Q3 2010 Special: Live from HQ with Silverlight

Only three days to go 'til Q3 2010 is officially here! I know the wait is excruciating, but to help you pass the time I have 4 more Live for Telerik HQ interviews to give you a glimpse in to what's coming. We kick-off this week's interviews with a quick update from the RadControls for Silverlight, where we see how the new virtualized data source is going to enable new levels of performance when binding to large data sets. Enjoy the video and keep your browsers locked-in here for more Q3 updates!

Watch the Silverlight interview on Telerik TV in full HD

Did you miss one of the interviews posted last week? Don't worry, they're all available in the Live for Telerik HQ video series. So far, there are Q3 2010 interviews with JustCode, ASP.NET AJAX, OpenAccess ORM, WinForms, and Silverlight.

Public Information Tracking System now live on Telerik.com

If you've been around Telerik for any amount of time, you've probably had this thought: Telerik is awesome, and their support is uber-awesome. I just wish I didn't have to bother them to keep-up with different issues and feature requests they're working on. I wish I could just track bugs and features on my own. And it would be super cool if I could get automatic notifications of changes to the issues I care about! Or something like that. Your wishes have been granted with the release of our new Public Information Tracking System, or PITS. PITS is a Silverlight-based tool that is connected directly to the Telerik Team Foundation Server, where internal teams log and update all of their work items for the various Telerik products. That means PITS gives you a direct look at our plans and progress as we work on improving and enhancing the tools from release to release. It's an unprecedented level of transparency for a software company, but we are that committed to delivering the best possible support communication. The version of PITS you see today is technically a "preview," and more features are planned for the "official" release, such as issue filtering, grouping, and better integration is the existing support ticket system for issue submission. Still, in today's PITS you can:

• View Open, In Progress, and Resolved issues for all products for the current cycle
• View details for each "issue" (an issue can be a bug or a feature request)
• Add issues to your "Tracked Issues" to receive auto updates on status changes
• Directly download fixes to resolved issues
• Vote for open issues! (more on this in a second)
• Comment on and discuss issues
• See charts showing issue progress over time

PITS is built with the RadControls for Silverlight, so it's also a great showcase of a truly smart use of Silverlight for a LOB application scenario. Don't miss the RadTileView implementation! Try minimizing and maximizing the different tiles to see how the data presentation dynamically changes. By far one of the cooler features! Finally, don't miss your chance to let your voice have an even louder impact on our product plans. We always listen to customers, but in the past, customers rarely get to see what other customers are saying. With the new PITS voting system, you can publicly vote for the open issues that you think are more important than others. We'll be using this feedback to directly prioritize our TFS work items, and it will now be clear if you're the only person who wants a feature or if it's a feature that everyone wants (i.e. votes are public). PITS is an incredible tool and it's available to all customers. Check it out and let us know what you think. We have lots of great improvements planned, but we hope you enjoy this new level of involvement in the Telerik development process!

Q3 2009 betas available now, Official release soon (update)

While I may be busy galloping around the world speaking at different events this fall, that hasn't slowed down the Telerik dev teams from marching forward with Q3 2009. The third and final major release of the year is rapidly approaching and that means that now is your last chance to download some Q3 betas and start previewing for yourself what the new release will deliver.

Late last week, Telerik shipped the final two three betas that will be available before the official Q3 2009 release:

• RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Beta 1
• RadControls for Silverlight/WPF Beta 2
• [UPDATE] RadControls for WinForms Beta 1

Both of these suites are shipping new controls in Q3, and both are pushing hard to maximize performance on their platforms. For example, all of the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX will be getting a performance boost in Q3 (about 30%) because our dev team has refactored out almost all reflection-based code in the source. The RadControls for Silverlight, meanwhile, will also be getting a boost due to radically revamped UI virtualization techniques in controls like RadGridView.

I will post more details on each suite later this week as I spend more time previewing the upcoming Q3 bits, but for now, grab the betas and share your feedback. This is your chance to let us know what we should tweak before the bits are "official," so download the betas and share your thoughts in the forums!

RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Beta

[Live Demos] [Download] [Official Beta Forum] [Release Notes]

RadControls for XAML Beta 2

[Live Demos] [Download] [Release Notes]

[Side Note: This does mean that there will not be time for betas for the RadControls for WinForms, Telerik Reporting, OpenAccess ORM, or WebUI Test Studio. Fear not! There are very cool things coming in those suites, too. More details later this week.]

UPDATE: Somehow I missed the fact that the RadControls for WinForms would also be releasing a beta, available today! Beta details below:

RadControls for WinForms Beta 1

[Download] [Official Beta Forum] [Release Notes]

Telerik Watch Minute: Silverlight Q3 2009 Beta and Other News

After another "too busy for my own good"-induced hiatus, I'm back with another Telerik Watch Minute! And this one hearkens back to the "good 'ol days" - short and sweet with a mix of news and demos. In this quick 8-minute update, I'll wrap-up a number of announcements Telerik has made over the last few weeks and do a quick demo highlighting some of the new controls found in the Q3 2009 Beta 1 for the RadControls for Silverlight. What more needs to be said? I guess for your convenience, here are some clickable links for the URLs mentioned in the video: Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC Silverlight Beta Demos Updated Visual Style Builder Guess the Product Video Watch in full size on Telerik TV

First Q3 2009 Beta shipping tomorrow, RadControls for XAML (update)

Looking for a way to get over the midweek hump? How about a freshly minted beta from Telerik to play with? Tomorrow, Wednesday Thursday [UPDATE 2: problems solved, beta now available], Telerik will be shipping the first of the Q3 2009 betas. Tomorrow's beta will focus exlusively on previewing some of the new controls and features that will be part of the Q3 2009 RadControls for Silvelright and RadControls for WPF (remember, these suites share the same codebase and API). Among the things that will be featured in the Beta1 release:

• New Controls (for Silverlight and WPF)
• TileView - a flexible, animated, lightweight layout container
• OutlookBar - a new UI component intended to provide functionality similar to (you guessed it) the panel bar in Outlook.
• RibbonBar - Telerik's first RibbonBar for XAML (SL only)
• Coverflow - All new and leveraging the 2D perspective engine in Silverlight 3 (SL only)
• Improvements
• TabControl - will get support for overflowing and scrolling tabs
• Scheduler - will get new timeline view and resource grouping
• Window - will get added to the WPF suite (already exists for Silverlight) (Oops! Window already exists for WPF. What I meant was...)
• Docking - will get added to the WPF suite (already exists for Silverlight)

And that's just the quick highlights. Stay tuned for more details, previews, and videos once the beta ships. You can already preview some of these controls on the Silverlight and WPF road maps.

This beta will not preview all new functionality destined for the XAML suites in Q3, so you can expect to see more new controls (like RadMap) and features in Beta2 and in the final release. In our aim to incorporate as much feedback as possible in to the Q3 release, though, we're releasing Beta 1 with plenty of time for you to check it out and tell us what you think. Speak now or forever enjoy the Q3 2009 release in peace! (At least until Q1 2010...)

UPDATE: The betas for both WPF and Silverlight are now available for immediate download. Look for the "Beta version available" link under the WPF and Silverlight product downloads.

TechPath shows-off use of Telerik Silverlight on Telerik TV

For those of you that enjoy seeing "real world" uses of the Telerik RadControls (and, really, who doesn't?), there is a freshly minted Telerik Real World episode now on Telerik TV. In this episode, Michael Petersen from TechPath and Jake Winett from Microsoft show-off a very cool (and very complex) reference application that TechPath built for Microsoft. The application was originally premiered at the NAB 2009 conference, and it represents a push by Microsoft to show how all of its technologies can be combined to create an efficent media workflow.

