How to build a real application with Kendo UI

[Marc]

I'm well aware that Kendo UI is fairly new and that the team is working hard to improve various aspects of the framework. But RIGHT NOW, what would be the best way to start building a serious, large application with Kendo UI? I'm especially interested in the following topics:

• Maybe I am blind but so far I haven't seen anything like layouts (see e.g. ExtJS) which help me in building complex, resizeable arrangements of the various UI widgets. So assuming there are no layouts at the moment, what is the best way to get similar results?
• Probably most complex applications use some kind of docking component (see e.g. RadDocking) which lets the user rearrange different views. Are there any plans on building such a component for Kendo UI?
• For the moment I could live without a docking component as long as there are some basic layouts as mentioned above and some kind of collapsible containers. Is there anything like that?
• I've seen that the next framework version will provide a MVVM infrastructure. This is great news. But when I need to setup my application architecture right now, how would I do this? Knockout.js? Do you think it's possible to migrate from Knockout to Kendo's MVVM infrastructure afterwards?

Alright, these are quite my primary questions. It would be great to get some feedback about this.

Thank you in advance and
merry christmas,

Stephan

[Anders]

I also want to now more about the MVVM strategy.

[Dimo]

Hello,

With regard to layouts, take a look at the Splitter, TabStrip and PanelBar. I am afraid we do not have docking currently, the closest widget to that is the Window. Docking is not included in our short-term implementation plans. The PanelBar is a collapsible container, but the TabStrip can also be customized to behave that way by manually collapsing its container <div>s with animation.

With regard to our MVVM offering, yes, you can use Knockout.js right now and migration to MVVM will be possible, but we cannot guarantee full compatibility.

All the best,
Dimo
the Telerik team

[Marc]

thank you dimo for your response.

are there any plans to add support for "real" application layouts like: flow, border, grid, etc.?

[Dimo]

Hello Stephan,

The layouts that you have mentioned, are usually implemented by the developer by using CSS code and HTML snippets that are repeated, depending on some datasource and the number of items in it. In certain occasions, ready-to-use HTML snippets (a.k.a. item templates) can be provided, as in a ListView widget, which is planned for release in March 2012. For further information and updates, please keep an eye on our Kendo UI Web roadmap.

In the meantime, you can use a combination of the Kendo datasource and Kendo templates, as shown in this demo:

http://demos.kendoui.com/web/datasource/remote-data.html

Kind regards,
Dimo
the Telerik team