So last week I hosted the "What's New in Q2 2012 for ASP.NET AJAX and MVC" webinar. Throughout the entire show you, the attendees, had full access to asking me questions - and boy did you ask questions! I managed to summarize the questions in to the most common ones, or group certain ones in to a more generic question to cover multiple questions at the same time. Below you will find all of these aggregated questions, with some hopefully decent answers from yours truly ;) As always, if you do not see your exact question chances are it is grouped together with another question or just reworded a bit.

General

I am new to web development, which technology should I choose ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC or Kendo UI?

This is a pretty loaded question! In all honesty it depends on what kind of web development you are looking to do. First of all, ASP.NET AJAX and ASP.NET MVC are two platforms found within ASP.NET which are just two paths to reach the same end-point; A web application created with .NET technologies. Kendo UI is unique in this regards as it is a JavaScript library which enables it to be server-technology agnostic. I would say that it’s good for any web developer to know how to develop applications utilizing any of these technologies so that you get a good grasp of when to use one or the other. You could also look at the Telerik Platform Guidance for Microsoft .NET page here to get some additional suggestions.

Can we migrate our ASP.NET AJAX applications to ASP.NET MVC?

It depends on what you mean by migrating. Are you looking for an automatic conversion tool? There really is not one laying around, the platforms are different enough to where this isn’t really possible (without creating a huge mess). If you are referring to the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and our MVC components we do not have a conversion tool either, but we do offer similar features and functionalities so you could develop similar applications. Keep in mind though, the MVC components are much younger than the ASP.NET AJAX controls so there might be some features not quite there yet.

Is Telerik planning to unify ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC and Kendo UI all under a HTML5 components product?

At this time we are looking to create server-side wrappers for Kendo UI for the technologies that make sense, and ASP.NET MVC was at the top of our list. While it is not impossible for ASP.NET AJAX wrappers to occur, right now we are focusing on the development of Kendo UI and the MVC wrappers.

Does the latest release of DotNetNuke include the latest Telerik controls?

It depends on when DNN released their latest version. Since they are not on the same release schedule as Telerik, and they need time to integrate the product into their application. Usually they tend to have the latest version of Telerik integrated in to DNN a few weeks past our official release, but this is up to DNN.

Is there still a long term future for ASP.NET WebForms? Or is the future all in ASP.NET MVC?

ASP.NET WebForms and ASP.NET MVC are both receiving updates from Microsoft, as can be seen by the upcoming release of ASP.NET 4.5. ASP.NET MVC has an additional advantage of being able to be updated separately on its own, but this can also be seen as a chance for ASP.NET MVC to catch up to the robustness for ASP.NET AJAX. I do not foresee the disappearance of either of the platforms.

Either way, Telerik is firmly committed to both technologies going on forward so you can rest assured that you will have components for any platform that you choose.

Are there any plans to support ASP.NET WEB API in the future?

While we do not have specific WebAPI plans right now, a lot of the features that WebAPI introduces have already been inside of the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX for quite some time. We also quite easily integrate with WebAPI as can be seen in this introduction blog post, and this follow-up post mentioning CRUD operations.

AJAX

General

Is the new mobile skin available for all Telerik RadControls?

Yes, the new mobile-friendly skin is available for all of our ASP.NET AJAX controls. It’s just like our other built-in themes that we have available.

Will the TreeMap control find its way into ASP.NET AJAX?

While we do not have immediate plans for creating an equivalent for our XAML TreeMap control, however you can feel free to submit this into our Public Issue Tracking System (PITS) and vote and comment on the desire to have this included in the suite.

Are there any plans to include RadDiagrams component in ASP.NET AJAX set of controls?

Currently we have not planned to include the XAML RadDiagrams control in our ASP.NET AJAX suite, but just as with the question above you can go to PITS and submit this.

When will you add RadAutoCompleteBox to the ASP.NET AJAX controls?

Similar to the control requests above, I would recommend submitting your request to PITS.

How do the Telerik RadControls affect ViewState? Are they fairly lightweight?

While the Telerik ASP.NET AJAX controls do utilize ViewState, we try to keep it as minimal as possible allowing you to have as light weight of an application as possible.

We always face difficulty with skinning 3rd party controls, have you made this a simple task?

We sure have tried to! To start off, we have tools such as the Visual Style Builder, an online tool to help you stylize and skin our controls. We also have a large list of documentation articles which go into detail on a control-by-control basis specifically regarding styling.

Are the ASP.NET AJAX RadControls moving away from the server-side?

Not at all! The controls have always maintained an even balance of server-side and equivalent client-side features. If you happen to only see a client-side feature implemented in a new release it is most likely just providing you with a client-side approach to what has already been available on the server side.

Is there a link to the newest features and sample applications?

