February 14, 2012

Editor’s Note, Telerik Newsletter, February 2012

Hello, all, and welcome to the February, 2012 edition of the Telerik newsletter! As the newest employee at Telerik, I’m still learning all of the good stuff we’re doing just in the area of developer tools.

For example, the features in JustCode that fix up my using statements (Ctrl+Shift+U) and show me a type’s shape and implementation via the JustDecompile integration (F12) are now ingrained into my fingertips, but I just learned (JustLearned!) that if I want to get completions on types that aren’t even listed in my using statements, I can use Ctrl+Alt+Space and keep right on coding, which is one of a ton of new features in the 2012 Q1 release. More new features in the Just family of tools include a new decompilation engine in JustDecompile to more completely handle new .NET constructs, a new Largest Memory Retainer” view in JustTrace to find memory leakers and the ability write your very own JustCode extensions. And the Reporting and OpenAccess ORM tools have great new features coming, too!

On the controls side, for which Telerik is very well-known, we have new features in the ASP.NET AJAX and MVC suites, XAML Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone 7 suites and even the WinForms suite. For example, one of the more amazing controls for me is that RadFileExplorer, which provides an entire logical way to explore files over the web, however you’d like to expose them, and is now updated with thumbnail image support. Plus, AJAX adds support for client-side data binding, exporting to Excel for RadTreeList and nearly complete support across the entire suite for OData. Further, MVC, Silverlight and WPF all get much enhanced data visualizations with charting and diagramming.

However, my favorite set of additions in the controls suite has to be focus on the end-to-end app building support from the WP7 team, including handling ratings, tooltips and the new Application Building Blocks, which includes components for sending diagnostic data back to the developer, implementing trial feature and app expirations and a helper for implementing LiveTiles. This set of components came directly out of the experience the WP7 team had in building and shipping the Tasks apps, which started as the ToDoLists sample. The WP7 team that working hard to make mobile developers happy, even providing guidance on how to build apps your customers will love and how you can make money on your apps.

All of this mobile experience is pouring directly into a whole new set of controls, tools and components that we’re building for Windows 8. Even today, JustCode already support the Visual Studio 11 and our controls have a Metro style theme built right in. Of course, we’re not going to stop there; we’re already spinning up a team dedicated to helping you build end-to-end mobile apps on Windows 8. We’re working closely with Microsoft to make sure we release our Visual Studio 12 extensions and support when VS12 ships, but you’ll see more from us even sooner than that. Stay tuned!

Really, there’s too much good stuff to list, so if I were you, I’d hang out on the Telerik blogs and on the @Telerik twitter feed to see what’s coming up. Even better, check out the upcoming webinars to see the new features in action and install the free trials. And, if you’re got questions, even with the trials, drop us a line on our support center and we’ll get you answers right away. Or, if you’d like to talk to me directly, feel free to drop me a line. We care deeply about making sure our customers get when they need, so keep those cards and letters coming!