atlas go live and telerik controls

[Marco Dissel]

Hello

The March release of Atlas has a go live licene. I like to know if (and when (rough) or why not) telerik will switch to use the atlas framework.


Thanks

Marco

[Vassil Petev]

Hi Marco,

Thank you for the nice question.

You were the second person to ask about Atlas and r.a.d.controls, and I am sure that the telerik community will benefit from all information below, which I compiled for Nik.

We are still in the process of evaluating the latest ATLAS release and, honestly, we are quite impressed by the current possibilities of the ATLAS framework. ATLAS is a very respectful product with ideas similar to our current telerik AJAX offering, as well as future telerik products and technologies.
Still, our research so far makes us think that currently ATLAS is not mature enough to easily handle advanced cross browser scenarios without the need to write JavaScript and server-side code extensively. We are confident that Microsoft will continue to improve their first (and powerful) JavaScript challenge however we do not know how fast its development will be, namely providing hot fixes, new features, etc. Nevertheless, in the current version of the ATLAS JavaScript library we see that some of the challenges and problems from the older versions have already been overcome.

History of telerik's AJAX support
telerik has been incorporating Web 2.0/AJAX technologies for nearly four years, much before these technologies were widely available:

• r.a.d.treeview offers native AJAX support since 2003. The current version is much advanced and we plan to hit new highs with the upcoming v6;
• r.a.d.combobox was the follower - it offered internal AJAX support in its first version;
• r.a.d.grid utilizes AJAX since v2 which was introduced in mid 2005. The current version improves on its mechanism and enabling r.a.d.grid's AJAX is done by setting just one property;
• r.a.d.calendar also offers built-in AJAX support in its first version;
• the latest addition to our "native AJAX support" line is r.a.d.editor v6 - it now offers reduced loading times of all dialogs and enhanced user friendly interaction. And no settings are necessary as it is on by default. 

Last year we also extended our suite with our AJAX-enabled controls (r.a.d.callback) which is intended to help developers to use AJAX in their applications with minimum amount of coding.  More on the topic can be read here: AJAX support in telerik controls

Interoperability between r.a.d.controls and ATLAS
The compatibility of the r.a.d.controls suite with ATLAS does not depend on telerik only - we will need Microsoft's cooperation as well. Currently, Atlas's UpdatePanel doesn't detect nor execute existing JavaScript automatically, as opposed to our CallbackPanel. In other words, we are not sure that the UpdatePanel is designed to update complex 3rd party controls which use JavaScript, at least not in its current version.

r.a.d.callback vs ATLAS
Below we have described things as we see them:

• As noted above, Atlas's UpdatePanel doesn't detect and execute control's JavaScript automatically, so its 3rd party control support is limited to controls, which do not use JavaScript.
  telerik's CallbackPanel, on the other hand, can update any control if a certain rule is met, namely having the JavaScript between the control's tags. If the control follows this rule, you will be able to update it with r.a.d.callback.
• When you have Atlas's ScriptManager on a page, the entire page starts making async requests instead of postbacks and only the UpdatePanels are updated after server response.
  telerik's current AJAX offering includes 13 AJAX-enabled controls (including all standard ASP.NET controls) plus a powerful AJAX panel, a timer, and more. It provides the ability to define areas on the page which will instantiate AJAX requests and areas which will be updated after the response from the server. This approach can lead to better performance due to that small amount of data being transferred back and forth;
• Atlas's AutoCompleteExtender provides the ability to extend traditional text boxes with a feature similar to Google suggest.
  telerik does not have a callback control to match the AutoCompleteExtender, but offers another, more powerful product - r.a.d.combobox. This product combines full cross-browser support, multicolumns, native AJAX autocomplete,  multiple AJAX autocomplete, templates, and many other features;
• telerik is currently working on its upcoming patent pending AJAX technology, which was presented on the AJAX seminar in NYC earlier this month. The new version will offer a codeless approach to enabling AJAX in any project, including an existing one. More information on this can be found at: http://www.telerik.com/ajaxseminar/, where you can find the our presentation, some demos, ideas, etc.
• Another major difference is that Atlas is available for ASP.NET 2.0 only.
  telerik's AJAX offering does not have that requirement and can be used in any project, large or small, without having to pay the expensive price of porting them to ASP.NET 2.0.
• Finally, telerik offers a complete suite of essential controls which is already callback enabled.
  Using standard ASP.NET 2.0 controls with ATLAS will not offer you the same functionality and features.
• The only shortcoming we see in telerik's AJAX offering is missing WebServices support, however we plan to extend the current r.a.d.callback with this functionality within the next couple of months. Stay tuned.