You can always visit our “What’s New” page which will be updated with the latest information regarding our releases. As for the sample applications you can find these under the “Integration Examples” menu item on our demo page.

Are there any plans to provide an offline skin builder for the web components?

While we currently do not have one right now, this is an interesting idea that I will bring up to the product team.

Is the Q2 2012 release of the Telerik ASP.NET AJAX controls compatible with ASP.NET 2.0?

The last release which had support for .NET 2.0 was Q3 2010. Unfortunately any newer version and releases going forward will not support .NET 2.0.

How compatible are the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX with mobile devices?

The controls work fine on most mobile devices. We actually have quite a bit of documentation surrounding the mobile browser story, such as this documentation article.  Essentially we test our controls in mobile browsers for each release, and we even have some built-in JavaScript files to help with mobile device support when it comes to interacting with the controls

Chart

Does the new HTMLChart control have drill-down capabilities?

Currently the control does not have drill-down capabilities, although you can request this functionality by submitting it to PITS.

Can we print the HTMLChart?

While printing is supported it is actually the browser’s printing engine that is utilized – nothing specific to the control.

Can the HTMLChart be saved as an image?

Currently this feature is not available out of the box. There are 3rd party libraries which can convert an SVG element to an image, but Telerik does not provide this functionality in this initial release.

Is the new Chart control compatible with iOS and Android devices?

It should be compatible with iOS 3.x and above as well as Android 4.x and above.

Will there be Chart type X?

There’s definitely a chance for any chart type to be created! What I recommend is submitting a feature request to PITS as we will actively look at the feature requests there to see what you, our clients, would want to see.

Are there 3D charts?

Right now there are no 3D charts, but there could be some in the future! As with the answer above, I suggest PITS.

Will HtmlChart replace the RadChart? What is the advantage of using one over the other?

I would recommend utilizing the RadHtmlChart for any future implementations of charts within ASP.NET AJAX. We have actually mentioned several times that development for the RadChart component has been reduced to critical bug fixes. The main advantage of utilizing HtmlChart is due to its lightweight rendering and the fact that it’s not a static image (like RadChart) – it’s an SVG element which allows for a lot of interaction to be added to it. Of course, RadChart does currently have more functionality, but give it a release or so and this gap will be even smaller.

Will zoom, scroll, and drill-down capabilities be added to HtmlChart?

They most certainly might be added in the future and to ensure their successful implementation I say submit this in PITS as this will allow you to vote and comment on these kind of features – showing to us just how important these features are to you.

Editor

What is the performance impact of using track changes?

From my experimentation I haven’t noticed any real performance impacts with using track changes in the editor.

Is there an option to compare documents using track changes?

Track changes is specifically meant to track the changes of the RadEditor’s current content, and we do not have hooks in the API to compare the content to a second source.

Can the tracked changes be saved in a database?

The tracked changes are actually all just HTML tags, so it would be the same as saving the content of the RadEditor before the track changes feature was introduced.

Is it possible to open a DOC or DOCX file in the editor?

While you cannot import a document in a .doc or .docx format, you can actually import (and later save) an RTF file

Is it possible to save the content of the RadEditor directly as a HTML file?

The content of the RadEditor can be extracted on both the client and server side as a string, which could be utilized to create a HTML file directly.

Barcode

Is there a QR barcode for the RadBarcode control?

Currently the QR barcode type cannot be generated using this initial version of RadBarcode, but feel free to submit this in a PITS request.

Can Barcode generate barcode X?

All the barcode types that can be generated can be seen in the “Barcode Type” dropdown in our First Look demo. If, for some reason, the type you are looking for is not listed there I recommend submitting a PITS request.

Can Barcode generate an image instead of SVG?

Currently this feature is not built-in to the control. There are 3rd party libraries which can read SVG and output an image, but we do not provide this feature in the barcode control at this time.

Are 2D barcodes supported?

Although I initially thought that 2D barcodes just meant a height and a width, I have been corrected by someone with more knowledge on the subject :) Currently we do not have support for 2D barcodes.

Are 3D barcodes supported?

As with 2D barcodes, 3D barcode types are currently not supported.

Is Barcode supported for mobile and desktop applications?

As long as the mobile device contains a browser which supports SVG (which most major device OS’ do with their latest versions) it will run fine on those devices. As for desktop applications, all of today’s modern browsers have SVG support and in cases where they do not there is a VML fallback.

Is there a barcode reader control?

Currently we do not have  barcode reader control.

Is it possible to embed the barcode control in Reporting?

Reporting already has a barcode generating feature as one of its Reporting items, so there should be no need to integrate this control in to Reporting.

Grid

Where is the Pivot Grid that was mentioned for Q2 2012?

Unfortunately the PivotGrid was not ready for the initial Q2 2012 release. However, I would keep an eye out for the first Service Pack to see the introduction of the RadPivotGrid control.