TechPath turned to Telerik to help deliver the rich UI that this application called for, specifically using the RadControls for Silverlight. TechPath had 8 weeks (!) to build and deliver version one of this application for NAB, so they needed UI components that were easy to use, easy to learn, and provided all of the powerful features they needed out-of-the-box. Check-out the video to see how TechPath used the RadControls for Silverlight to deliver their solution on time and then stay tuned for more great Telerik Real World episodes.

Watch TechPath Real World video on Telerik TV in full resolution

Telerik Watch Minute: Silverlight 3 and Extensions for ASP.NET MVC

Building on yesterday's announcement of the new Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, this quick (about 7 minute) Telerik Watch Minute is another chance for you to learn about Telerik's newest product and hear answers to some of your more common questions. Of course, you can get many of these answers in the "unofficial FAQs" I've posted, but if you prefer to hear answers instead of reading them (or you just want some reinforcement), take a few minutes to watch this "news only" video. I've also tossed-in a quick introduction to another big Telerik announcement from yesterday that got buried in the ASP.NET MVC excitement- Telerik has released it's "official" support for the Silverlight 3 platform. Get the details in the video embedded above an enjoy another TWM. Watch this Telerik Watch Minute on Telerik TV (full resolution)

Silverlight 3 is official, Official Telerik support coming soon

As I'm sure most of you know by now (and you would know if you were following my "strictly-ish business" Twitter account - no "lunch reports," I promise), Microsoft officially released Silverlight 3 on July 10th. That's right. Less than 10 months after the official release of Silverlight 2, we have Microsoft's 3rd revision of its headline-grabbing RIA platform. Microsoft is clearly working fast to add features to Silverlight and in the process is releasing new versions of the platform at a record pace. At this pace, we may have Silverlight 4 release candidate bits around the time of MIX this March! Telerik is working fast, too, to keep the RadControls for Silverlight in-sync with the platform. As a matter of fact, you can already download the RadControls for Silverlight 3 from the Telerik.com Latest Internal Builds tool. This version of the Silverlight controls makes Telerik the first vendor to ship support for Microsoft's updated platform. We will ship our "official" support for Silverlight 3 in the forthcoming Q2 2009 SP1 release for the RadControls for Silverlight (due in the next week or so). If you're not ready for Silverlight 3, don't worry. We will still ship Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3 binaries for the next few updates. As we ramp-up development for the Q3 2009 release, though, we will start to leverage the powerful new features in Silverlight 3 to ensure you get the most performant and feature-complete controls available. If you are a Silverlight 2 developer, what are your plans for Silverlight 3 development? Is there any reason you would not upgrade right away to the latest version? The platform is fully backward compatible, so it's hard to imagine a scenario where you wouldn't upgrade your development environment to Silverlight 3. If you are in this predicament, though, let me know! I'm very curious to discover how developers are dealing Silverlight's rapid evolution.

New Q2 WPF & Silverlight videos on Telerik TV

So far I've highlighted all of the new videos for the Telerik RadControls for WinForms and the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX that have found their way to Telerik TV in support of the recent Q2 2009 release. If you're a XAML developer, though, there are also lots of new videos to support you, too! Our XAML evangelist Evan Hutnick has been hard at work preparing new videos to help you get started with the RadControls for WPF and the RadControls for Silverlight, and there are more videos in the pipeline that will be online soon. For now, check out these freshly minted videos: Getting Started with RadWindow for WPF Getting Started with RadToolBar for WPF Getting Started with RadCombobox for WPF Getting Started with Telerik Drag & Drop for WPF Getting Started with RadScheduler for Silverlight Getting Started with RadChart for Silverlight (including 3D charting!) We hope you enjoy these "bite size" training videos and that they help you get the most out of your RadControls. Telerik TV is regularly being updated with new videos, so don't forget to subscribe to the Telerik TV RSS feed to catch all of the new videos as they're posted.

