I was really disappointed by the lack of updates and features to the .NET 2.0 controls as well. As a developer that uses these controls literally at least 9 hours a day or more, there is definately some improvements and features that are still outstanding in my opinion.

Also, does anyone know if the Telerik RadCarousel is patented? I could never understand why Infragistics didn't create something like that for the .NET 2.0 framework? I don't have any plans to be a traitor and jump to the Telerik side of the fence, but that was one control I've always wanted to get my hands on.

 Hi Torrey,

For 8.3, we focused on Excel for the bulk of the Windows Forms features.  Being able to read/write the Excel 2007 file format has been a top customer request since Office 2007 was released.  While we were doing that work, we decided to add a bunch of CalcEngine formula requests, as well as better serialization of formulas between the grid and Excel and back.  You are right that CLR 2.0 is not covered under the Excel 2007 file format, but in order for us to make it CLR 2.0 capable we would have had to write a compression engine to accommodate the ZIP format.  We wanted to get the feature in your hands instead of taking another whole cycle to write new libraries that we get for free in CLR 3.0.

On the carousel controls, we invested in doing carousels for WPF in the xamCarouselPanel, xamCarouselListbox and xamDataCarousel controls that display bound or unbound data along any arbitrary Path object.  The focus on WPF for carousel functionality is its ability to render vector graphics smoothly when scaling, skewing, rotating or animating data.  With GDI+ in CLR 2.0, you basically have a card-view style display that spins on a 2D plane, you don't get some of the richer carousel features that one might expect.  The platform does not support the user cases.  You can easily run the WPF controls in Windows Forms via Interop, I'll post a sample showing this tonight.

Moving forward in 9.1, we are adding some new controls and improving features, but I would like to hear what’s on your mind.  What features do you need?  What do you want to see prioritized?

Thanks,

Jason

Here's some ideas for improvements that passed through my mind this morning.

1. WinTab cannot display multiple row tabs in left-to-right top-to-bottom order. As of right now they stack like a pyramid, with the first tab at the bottom. One of my clients recently wanted to use multiple tabbed rows and use them in order to create a flow so that their users don't get confused with the order of things that need to be done. Surprisingly, this wasn't possible preset, and Mike Dour gave me the work around.
2. Designer dialogs for controls like the WinGrid lose all previous changes if you click the OK button. I'm not sure if this was addressed for the 8.3 release, but I'm so paranoid that I will only click Apply when making changes, then click Cancel to leave the dialog. There was more than one occasion I spent more than 15 minutes customizing properties inside that dialog and when I clicked OK everything reverted back. After the 3rd time I wanted to die and adopted the Apply then click Cancel workaround.
3. WinCurrencyEditor when receiving focus places the insertion point before the 0, and for example if you wanted to type 5.00 you'd have to press 5 then press the delete button on your keyboard to get rid of that 0. I can understand that it was most likely left like this to not cause any conflicts when a user tries to edit the box, but shouldn't there be an easier solution for the best of both worlds? For a workaround I captured two events one for the mouse and one for entry of control to issue a select all command.
4. I'm sure you heard this next one as much as I have from clients, Outlook calendar integration with WinSchedule and related controls. I'm working on 11 different clients right now and all but one use Outlook and the calendar. It's almost guaranteed that a new client in the first or second meeting will ask about integration of the software with their calendar. I've never had one unhappy with using your calendar controls, but to have that integration would be a big smile on their faces too.
5. This next point is about documentation. The documentation help file is something I refer to all day long, even in my free time I will search through it and try to come up with new ideas to use the controls you've created. I've noticed that in some control documentation that barely anything was written up, but at the same time you have a nice amount of sample code showing how to use it. Why not place that kind of information into the documentation help file too with more detailed comments?

I can keep coming up with more issues and even feature ideas all day long, but it's nearly 8:30am EST and my boss will kick my butt soon if I don't start programming. :)

The majority of work I do is for small businesses and with Infragistics controls it really helps their projects and ideas stay within budget. I really wish you guys stay innovative with the .NET 2.0 framework while continuing to move forward with the newer frameworks. I know that in the upcoming year I'll be purchasing Visual Studio 2008 and feel fortunate to have the opportunity to afford it, and until I learn to master these updated languages I may have to keep coming back to the 2.0 framework.