Q3 2010 Road Maps showing you the future (update)

Long-time Telerik customers know that the value of a Telerik subscription extends far beyond the high quality tools we ship, encompassing industry leading support, constantly updated training materials, and an aggressive release cycle that continues to deliver three major releases every year! While some companies continue to charge more while offering less, and .NET framework components evolve at “framework speed,” Telerik innovates quickly to deliver more value in a year than virtually any other software tools vendor. And now that Q2 and the first round of service packs are behind us, it’s time to start looking ahead to the final release of 2010.

Q3 2010 is once again shaping-up to be a huge release. It’s becoming a bit cliché at this point to tout a release as “huge,” but there’s really no other way to describe our Q releases as each subsequent release delivers more updates to more products. To help you start planning for what’s next, we’ve started to publish the Q3 2010 Road Maps for many of the Telerik products.

I’ll provide direct links to the Road Maps below, but first, some cool highlights from what we’ve revealed so far:

• AJAX
  • 2 New Controls: TreeList and Button (richer versions of ASP’s LinkButton, ImageButton, and Button)
  • RadCalendar: New Range Selection feature
  • RadAsyncUpload: New Inline progress indicator
• MVC
  • New Controls: TimePicker and DateTimePicker
  • Grid: Many enhancements, including Column Reordering
  • Accessibility improvements + some exciting secret work
• WinForms
  • New Control: RadCommandBar (will replace RadToolStrip)
  • RadGridView: Adding support for ORM hierarchy, event-based hierarchy
  • RadScheduler: Adding in-place editors + Time Zones support
• Silverlight
  • New RIA Data Source control (for even easier Silverlight data binding)
  • New XAP Optimizer! (improved version of today’s Assembly Minifier)
  • New Sparklines (for “inline” data visualization)
  • RadChart: Adding Drill-down and Interactivity features
  • New Theme: Expression Dark! (inspired by Blend)
• ORM [UPDATED]
  • [Updated: As can happen when looking in to the future, the road map for OpenAccess ORM has changed slightly since the original post.]
  • New LinqToSql converter (to help you transition from “dead” L2S to OpenAccess)
  • Improved Schema updates, WCF Data Service generation
  • New Database Support: Postgres
• Reporting
  • Adding XML Report Serialization and Extended report interactivity (sorting, drill-down for table items)
• TeamPulse
  • Adding TFS 2010 bi-directional sync

Exciting? Yes. For now, try to stay focused and productive with the Q2 2010 bits and start making time for the Q3 2010 launch this November. You can find full road map details using the links below.

Road Maps

• RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX
• RadControls for WinForms
• RadControls for Silverlight / WPF
• Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC
• Telerik Reporting
• Telerik OpenAccess ORM
• JustCode [not yet updated for Q3]
• JustMock [not yet available]

Looking ahead to Q2 2010, Part 2

A few weeks ago, I started sharing with you highlights from the rapidly approaching July Q2 2010 Telerik release. We looked at the road maps for ASP.NET AJAX, ASP.NET MVC, and WinForms and I hand-picked a few of the updates for each product that should get you really excited about what’s coming in less than 8 weeks time. But this is 2010 and a Telerik release means updates to 9 developer products!

What else should you be looking forward to in Q2 2010? Here are some ideas:

• RadControls for Silverlight/WPF
• [!NOTE] Only SL4/WPF4 builds will get new controls (v3 will be bug fixes only)
• [NEW CONTROL] RichTextBox (incredible, Word-like editor)
• [NEW CONTROL] TreeListView
• [NEW CONTROL] RadFilter
• New BusyIndicator being added to all controls for auto remote-request UX
• [RadGridView] New multi-cell selection (foundations for advanced copy/paste)
• [RadCart] New annotations, exploding radial series, log axis
• [RadScheduler] Improved perf (UI virtualization), improved rendering, grouping
• New theme and animations
• Improved VS2010 support (Collection Editor, SmartTag)
• OpenAccess ORM
• Support for WCF Ria & Data Services
• New DataTransporterObjects (self-tracking entities)
• DataAnnotations support
• Improved RLINQ visual designer (support for reverse & forward mapping!)
• [NEW DB SUPPORT] SQLite
• JustCode
• [NEW] Unit Test Runner!
• Enhanced XAML navigation and refactoring support
• New visual cues for easier access to all features
• At least 3 new refactorings
• Improved code navigation and code analysis engine
• Telerik Reporting
• [NEW] Interactive reports (hyperlinks for drill down, navigation, & external links)
• New data source components for OpenAccess ORM and EF
• Improved Silverlight support

On top of all that, Q2 will also introduce the first official release of JustMock (including basic JustMock integration with JustCode) and TeamPulse (our new team planning tool). Combine that with the list of new stuff from my last post, and once again you’ve got a huge release coming your way this summer.