Our claims, if using r.a.d.callback

• no more broken or lost ViewState
• no more broken execution lifecycle of the control
• no need to write any code in 99% of development scenarios
• complete design-time AJAX execution workflow of the page
• automatic JavaScript execution after AJAX request

And finally, to wrap up this long response, you can review our dedicated AJAX section on telerik.com - www.telerik.com/ajax/. We have created it to strengthen our positions in the AJAX community and to help all developers in their coding efforts.

Please, feel free to share your thoughts!


Best wishes,

Vladimir Enchev
Senior Software Architect, Web 2.0/AJAX
the telerik team

www.telerik.com | dnn.telerik.com | www.sharepointcontrols.com | www.sitefinity.com | www.mcmscontrols.com

[Nik Ivancic]

I guess that I am the first one who asked the "Atlas question", so I saw Vladimir's response in a separate thread before it was published here. Here is my take on Vladimir's explanations, which seems pertinent to this discussion:

Great message, Vladimir, and proportionally appreciated :-)

I do have some feedback on your comments:

1. I completely agree with your statement

• The only shortcoming we see in telerik's AJAX offering is missing WebServices support, however we plan to extend the current r.a.d.callback with this functionality within the next couple of months. Stay tuned.

This addresses the bulk of my "concerns", since my intent is to continue using your superior controls -- and I have immediate need to use Web Services (in the Web application to Web application scenario, that is). It also leaves me without a precise understanding whether I can use the "Web services related Atlas components" without disrupting the normal function of Telerik's controls. Your other comment:

When you have Atlas's ScriptManager on a page, the entire page starts making async requests instead of postbacks and only the UpdatePanels are updated after server response.

makes me believe that you answer will be negative.

[Vassil Petev]

Well, Nik, it seems that we cannot be of much help at this time. If you need to use WebServices immediately, please try it with our controls and contact us back (in a support Forum or in a ticket) if you have problems. Also, please note that not all of our controls support WebServices (r.a.d.grid for example).

We will recommend using our callback controls in projects where WebServices are not needed and/or wait for our WebServices solution, which will probably appear in the Q2 release of r.a.d.callback.


Best wishes,

Vladimir Enchev
the telerik team

www.telerik.com | dnn.telerik.com | www.sharepointcontrols.com | www.sitefinity.com | www.mcmscontrols.com

[Nik Ivancic]

Understood and appreciated. Will try to do what makes sense in a given context and keep you appraised.

Thanks for the time you spent clarifying this issue.

Nik Ivancic

[Marco Dissel]

Thanks indeed for the indept explanation...

Webservice support would be nice, especially if you combine it with dataloading on the other controls (and/or implementing my other request for dataloading see http://www.telerik.com/Default.aspx?PageId=2202&b311D=opVpo )

Thanks

Marco

[Josef Rogovsky]

I just watched the powerpoint presentation.

I thought it was well done.

One thing that caught my eye, was the mention of an Ajax enabled imagemap control.

Can you provide any more info on that? When will it be available?

I recently bought this image map control: http://www.ewoodruff.us/EWSImageMaps.aspx

I haven't started playing with integrating it with callback yet. I plan to this weekend.

It may end up that it's doesn't work inside a callback panel and it would be nice to know that a fallback will be available soon. Besides, I prefer to keep my control vendors as consolidated as possible.

So was that a typo in the presentation or is Christmas coming very early for me this year?

[Josef Rogovsky]

btw, I hope you got a good laugh from slide #7.

I know I laughed when I saw it.