Frozen Column Behavior

[John S.]

Hello,

It seems for years the many issues with frozen columns have existed in regards to smoothness, actual scrolling (not hiding and showing divs) and row heights changing as one scrolls

The ability to change this is surely possible as the Kendo demo shows. 

Kendo Frozen Columns (nice smooth implementation)

ASP.NET AJAX Frozen Columns (skippy implementation)

In the past I have received responses both publicly and privately that the ASP.NET AJAX feature set is essentially mature and complete. I understand it is mature but it is surely not a complete set of features that never need changes or additions.

Will there be updates to take care of these type of things or is this now a dead product?

Thanks,

John

 

[Marin Bratanov]

Hello John,

I want to assure you that UI for ASP.NET AJAX is alive and kicking. For example, the R2 2018 release that will be live by the end of the week will contain an upgrade to jQuery 3.3.1.

We also apply critical fixes like those caused by browser changes (for example, Chrome recently changed scrolling containers and basically broke all popups positions, Edge 41 broke rich text inputs, etc.) and we do take care of those in order to keep the suite up to date and working properly in the current browsers.

That said, new development is, indeed, happening at a slower pace because demand for it is much lower than it used to be. I agree completely with you that overhauling the frozen columns and/or frozen headers functionalities would be grand (a lot of that was written in the IE6-7 era when modern approaches like those used in Kendo were just wishful thinking), but this is a humongous effort, because they contain a lot of functionality and we must be extremely wary of regression issues. At the moment stability is what is most required of the suite, so such overhauls will not be welcomed by most people as they will also bring breaking changes to custom code (like DOM traversals). From a business perspective, it also makes more sense to invest that time in tasks where it will have a bigger impact on more customers because this will allow us to improve the life of many more developers. For example, creating a native set of React components.

I hope that such a short and candid answer helps. Let me know if you have any outstanding questions on this matter.

Regards,
Marin Bratanov
Progress Telerik

[John S.]

Hello Martin,

 

Thanks for the reply. Know that I do appreciate the compatibility updates. But having said that, I don't consider that exciting news. It is standard maintenance-type work. It feels as if Progress is just using AJAX as a cash cow to fund the programming du jour. I understand why that would be the popular path (I personally don't think it is the correct path though). 

So you are essentially saying that AJAX control suite has halted any further notable changes? 

If so, why is there a request queue for the product? 

If not, what is the 'actual' plan?

Thanks, John

 

 

[Marin Bratanov]

Hello John,

The UI for ASP.NET AJAX product is very mature and we do not plan changes to it. It is not abandoned, however, which is why there is a request queue. There is the chance of something new becoming popular enough so it gets implemented, and this is why the feedback portal is still maintained. 

Let's make a comparison - feature requests for the Kendo library often collect several hundred votes, while the top request in AJAX has 30, and the second - 19. This is telling of the impact a new feature will have in AJAX. If you compare the numbers on implemented features - in Kendo you often go around 1000, while we go as low as <50 in AJAX, which means we implement features that have little impact and demand, yet still we try to handle them.

I am sorry to hear you feel we are not going the right way. I have been as straightforward and candid as possible in my replies to your comments and I have no other information to share, there are no hidden plans, we are trying to be as transparent as possible. 

Regards,
Marin Bratanov
Progress Telerik

[John S.]

Hello Martin,

I do appreciate the transparency and am not saying there are 'hidden' plans. I do feel you answered my questions honestly.

I am just advocating for some changes from the perspective of my business. You have a great product and I don't want to see it fade.

Thanks

John

 

 

[Marin Bratanov]

Hello John,

I want to assure you again that there are no plans to obsolete or sunset the UI for ASP.NET AJAX suite.

Regards,
Marin Bratanov
Progress Telerik