Fortunately, betas for Q2 are just around the corner. Betas will start shipping as early as next week (with a JustCode beta) and then continue shipping throughout June. Keep your RSS reader locked here for more updates as we make our way to Q2.

Looking ahead to Q2 2010, Part 1

I know, I know. You’ve just started looking at the Q1 service packs, you’re still trying to digest all of last week’s announcements, and now we’re already talking about Q2?! Time marches on, and Q2, believe or not, will be here in less than three months. With three major releases every year, things move fast at Telerik. What can you expect to find in the next major release?

Fortunately, there are road maps for that, and many of the Developer Tools road maps are now available on Telerik.com. Here are some direct links and highlights from the Q2 2010 road maps:

• RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX
• [NEW CONTROL] TagCloud
• [FEATURE] RadAsyncUpload – New Flash/Silverlight upload modes
• [FEATURE] RadEditor – Option to have DIV content area instead of IFRAME
• [FEATURE] RadGrid – New GridDragDropColumn
• [FEATURE] RadListView – Client template support
• [FEATURE] RadScheduler – Reminders + time zone support
• [MAJOR UPDATE] RadRotator – Load-on-demand support + carousel mode
• SharePoint 2010 web parts for Grid and Editor
• Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC
• [NEW CONTROL] Combobox
• [NEW CONTROL] Editor
• [NEW CONTROL] Window
• [FEATURE] Grid – Hierarchy, edit form, and resizable column support
• RadControls for WinForms
• [MAJOR UPDATE] RadGridView – new data engine + many new UI features
• [NEW CONTROL] Desktop Alert
• [NEW CONTROL] TabView
• [FEATURE] RadScheduler – Reminders, Time Zones, + many new features
• [FEATURE] RibbonBar – New Office 2010 UX
• 30% performance improvement in TPF thanks to new optimizations and caching

Be sure to click on the links to examine the full road maps in detail. There is obviously much more happening in Q2 than I highlighted here, so read the road maps if you want all of the nitty-gritty.

There are also clearly some “missing” road maps today. They will be published towards the end of this week and early next. Stay tuned for part two of “looking ahead” for the links and highlights for XAML, ORM, Reporting, and JustCode. Until then, set your alarms and start dreaming of the ways you can use the new controls and features when they ship in July.

Getting ready for Q1 2010 Telerik bits

Time marches on. The year 2009 is now soundly in the review mirror and it's time to start looking ahead to 2010. The first major event of the year- the event I know you've been building your entire schedule around- is the Telerik Q1 2010 release (planned for March 2010). This is going to be an exciting release cycle. Trust me.

I can't share everything now (clearly), but you can start to get a glimpse of what's coming by looking at the recently updated road maps for the Telerik developer products. The Silverlight, WPF, and ASP.NET AJAX road maps are currently live, and others for Reporting, WinForms, and ORM will be coming soon (I've got some "inside" reports in this post, though). In the mean time, here are some highlights:

ASP.NET AJAX

• New Controls! - Filter: A stand alone filter UI control that can be used with Grid and ListView - AsyncUpload(!): A async file upload control from Telerik (i.e. upload with no postback)
• (Some) Cool Enhancements (there are many) - RadCaptcha: Audio CAPTCHA support - RadEditor: RTF & PDF import/export - RadGrid: Improved filtering UI, new Rating column - RadScheduler: Auto UI for indicating "out of view" appointments - Out-of-the-box JavaScript IntelliSense (for VS 2008 & 2010) - New common skin: Windows 7

Silverlight/WPF

• General Improvements - Major focus on streamlining control templates, minimizing assembly size (SL), streamlining/simplifying control templates, and improving animations/transitions (i.e. a major "improve what you've got" release) - SL4 beta support (this release will still be primarily SL3, though)
• New Controls - (Beta) RadEditor for SL & WPF(!): based on SL4, early preview (this control will grow in 2010) - (Official) RadMap for SL & WPF: Official release of control intro'd in Q309 - Transition control: new tool for making animation configuration easier
• (Other) Major Improvements - RadGridView: Built-in paging UI - RadChart: New optimizations for handling millions of data points - RadScheduler: New UI virtualization for better handling of many appointments

WinForms will be getting a radically improved (all new, in fact) Visual Style Builder and a revamped data engine for the RadGridView. The road map will be updated soon, and a beta of the Q1 work will even be available early next month!