Telerik Silverlight Contest, Win $500

Are you disappointed you did not win during the recent Telerik Q2 2009 Release Week contests? Don't fret! Your next chance to win prizes from Telerik- this time in the form cold, hard Amazon Gift Cards- is already here. Telerik has kicked-off a brand new "Silverlight Contest" where you can show-off your work with the RadControls for Silverlight in-exchange for prizes. All you have to do to enter this contest is:

1. Build an application with the RadControls for Silverlight (you can even use the trials)
2. Create a 1 - 2 page case study describing your project
3. Submit the case study by September 14th, 2009

That's it! Your case study will be voted on by the community during the open judging period September 15th to September 22nd and if your case study gets the most votes, you win. What do you win? Here's the basic prize breakdown:

• 1st Place - $500 Amazon Gift Card
• 2nd Place - $300 Amazon Gift Card
• 3rd Place - $200 Amazon Gift Card
• Top 15 - 5000 Telerik Points
• Everyone - Cool Telerik T-Shirt

There will also be a raffle drawing to give away 5 licenses for the RadControls for Silverlight (or license extensions if you're already a customer). So what do you have to lose? Everyone gets a cool Telerik t-shirt (and our shirts are cool, just ask around), and you have a pretty good shot at walking away with some cool prizes. You've got about 60 days to build those apps and submit your case studies, so get to it! And if you want to talk about your efforts on Twitter, use the #telerikslc (for "Telerik Silverlight Contest") hashtag! Complete contest requirements and details

Telerik Sales Dashboard webinar wrap-up, Slides and Video

Miss today's Weekly Webinar? No problem. The on-demand resources are ready for your viewing pleasure both here on Telerik Watch and on Telerik TV. First, I'd like to thank those of you that took time out of your day to join the live event- hopefully we were able to answer your questions and you were able to extract some good learning. For everyone else, you missed a webinar that covered a lot. And since there is so much covered in this webinar, and since I know it can be challenging to decide if it's worth watching a 1 hour online video, here are some questions to ask yourself to help you make your decision:

• Do you want to know how to build an application for Silverlight or WPF that uses "enterprise grade" patterns?
• Do you want to see a "best practices" approach for structuring your Visual Studio solution when building a n-tier XAML application?
• Do you wish you knew more about Microsoft Prism and how to use it?
• Do you want to better understand what the MVVM pattern is all about?
• Do you you want to see the "proof" that the RadControls for Silverlight / WPF have 100% identical APIs and can be easily used to build one application and target both the desktop and the web?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this webinar has content for you. Check it out and then visit Telerik.com to learn more about the Telerik Sales Dashboard reference application. There you will even find links to explore the Silverlight and WPF versions of the Sales Dashboard on your own. Enjoy.

Write Once. Use Twice. Exploring the Telerik Sales Dashboard

[Slides (PDF)] [Sales Dashboard Source (External)]

Watch Sales Dashboard webinar in full resolution on Telerik TV

Weekly Webinar: Exploring the Telerik Sales Dashboard for Silverlight and WPF

This week's webinar is back in my court and the topic will be Telerik's new Sales Dashboard demo application. If you've not already seen it, the Telerik Sales Dashboard is a new "best practices" application that Telerik created that highlights the value of the common code base and shared API of the RadControls for Silverlight and WPF. It shows you how you can build an application with enterprise-quality patterns and practices that- thanks to the RadControls- can be easily targeted at WPF, XBAP, or Silverlight deployments. Among the things the Sales Dashboard shows you:

• Using Microsoft Prism for application composition
• Use of MVVM (Model View ViewModel) pattern
• Using the RadControls for Silverlight, WPF
• Reusing Silverlight app code in WPF (and XBAP)
• Using Telerik OpenAccess ORM for data access
• Exposing data to Silverlight/WPF through WCF services

In this Thursday's webinar, we'll explore this application, highlighting some of the unique aspects of its implementation that you can draw upon to build better XAML applications. We'll explain the basics of things like Prism and the MVVM pattern, helping you get up-to-speed on these popular XAML frameworks. Finally, we'll even build a simple Silverlight application and port it to WPF during the webinar to drive-home how easy the task is with the RadControls. Should be fun and information packed. The webinar is at the normal 11 AM Eastern, this Thursday, June 11th. It will be recorded and will be on TTV shortly after the live event. Register now to save your seat and I'll see you on Thursday. Register for Sales Dashboard webinar now