Does the RadGrid support server-side paging, or does all the data have to be loaded at once?

Out-of-the-box the RadGrid actually implements server-side paging, where it will only load the necessary data for the current page being displayed in the control. You can of course change this behavior if needed, but this tends to be a fairly efficient way of handling a control which can be responsible for holding extensive sets of data.

Is export to excel a standalone component?

This functionality is currently integrated in to the control itself, and is not available as a standalone control.

Does the new Grid export to Excel preserve styles and allow for ignoring paging?

Yes, there are actually options you can set to either ignore or keep these styles and paging so if you wanted to just output a particular page with no styles you can as well. This demo gives you a chance to play around with the various settings and see the effects for yourself.

How do the multi-columns headers work with the drag to group functionality?

Yes, you can still do drag-to-group utilizing the multi-column headers. This demo shows this functionality off perfectly - feel free to test it out and see what it looks like!

Input

Will you consider changing the default SingleInputRendering for the Input controls to false?

While we will most likely keep this property set to true by default, we do have some interesting developments and changes surrounding SingleInputRendering. While I can explain it here, we already have a blog post that goes in to more details that I can here so feel free to follow this link to read more about the changes.

MVC & Kendo UI

Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC

Is there a ReportViewer for ASP.NET MVC?

Currently we do not have a ReportViewer for ASP.NET MVC. This would actually fall under the Reporting product team’s umbrella. As with all the questions that contain feature requests the best way to express your need for this would be to submit this as a feature request in PITS.

Will there be a RibbonView component for ASP.NET MVC?

Currently we do not have immediate plans for a RibbonView component in our MVC component suite. However, this does not mean it cannot be there in the future. Go ahead and submit it to PITS and this will allow yourself and other developers looking for this component to vote and comment to show your love for the RibbonView!

What is the future of the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC?

This is quite the hot topic, and would take quite a while to explain. Luckily I’ve actually already written a blog post on this exact topic a couple of weeks back, which goes in to detail what is going to happen with the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC with the introduction of Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC. To read more about this topic, please refer to this link.

Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC

When is the official release of the Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC wrappers?

The official release should be alongside the Q2 2012 release, which should occur in July (I believe on the 11th). You can actually play around with the beta already today, and for more details on the Q2 2012 release of Kendo UI please take a gander at this blog post.

Can you comment on the difference between the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC and Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC?

While there are differences between the two suites, they’re also very similar, so this is a bit of a tricky question to answer in a way. The best way to see the immediate differences would be to take a look at our migration document found right here, which explains how to migrate from the Telerik Extensions to Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC. As for the future, Kendo UI will be the library to receive the new features and components so the release after the official release should already be showing a lot of differences in terms of component availability.

Is Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC compatible with all major browsers?

Yes indeed it is! Take a look at this Kendo UI page (scroll down a bit) and it will go over all of the major browsers and versions that are supported.

Where do I get started with Kendo UI development?

The best spot to go would be KendoUI.com. Specifically the resource that I find the most useful is the demo page since it allows you to interact with the component and feature, and then see exactly what code goes into implementing the same thing in your application.

Is Kendo UI going to have ALL of the functionality of the current MVC components in its first release?

We will have a very close mapping to the functionality of the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. If there are any features that are missing they would be very minor, and could be resolved within the next Service Pack.

Can a project contain both the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC and Kendo UI?

Yes, both the Telerik Extensions and Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC can be used in the same project. Actually, we set this up so that it makes the migration even easier when going from the Extensions to Kendo UI. Please refer to our migration document for more information.

Does Kendo UI for MVC theming follow a similar CSS architecture as Telerik Extensions for MVC?

While the theming and skinning overall is a bit different we are offering legacy skins within the Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC components to ensure that you can get the same style for both types of components.

Will Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC support IE6?

The earliest version of Internet Explorer that is supported is IE7 and IE6 will not be supported. This decision was not only taken internally, but also voted upon in our forums. Essentially IE6 support will introduce too many roadblocks, and will slow down overall development, so we want to focus on providing more features and new components.

I currently own a license of Kendo UI, will this grant me access to the MVC wrappers?

You will need to upgrade to the new Kendo UI for ASP.NET MVC product, which will also contain Kendo UI complete, in order to get access to the new MVC wrappers.

We want to do mobile application development, do we need Kendo UI?

Yes and no. The RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX do work on mobile devices pretty well, but Kendo UI was designed with the idea of having client-side components that will run on both desktop and mobile devices. Additionally, Kendo UI also has Kendo UI Mobile which is a set of mobile-specific components for creating native-like applications with frameworks such as PhoneGap.

Got more?

So, I'm sure those answer will keep you busy for a while, but if you do have more questions you can always feel free to ask away down in the comment section below! As always, I encourage you to go out and download the latest bits and see how they can help you in your web development life already today!