Where can I find the 'real' documentation that tells me some/any key information I need to code enterprise level web applications with the NetAdvantage WebDataGrid, WebGrid or UltraWebGrid? (Still trying to figure why I have 3 datagrids)
It seems all I can find is overly simplistic help about how to use the WebDataGrid designer followed by a few line code example. It seems to me that I am missing the 'technical' manul for these controls.
The Developers Guide section covers minimilistic information about the WebDataGrid and webGrid each has an API reference links which show object hierarchy and nothing else? How do I learn Infragistics 'domain' from this?
Further down in the docs I see API reference which has an UltraWebGrid but find nothing about it in the Developers Guide section.
I'm sure a product that seems to have such a good feature set and has been around this long should have documentation for enterprise level developers..........doesn't it? ......please point me to it.
cisarjr, this is a great story--thanks for sharing! Specific feedback is very helpful.
mikeschellenberger, thanks for highlighting that we can improve our docs. There is indeed room for improvement, and we have recently made more investments both in product guidance staff and strategy. These things will take a bit of time to come to fruition, but know that we are working on them right now. As Tom mentioned, our dev support staff would be happy to help you overcome your immediate needs while we work to improve the docs. I do understand your frustration, and I hope you can reconsider.
We have a ton of ideas on how to improve and things we're already working on, but hearing specific stories from customers about how they are actually using our controls in real life is even better. We'd love to hear more from both of you and get more stories about what you are trying to achieve. This helps us nail down where we're missing the guidance you desire so that we can fill those gaps.
We heard what you said here, but if you have more to tell, please do message me (my details are in my sig).
Cordially,
Due to the poor documentation our company has made the decision to 'waste' a fair amount of time to remove/replace Infragistrics controls from our current project as well as ban it's use in future projects.
I have to agree with the complaints above that the Net Advantage 9.2 API and CSOM documentation, mainly of the Aikido controls like WebDataGrid, is just too poor. Looks more like an automatically generated class model, not a documentation.
Due to radical changes in the Aikido's object model design (comparing to "Ultra") the developers just need to navigate through the new API and CSOM object models and quickly find what they need. But they just can't. The documentation misses any explanations and what's worse, it misses reasonable structural navigational links, so a developer with no knowledge of the new object model cannot find relations of the classes.
Example: I just need the CSOM "editor provider object" of a column of a WebDataGrid. I'm unable to navigate to anything like that. It was quite silly to find the ColumnSettings via Behaviors (no explanation to this new structures), but the editor's not present in the ColumnSettings anyway... I am lost and stuck.
I hope the era really skips to the RAD. Not there yet.
Tom,
I appreciate your direction on how to use help, but I am used to wading thru technical documentation and quite familiar with the Help interface. I've probably read more technical docs than Infragistics has even thought about.
Please be assured the docuemntation I have does not provide near enough help for someone to reasonably learn to use these products.
Hi Mike,
I am sorry that you feel that way about our Documentation. We have a good balance between code and designer based topics. It sounds like you are more interested in our API section. The API section is the documentation that is generated on the actual object model or the HTML Markup as you call it. The Developer’s Guide basically provides guidance in tutorial based format and the API section provides guidance by modeling the entire object model of all classes in the library.
In your case, you start out:
1. By using the API Overview page of your respective control. In this case, the WebDataGrid API overview highlights several key classes. We have this page so that people do not get lost in the sea of API members that exist in our assemblies. We also have this page so that you know which assembly your control exists in (In this case, Infragistics.Web.UI.GridControls).
2. You can also jump directly to the Assembly and locate the control class. In this case, you can locate WebDataGrid, expand the Table of contents node and then review its properties, members, events, etc. You can then continue to drill into the object model further to get access to the sub-object properties.
We have a wide range of customers that use our product, especially those in the enterprise level application development area. We are all here to help you out, so if there is something that you want specifically, let us know and we can help.