Second round of Q1 2009 service packs now available

While I'm busy preparing for tomorrow's skinning webinar (it's going to be fun- don't miss it), the product teams are busy delivering the last wave of fresh bits to you before the big Q2 2009 release arrives. Earlier today, Telerik shipped the Q2 2009 Service Pack 2s for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and the RadControls for XAML (Silverlight/WPF). Each of these SPs rolls-up a lot of hotfixes (as you would expect), but they also go a step further and deliver some pretty compelling "enhancements:" RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX (2009.1.527)

• Official support for Chrome v2
• Early support for VS 2010 Beta 1
• New Skin! Simple (CSS "mostly")
• Improved Visual Studio Extensions
• New support for rendering RadControls in MVC/client-side scenarios

RadControls for XAML (Silverlight/WPF) (2009.1.526)

• Localization support added for many controls
• Many new properties and events added to RadGridView
• Bug fixes accross the suite

You can download the new bits now in your Client.net accounts on Telerik.com and enjoy the improvements right away. Stay tuned for more details about some of the features in SP2 (and some yet to be seen features coming in Q2) in the coming days. 'Til then, enjoy SP2!

RadControls for Silverlight in ASP.NET

For those of you that missed today's Weekly Webinar, you missed a fun topic! We looked at how you can use the RadControls for Silverlight in ASP.NET. Specifically, we looked at how you can use RadChart, RadGauge, and RadUpload for Silverlight in an existing ASP.NET application by utilizing the DOM Integration features of Silverlight. There were lots of demos and we covered a lot of ground, but hopefully everyone that attended live (thanks, by the way, for watching today!) feels like they have the knowledge they need to start leveraging Silverlight controls in ASP.NET. For everyone else, all resources from today's session are now available online. Below you can download the slides and demo project code, and above you can watch the recorded session (or you can watch it on Telerik TV, of course). Enjoy and watch for more follow-up resources soon! RadControls for Silverlight in ASP.NET [Slides] [Code] Watch recorded webinar in full resolution on Telerik TV

Silverlight Webinar Wrap-up, GridView, Docking, Chart, and Theming

As promised, here is the "recording" of today's LIVE webinar on the RadControls for Silverlight. Those of you that attended live may catch that this isn't exactly the same version of the webinar you watched- it's a "pre-recorded" version that I processed so we could get the video online faster. That said, I think the live version was a little better, so you are rewarded for your live effort. Today's event focused primarily on working with the RadGridView, RadDocking, RadChart, and Telerik Themes for Silverlight. The 75 minute session covered both OTB (out of the box) features and how you can configure features from code and XAML. It's a great "Step 2" for those of you that already feel comfortable with "Step 1." Enjoy the video and stay tuned for much more Silverlight content! Watch recorded Silverlight webinar on Telerik TV (bigger size) P.S. For those that asked during the live webinar about the ability to save RadDocking state, I've confirmed that the feature is actively being developed and should be available in an upcoming release (maybe even SP1). At the latest, you'll have the ability to persist Dock state and re-load it in Q2. Hope that helps.

Weekly Webinar: Working with Q1 Silverlight Controls

Here's your Telerik Weekly Webinar reminder. This week the topic is Silverlight and I will be your humble host for the online event. The goal for this week's webinar is to introduce you more thoroughly to the controls in the Q1 2009 RadControls for Silverlight (more than you saw in the Q1 Release Webinar), showing you more of the controls in the collection and exploring new topics like theming and skinning. I'll bias the time in the webinar to some of the more "important" controls in the suite- like RadGridView and RadChart- so it should be a good event for those of you looking to really accelerate your adoption of the Telerik Silverlight tools. And, of course, since it's a live event, I'll be taking your questions and we'll try to cover as much as we can in our hour together.

