More free tools from Telerik, TFS Work Item Manager and Dashboard

If you're not following me on Twitter, and you're not following the Telerik.com Blogs, and you've otherwise missed the news on the echochamber we call the Internet, Telerik made another big announcement this week:

Expanding on our growing line of tools for .NET developers, this week Telerik released two new productivity applications for Microsoft's Team Foundation Server: TFS Work Item Manager and TFS Project Dashboard.

Oh, yeah...they're also both free!

These two tools are obviously aimed at .NET shops that are using TFS for managing their software development, so if you're not a TFS shop, no need to read further. If you are a TFS shop, these tools do two things for you:

1. Work Item Manager - The WIM (as it's known) simplifies the process of working with TFS work items, eliminating the often "clunky" workflow that exists by default. With a single program, you can now easily create work items, query work items, easily sort/filter/analyze items, work with tasks on an innovative "task board" (similar to Scrum Dashboard, but for the desktop), and better visualize all TFS work item data. The tool is designed to be flexible and work with any TFS process template.
2. Project Dashboard - This tool is all about visualizing TFS data. In fact, it's best used by having some dedicated monitor or TV screen in your development area that just runs the Dashboard where everyone can see it (it can auto disable screen savers and monitor power save settings). It displays things like latest TFS project activity, current iteration progress, project veolicity, and (my personal favorite) who broke the last build (with mug shot)! This is a great tool for managers, too, to easily keep tabs on TFS project status and health.

Telerik has been a TFS shop for quite some time now, and we've been using both of these tools internally for the better part of the last 6 months. They have helped all teams in Telerik be more productive with their TFS management tasks and have helped really unlock the data in TFS, turning it in to helpful information.

It works so well for us, we wanted to share it with you. You can download both of these tools from Telerik.com immediately and start trying them with your TFS projects. What do you have to lose?

Enjoy the tools and stay tuned for more exciting announcements!

New Telerik ASP.NET MVC UI Extensions CTP launched today

Ready for some big news? If you're on Twitter then you've probably already seen this announcement (hint, hint), but I know from surveys that many of you are not in to the whole "Twitter-thing" (and I don't blame you). So, on to the news... Today Telerik announced (and released) the brand new Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, a completely open source and purpose built UI "component" suite for MVC. The announcement of this new product is significant for (at least) two reasons:

1. This is the first UI "component" approach built natively for ASP.NET MVC. These are not WebForms controls "hacked" or "squeezed" in to an MVC environment. This is a brand new UI Extension framework that fully embraces the values of ASP.NET MVC - lightweight rendering, clean HTML IDs, clear separation of concerns, easy testability, etc.- while helping make you more productive building MVC views. Our UI Extensions will work in any ASP.NET MVC View Engine, too, and the downloadable samples include projects using both Spark and NHaml.
2. This is Telerik's first open source product. As a small commercial company, it's obviously a big step to introduce a truly open source product. We have a strong desire to support the ASP.NET MVC community, though, and we know open platforms are important to many MVC developers. The source for the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC will be hosted on CodePlex (binaries on Telerik.com) and licensed under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL) - the same license that governs the ASP.NET MVC framework. That means these UI Extensions are 100% free to use, modify, and do with what you please.

This first release is a CTP and only a preview of the power of the underlying UI Extension framework. To show-off the framework, we have included wrappers for some of the jQueryUI client-side components. These wrappers are "proofs-of-concept" meant only to highlight the framework's approach to defining UI in MVC, and in our next release you'll start to see new, custom-built Telerik UI Extensions, like Grid, Menu, and TabStrip. For now, be sure to read the full announcement post by Team Lead Atanas Korchev for all the important details and then jump-over to Telerik.com to download the CTP bits. We hope you enjoy this new open source product from Telerik and we look forward to hearing your feedback!

Announcing Telerik Trainer, RadWebinars

When you're faced with choosing between 3rd party developer tools, what are the most important factors to consider when making your choice? Features? Price? Licensing model? Support? All of these clearly play some role in the decision making process, but I'd argue that when it comes to developer tools support- before and after the purchase- are of unique importance. Unlike other software products or services you might buy, 3rd party developer tools (like the UI components sold by Telerik) are completely worthless until you can figure out how to use them. The tools may have all the features and power in the world, but if you can't figure out how to harness them in your applications you could likely care less.

Point: When it comes to developer tools, their ability to help you build better applications is only as good as the available support and training.

Teleirk has long covered you on this front better than anybody else in the industry- UI component vendors or otherwise- but we're not content to stop there. At TechEd this week we announced two brand new training resources that are going to help you learn to maximize the value of the RadControls better than ever.

First, Telerik has announced that it is partnering with Falafel Software to deliver regular RadWebinars. These online classes will cover a range of topics, from RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX to Telerik Reporting and from beginner to advanced. They will be taught live by the training experts at Falafel (that means you can ask questions) and they will only cost $99. If you're interested in joining the first class on Telerik Reporting, sign-up now because the seats are almost gone!

Next, we have also announced the introduction of an amazing new tool we're calling the Telerik Trainer. This WPF training tool is easily the most advanced self-paced developer training tool I've ever seen and I think it is going to set a new standard in learning tools. We haven't put the Trainer online yet, but soon you'll be able to download it and see the training goodness for yourself. The best way to describe it for now is screencast tutorials on steriods- but that really fails to convey all of the features. Stay tuned for more details and a link to download the Trainer very soon.

With these new learning tools added to our already vast collection of videos and documentation, you should have no trouble learning how to completely maximize the benefit the RadControls can bring to your projects. We all hope you enjoy the new tools!