Reporting is focusing on some major improvements to the data engine, too, and it will move rendering of Silverlight reports from the server to the client (making performance of that viewer better because only data will travel the wire). Improved chart data binding in reports is also expected.

ORM has a very cool road map. I can't reveal much here right now, but stay tuned (sorry). It should be worth the wait.

The other developer tools- MVC and JustCode- are being updated, too, obviously. Both are betas, though, so they don't have formal road maps at this point. JustCode is being constantly updated, so you can join the beta if you want to keep-up with its progress. MVC is focusing on adding data editing support to the Grid, along with providing the necessary UI Extensions for supporting data editing (like a Calendar/DatePicker).

See. It's going to be a big Q1. First beta (WinForms) drops in a few weeks, so start making time now.

Looking Ahead: ASP.NET Q3 Road Map

Last week we looked at the updated Q3 2008 Road Maps for WinForms, WPF, and Silverlight. This week, let's take a look at the recently updated road map for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. The Q3 2008 road map for the ASP.NET AJAX controls looks different than it has for past major releases. That's because the focus on the ASP.NET AJAX teams for Q3 is more about making the Telerik RadControls are highest performing, most stable ASP.NET components available on the market. Work like this is incredbily important and we are confident that by Q3 our controls will be unrivaled in terms of performance and stability- which should translate in to similar benefits for your Telerik-powered applications. But we're not stopping there for Q3. In addition to all of the work we're doing to maximize performance, we're also introducing some exciting new initiatives:

• Visual Style Builder for ASP.NET: This web-based tool will make it possible easily design new skins for the RadControls, completely visually. No need to parse the complicated Telerik CSS files.
• Silverlight Server Controls: We will start introducing ASP.NET AJAX server controls that make integrating Silverlight functionality in your ASP.NET applications very easy.
• Data Improvements: We've got a big announcement to make in this space for Q3, so stay tuned for the "big reveal" in a few weeks.

We're also adding new features and client-side enhancments to several of the key ASP.NET AJAX controls (like RadEditor, RadScheduler, and RadGrid), so all told Q3 is going to be a big release! Check back here often for more details as they become public and get ready for a great release in early November.

Looking Ahead: Q3 Road Maps posted for WinForms, Silverlight, WPF

With Q2 2008 soundly behind us, it's time to turn our attention to the quickly approaching Q3 2008 release. The next (and last) release for 2008 is currently scheduled to ship in early November, so we're less than 10 weeks away from another major Telerik release. The Q3 release is going to be a big one, too! There's a number of big things happening around the time of Q3- a few of which shall remain "secret" until a later date- but we can talk today about the plans for the RadControls for WinForms, Silverlight, and WPF.

The public road maps for all of these suites have been updated on Telerik.com, but since I like to make your lives as easy as possible, here are some highlights:

RadControls for WinForms

• New! RadScheduler for WinForms
• New! RadPrompt and RadConfirm for WinForms
• Major improvements in RadGridView
• Multi-row column headers
• Cell merge/span
• Optimized support for 100's of columns
• Major refactoring in RadDock
• Performance improvements across entire theming engine

RadControls for Silverlight

• New! RadGrid for Silverlight (ported from WPF version)
• New! RadTimePicker, RadDock, and RadContextMenu for Silverlight
• New drag-and-drop manager for all controls
• New animation framework for all controls
• New theming engine for all controls
• Vastly expanded documentation and examples

RadControls for WPF

• New! RadScheduler for WPF
• New! RadChart and RadGauges for WPF
• New themes for all controls
• Expanded documentation and new demo framework (a.k.a. QSF)

Check out the road map links below for more details and then stay tuned for more details on the ASP.NET AJAX, Sitefinity, and Reporting road maps for Q3.

RadControls for WinForms

RadControls for Silverlight

RadControls for WPF

Microsoft releases (big) ASP.NET AJAX road map

Microsoft has just published a new, huge road map for ASP.NET AJAX. I know?! After all of this time being fed bits and pieces from many different sources to stitch together ASP.NET AJAX, it turns out there is actually a road map for these features and tools. Or, at least there is now. The published road map is loaded (clocks-in at 13 pages) with interesting ideas and proposals for ASP.NET AJAX v-Next and beyond, so I highly encourage you to take a minute to review it if you're an ASP.NET developer. If you're short on time, though, I've done the reading for you and here are some highlights:

• MS is going to bring some order to the release schedule of ASP.NET AJAX, it's tools, and it's controls by moving towards more "normal" CTP, Beta, RC release events
• MS is going to add many features to its client-side scripting libraries, further imitating the features of libraries like jQuery. CSS DOM selectors, Chainable DOM generation, and CSS-based event targeting are all proposed enhancements.
• MS is going to add "flexible" drag & drop and animation frameworks to the client libraries (a la jQuery, YUI, etc.)
• MS is going to build client-side data source controls (!) to enable complete client-side data operations. The controls will have corresponding server controls for easy setup.
• MS is going to invest heavily in the Ajax Control Toolkit with plans to add more complex controls in to the suite. Proposed controls include (quoted from road map):
• Grid: a client-side, templated grid control with client-side sorting, paging, and editing
• Treeview: a client-side, tempalted and web-service aware tree with a full client-side object model
• Upload: an upload control that works outside of full postbacks with progress monitoring
• Rich Text Editor: a simple, cross-browser and extensible rich text editor
• Chart: simple and extensible charting, possibly based on Silverlight
  
• MS is going to ensure ASPNET AJAX compatibiliy with ASPNET MVC and other non-Microsoft Ajax frameworks/client-side libraries
• MS is going to deliver a number of improved JavaScript dev tools, including improved IntelliSense and new JavaScript Build Tools (to aggreage, minify, etc. JS code at build time).

This obviously isn't everything from the 13-page road map, but rather a Reader's Digest version. On the surface, Microsoft's goals look ambitious, but they certainly sound like they'll benefit the ASP.NET developer community if met. And while most of the plans in the new road map represent v-Next ambitions, Microsoft isn't aiming to deliver everything covered ASP.NET AJAX v-Next. The following chart summarizes Microsoft's high-level release goals.


You can see that the client-side UI controls are "last" on the list right now, and everything is at least "likely" to make v-Next. As a component vendor, I find it interesting that Microsoft is choosing to wade-in more heavily to what has traditionally be a 3rd party supplied UI market. While 3rd parties like Telerik will leverage their agility and close relationship with customers to always build richer, higher performance, and more complete UI controls than Microsoft, you can never ignore a move like this that creates a "free option" from the creator of the framework. Time will tell if this is a good move for Microsoft or not.

In the mean time, what do you think? Should Microsoft try to deliver more advanced controls like client-side Grids and Treeviews or should they leave that to 3rd parties? Also, what do you think of Microsoft's ambitious plans for ASP.NET AJAX? Sound-off in the comments and don't forget to give Microsoft some feedback, too!

Read the ASP.NET AJAX Road Map now

Q2 2008 road maps updated for WinForms, Reporting

As you are probably aware, we are quickly approaching Telerik's second major release for the year. Scheduled to drop in late July, Q2 2008 is mere weeks away, and as the release draws near, it's time to start looking at the goods we've been working on for the last 3 months. To get get things started, we've just updated the public road maps for the RadControls for WinForms and Telerik Reporting. While a little later than we normally like to publish these details, the road maps do shed some interesting light on what you can expect to find in the Q2 release for these two products. Here are the highlights:

RadControls for WinForms

• New! Multi-column RadComboboxes
• New! RadApplicationMenu for RadRibbonBar
• RadGridView: Support for multi-column headers
  
• RadGridView: Improved Export To Excel (performance improvements)
• RadMenu: Refactored for huge performance improvements
• RadCarousel: Incredible new Visual Studio designer
• RadCarousel: Support for auto-looping items

Telerik Reporting

• New! Cross tab report support
• New! Bar code report items
• New! Checkbox report items
• New! Telerik Reporting Project Upgrade Wizard
  
• Improved Ajax integration in WebViewer
• Improve Crystal Reports conversion engine

Clearly, we've been busy! To see all the details, visit the Telerik Reporting and RadControls for WinForms road maps and then watch for the release soon. We'll be updating the ASP.NET road map later this week, so stay tuned for a primer on what you can expect to find in ASP.NET's Q2 release.

Q1 2008 RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX features revealed

Following-up quickly on yesterday's announcement that the RadControls "Prometheus" will become RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX in Q1, I have a handful of juicy details from the Q1 2008 ASP.NET road map to share with you today. As promised, there are some very cool new features coming in the Q1 2008 release and I'm very excited to get to share some of them with you today.

Among the controls getting lots of attention in Q1 is RadGrid (for ASP.NET AJAX). Our developers have been churning out new features for the Grid at an incredible pace and I am certain many of you are going to like what you see. Some of the cooler features coming to RadGrid in Q1 are:

• Calculated Columns: This cool new feature will make it very easy to add a column to your Grid that automatically displays calculated column values. For instance, a Grid with "Price" and "Qty" columns could have a CalculatedColumn that automatically displays the extend "Price * Qty" without requiring any custom coding. You simply define the DataFields and the Expression and the Grid does the rest. CalculatedColumns can also be sorted, grouped, and filtered just like any other BoundColumn!
  