The event is at the "normal" time: 11:00 AM Eastern Time on Thursday, March 26th. The event will be recorded and will be on TTV by Friday, too.

Register now to reserve your free seat at Thursday's Silverlight webinar

Telerik Watch Minute Editing RadSilverlight Templates

It's been a few weeks, so it's high-time for another fine-blended edition of Telerik Watch Minute. This week is a double feature: news + a Silverlight demo. With Q1 just around the corner, there's plenty of news to share- but I didn't want leave out the little technical tip. So, you'll get your quick 60 seconds of news up-front and then I'll give you a quick 7 minute demo showing everything you need to know to get started customizing the XAML control templates for the RadControls for Silverlight. I'll use the RadTabStrip for Silverlight in today's demo since it already works well in Expression Blend, but all of the RadControls for Silverlight in Q1 will work the same way, making it very easy to customize the look at feel of any Telerik XAML control. Enjoy! Watch this episode on Telerik TV HD (bigger size)

"Getting Started with the RadControls for Silverlight" webinar wrap-up

As you can see, the Silverlight webinar is done and already posted for your viewing pleasure on Telerik TV. The webinar went very well-at least it did from my perspective- and I hope all of you that attended live enjoyed the session. You asked some great questions (which I will answer soon and make available on this blog) and hopefully you got most of the answers you needed during the live show. For those not at the live event, here's what I ended-up covering in the 75-minute Silverlight webinar:

• Adding the RadControls to the VS toolbox
• Working with RadMenu, RadWindow, RadCoverflow for Silverlight
• Binding RadCoverflow to a Flickr web service
• Preview of RadGridView for Silverlight (filtering, grouping, data binding, etc.)
• RadPageNavigation (navigating between XAML pages, history support, deep linking)
• Theming (how to apply themes to the RadControls)

As you can see, we covered a lot. Hopefully I didn't go too fast (I know that's my weakness). Enjoy the on-demand resource and definitely stay tuned for the Q1 2009 release (which is only a few weeks away) where TONS of new stuff is coming to the RadControls for Silverlight. Want to know what's coming? Watch the video! Watch "Getting Started with the RadControls for Silverlight" on Telerik TV (bigger size)

Reminder: Telerik Silverlight webinar today!

Don't forget! There is a free, live webinar today (actually, in about 30 minutes) that will be covering the RadControls for Silverlight. This is a "getting started" webinar, so anybody that is looking to get a better grasp on how to work with 3rd party components in Silverlight should definitely attend. We won't spend much time on Silverlight basics, though, so make sure you have at least a basic understanding of Silverlight before attending today's session. And if you haven't registered yet, there's still time (now 25 minutes): https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/188665451 If you can't make our live event, I will be publishing the recording of this event on Telerik TV. I'll do my best to process the hour long video right after the webinar ends and get in on TTV by the weekend. I'll post the link the follow-up post. See you in a few minutes!

Silverlight webinar this Thursday

Another week, another Telerik weekly webinar. This week it's my turn and I'll be presenting a session on Telerik's RadControls for Silverlight. The session will be pretty "101" with the goal of making sure you know everything you need to know to get started with the RadControls for Silverlight. Among the topics we'll cover:

• How to add the Silverlight controls to your VS toolbox
• How to work with the controls in VS/Blend
• How to bind the controls to data
• How to style/theme the controls
• How to deploy an application with the RadControls

We'll also peek ahead at what's coming the Telerik Q1 2009 release and see some of the cool enhancements that are coming to RadGridView in a few weeks time. If you're considering building an application with Silverlight, you should definitely take some time out of your day this Thursday to attend this live event. It's free. I'm presenting. What more could you ask for? </sarcasm> To save your seat, register for the webinar now and then we'll see you on Thursday, February 19th at 11:00 AM EST (that's 8:00 AM PST, 10:00 AM CST, 4:00 PM GMT, 5:00 PM CET)!