center
We have fixed many issues based solely on your feedback and we cannot be more thankful for your push for better controls. As a result, and as Jason knows, we are now actively working on RadGridView – the most used control in the suite - to make it better and more usable. Refactoring will be done to the GridTableBodyElement, to the mouse and keyboard event notifications, to the update/repaint/synchronize mechanism, and possibly to caching. The data layer and the logic layer will be merged into a single mold business layer, which we hope would improve performance. We will also overhaul the editor sub-system, as well as the scrollbars, which are a bit slow in their current implementation. Themes will also be optimized a bit, as well as other small optimizations that are awaiting in the pipeline. We are doing this to make your (and our for that matter) life easier. If all goes well, we will release these improvements with a Q2 SP2 tag soon.
The Visual Studio problems, however, are outside of our reach. Still, we would ask you to forward your problems to us so that we report them to Microsoft, especially if you are not sure whether VS2005 is causing them. Hopefully Microsoft will be able to fix the design issues for the official launch of VS2008.
Jason, the hierarchical grid model significantly changes the complexity of the control and its API. Nevertheless, when working in non-hierarchical mode you should not experience any hierarchy-related problems. For this reason, we do not intend to provide a separate "lite" version of the grid at this point.
Yours,
Vassil
the Telerik team
Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center