• Footer Aggregates: This is one I know you've been wanting for a while. The Grid will now support automatic footer aggregates that will provide summary values for all rows in a column. All you do is set the Aggregate type in the column definition (such as "Sum"), and the Grid will automatically do the math and display the value. And, by the way, CalculatedColumns support Aggregate definitions, too!
• Group Footers: Have you ever wanted to display footer values that were specific to each Group in a Grid and not the entire Grid as a whole? GroupFooters are your solution. They work just like you'd expect and they support the new FooterAggregates feature (in other words, they support aggregates per group).
• Detail Templates: Do you want more control over your DetailTableView formatting in RadGrid? With the new Detail Templates, you have complete control. If you define a new "NestedViewTemplate" in RadGrid, you have access to the detail table data and complete freedom to render the data however you like.
• CardView: Similar to Detail Templates, CardView will give you complete control over the way data is rendered in RadGrid. Essentially, it gives you the rendering flexibility of a Repeater with the same great Grid support for filtering, sorting, grouping, etc.
• Pop-up Edit: Looking for even more ways to customize your Grid's data editing behavior? With the new pop-up edit mode, you can set one property and automatically use a built-in pop-up mechanism to display a floating "window" your users can use to edit data.

And that, crazy as it sounds, is just scratching the surface of what's coming to RadGrid in Q1! There are more great features being worked on that you're going to love and a lot of work being done on the performance side of the equation with incredible early test results. But we'll save some of these Grid details for later; there are other controls getting updates in Q1!

One of the other controls getting big updates is RadScheduler. It will get a new, flexible advanced edit form that can be easily customized to handle whatever scheduling data you need to manage. It will also get a new Timeline View that makes it easy to see all events for multiple resources over a given time period.

RadEditor, which has already seen significant performance improvements in the transition to ASP.NET AJAX, will get a couple of new dialogs. One will make it very easy for end users to manage styles in the Editor- similar to VS 2008's new style management interfaces. The other dialog will bring the long awaited image editing capabilities to Editor. The full scope of features for the image editor is still under wraps, but rest assured it's coming in Q1.

As far as new controls go, the recently previewed Skinnable Form Controls will be introduced officially in Q1 2008. These "utility" controls make it very easy to stylize all of your form elements (like buttons, checkboxes, and radiobuttons) to match the beautiful skins of the RadControls. When the new controls ship in Q1, they will come with all 13 common skins for the RadControls and support custom skins that you create.

I know this is a longer than normal post, but clearly there is a lot of exciting work being done on the ASP.NET controls for Q1. Hopefully this little taste of what's to come has got you excited for the future; I know I can't wait to start working with some of these improved controls. For a few more details of what's coming, don't forget to check out the ASP.NET Road Map and then come back here for increasing Q1 coverage as April draws near.

First Look: Telerik in 2008

First of all, happy New Year! As you are well aware by now, after hanging lights on my blog before the holidays, I let it rest for a while so that I could enjoy time with friends and family. And now, as the bowl games start to dwindle and more people start to return to their desks, it's time to prepare for a new year of projects. What better way to kick-off of Telerik Watch in 2008 than to gaze in to the future and look at what Telerik is cooking for upcoming year.

There are definitely some huge milestones on the 2008 Telerik calendar that are sure to continue the trend of delivering more than you expect from your humble component vendor. Among the bigger events that you can look forward to this year:

• Totally new, super-fast RadGridView for WinForms (Jan Preview)
  
• RadControls "Prometheus" transition complete (April)
• RadControls for Silverlight 2.0 (H2 2008)
  
• RadControls for WPF (H2 2008)
• Tons of new modules, services in Sitefinity (Jan/Feb)
• 3 major releases for ASP.NET/WinForms/Reporting (starting in April)
  
• Innovative new learning/training tools for RadControls (H1 2008)
• New Telerik.com website

And that's just the high-level bullet points for a few of the bigger public projects we're working on. In other words, this list just scratches the surface. Not bad considering the list includes two brand new component suites!

Clearly, 2008 is going to be a huge year for Telerik and your feedback will continue to play an important part in our planning and success. Everything we do aims to make your lives as developers easier, so keep the feedback coming and we'll keep driving ahead on our quest to be the best .NET UI component vendor on the market. At Telerik, we're all looking forward to starting a new year working with our dedicated community and we hope you're as excited as we are to reach new heights in 2008!

Stay tuned as I get the blog fired back up this week and watch for more details about 2008 as well as some reminiscing on what we accomplished in 2007.