Your challenge is very interesting reading.  I am glad it has gone from throwing trash to useful discussion.  I have been programming since you had to punch your Assembler code onto 80 column hollerith cards and it has always been difficult.  They were teaching that computers would program themselves by the 2000.  But who is going to re-boot them?? 

I have been through Assembler, COBOL, C, C++, IDEAL, Clipper, dBASE, Access, .NET.  All promised that it would be simpler to create systems.  Tis has been the software promise since the beginning of silicon chips.

Programming is not easy.  If it were just drag and drop we would not get paid the big $$ and not be as valuable to our employers.  There are many ways to accomplish the same goal so which one is "best"?  Like any language, you build your experience with these controls by using them over time.  To emphatically state that one is better or easier to use is the same as debating VB vs. C#.

I used Protoview and Sheridan before they became Infragistics.  The controls have grown up so much over time.  Adding the browser just makes it more of a challenge to develop controls that can be rendered with predictablility.  I don't know who is better but I view Infragistics kind of like Microsoft.  Infragistics set a standard and now others are using this standard to try and exceed what Infragistics has done.  In my opinion it is more difficult to blaze the trail than it is to find a better/faster trail.  Infragistics has set a standard and now Telerik is trying to raise the bar.  We should celebrate the healthy competition as it wiil force both companies to continue to improve.

My 2 cents.

Bob

that is weird as it works from several different server locations for me, are you using IE7?

I've tried to view this several times. never could see it. just now waited 20 minutes but it never loaded nor timed out.

Yeppers as my 3 anonymous bosses will swear under oath "I am a team of one" hehehe

The thing about IG is "anything" is possiable I have even gotten the controls into C++ (few hacks here and there) but for the most part over the years I have learned what each web and win control is capable of so building something as simple as the outlook demo is more about aranging the controls correctly... And i cannot stress APPSTYLIST enough (win and web) the guys at IG have done fantastic work in this area which will allow you to pretty much do anything you want with a IG control...

The webpanel is useful for so many things from (hell i have even used it as a dhtml window before) and then just applying the right effect can make it go from a normal div panel to an "Message Notification" window... because of the challenge I didn't do a few things (not allowed dhtml lol) otherwise i would have added a mouseover "pause" event that would have stopped it from disapearing etc.

Did you click on your search box (text area) lol mimics outlook exactly hehehehe

So I just got to ask Cedric, Michael did you buy some good kneepads? hehehehe

PS
While I am efficient in pretty much every language known to man (yes even fortran) for windows and web apps I prefer VB.NET as I can put alot of stuff in the database (like the variable and type ie: i as long) where in C# you can't and since 90% of the applications I right require the user to be able to create forms and events on the fly it is just a pain in the *** (and slows me down) in other languages (well and im lazy)... However for any type of sockets, file handling etc. the only language is C++ hehehehe VB.NET has come a long way since basic and whats the best thing they ever did to VB ding ding ding ding thats right try...catch... ok enough with that lol...

So I am thinking about going ahead and adding POP,SMTP etc. to this demo and just make it a real application thoughts anyone?

oh my, this is looking very impressive. YOU SURE YOUR DOING THIS BY YOURSELF? If you are then hats of to ya. What I like is that even though there is not a native winalert you were able to construct something similar using the webpanel. Good thinking. I guess what this has proved to me is that with a little bit of ingenuity you can use IG to accomplish quite a lot. What you have done there would have taken me weeks.

P.S. Glad to see another VB developer . yeaaaaaaaaa