I have to agree that the learning curve for Infragistics controls can be fairly steep. I have been using IG controls for Win and WebForms for some years, and have a fair understanding of the controls I use. Learning any new controls can be somewhat daunting, and can consume large amounts of development time.

I also use controls from other supliers, and have found the experience to be fairly similar.

The easiest way a developer can learn a control is to see it in action. OK, I know IG has examples etc, but these tend to show many controls being used simultaneously and only cover perhaps a single aspect of the control a developer may be interested in.

A much better way would be to have many simple examples in a library. On release of a control, IG could produce a few examples of the control being used. Then when a developer runs into trouble trying to use the control, either IG or a forum contributer could provide a solution example. In this way a shared libary of simple examples could be quickly assembled, providing both old and new developers with an easier learning curve.

So, what about it IG ?  Would you create a contributable library in these forums ?

Alex Samson

IT Consultant

Alex

Project examples do help clarify usage for complex tools, but this approach creates "vectored" development (in which developers are "vectored" into a design approach modeled after another developer's technique.) 

 Creativity with tools intended to be used at the presentation layer simply must have meticulous documentation, and any tool developed in this generation WITHOUT context sensitive help is inexcusable.

We've all seen this faux pas from developers: after they finish a half-hearted effort at documenting their product, that's the end of it.  Their first efforts propogate from generation to generation with only minor addendums, instead of comprehensive review, reorganization, and new efforts to take advantage of new documentation technology (like video exemplar in deployed solutions.)

With tools as complex as IG's, at this price point, customers should settle for nothing less.  And, in a way, I think that they vote their dissatisfaction by skipping generations of releases when they don't perceive the polish and detail that meets the current best practice.

Jason

Jason,

I agree to an extent with your comments, but the problem is that all software vendors are faced with the problem of enhancing existing products and developing new ones, When a new product or version is released (especially in the control marketplace) there is strong pressure to move on to the next version, partly due to us, the customers, who demand new features.

The above means that the documentation of software often is given a much lower priority.

Yes, I would like to see more documentation effort (with context sensitive help), but the effort involved in this would almost certainly result in a more expensive product, and I am not sure this may be the best path.

In another post in this section, I have advocated a searchable database of code snippets contributed to by both IG staff and IG customers. My gut feeling is that this may be not only a more cost effective option, but also one where developers can learn much more quickly about any product features.

I think IG products represent good value for money, and have experienced other vendors who supply poor quality products and documentation. I will continue to renew my yearly subscriptions to IG products as renewal costs are much lower than initial purchases when skipping several releases.

Alex

Hi guys,

I'm intrigued by this idea of a code snippet share.  I'm wondering, do you think we could just do that on these forums?  The reason I think that might be best is that I think we devs already like to go to forums when looking for help to a specific problem.  The forums have a pretty good search engine and are indexed by Google, and they support attachments.  We are also working on getting an insert code snippet feature going as well.

We could all use, say, "Code Snippet" as a tag on such posts, then we could more easily find them. 

Thoughts?

Exactly. Share working small sample codes right here!

I saw IG staff spending tons of time in talking here and old forum. Please provide one page sample web application with short description.

Hello there. I've been working with Infragistics tools for about two years now. The one thing I have seen over and over again, on just about every control, and most recently on the Web Schedule set of controls, is the complete and utter lack of real world examples and help documentation on creating applications that require customization of your controls. Below is the current, frustrating example.

We're creating a calendar application. I started with the month view. I installed your sql scripts to create the database, and delved in to your examples. You had a vb.net example, which used to be rare and was nice to see, but then I quickly realized you had done the usual IG thing and nearly all of the example was in javascript. The codebehinds looked like a ghost town, devoid of code.  Javascript is notoriously hard to follow when it gets in to the amount you use, but I gave a big sigh and started in on it anyway. After a week of trying to customize it to what I need, I realized it was useless. First of all, your example uses older versions of some of the controls. Second, I needed to add additional fields to the Add Appointment dialog. The forums were more helpful than your documentation on that, which is common, but even they weren't able to fully explain it. You have one example in the knowledge base, but it describes only half the process. The other half you have to wing it and pray. I had to extend your appointment object, which is fine, but then using that extended appointment object in the custom data provider I had to create was difficult. I had to call your support multiple times. Thankfully, you have a wonderful man named Nainil that apparently knows the WebSchedule stuff inside out. Even he was stumped a couple of times. But eventually I managed to get it all worked out.  I have been progamming for 9 years. The other people on my time have been doing this for just as long, or longer. It took us over a month to get this all working correctly. In hindsight, I would rather have just coded my own calendar system than use your control simply for the length of time it took to figure it out, and customize it. At least if I create it myself, I know how the thing works.  But I use third-party controls because I want to save time.  This is completely unacceptable.  By comparison, any new control from Microsoft we can usually figure out and fully impliment, with customizations, in a few days or less. Telerik controls take a little longer, but nowhere near as long as yours.

It's not the controls. Once you figure them out, they're wonderful. It's the samples and documentation, and severe lack of dev presence in your forums (unless they're trying to defend themselves). I know you want to charge everyone for good help, but what you're going to end up doing is just losing customers that would have bought another subscription. 

That's my opinion and experience. Others may vary. Have a good one.

Michael J. Collins
Alston & Bird, LLP
Application Development