Q2 Service Packs now available

Looking for some updates for your Q2 2010 Telerik tools? If you’ve got the Telerik Extensions for Visual Studio installed, you’ve probably already seen the automatic notification that newer bits are available (one of my favorite Telerik VSX features!). If not, here’s your official notice that Q2 2010 SP1s are now available for download on Telerik.com. Over the last week, we’ve shipped service pack updates for most of tools in the Telerik Ultimate Collection, from JustCode to WebUI Test Studio. Here are some quick highlights of what you’ll find in these SPs, along with the new version numbers and links to the release notes for quick reference:

• RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX (2010.2.826)
• Fixed support for ASP.NET 4 new ClientIDModes
• [RadAsyncUpload] Added detailed error info to Flash upload module
• [RadListView] Added support for custom item drag handles
• [RadCalendar] Added keyboard navigation between dates
• [RadEditor] 15 fixes, including improved cross-browser content generation
• [RadGrid] 20 fixes, including improvements export formatting and behavior
• Team blog post
• RadControls for Silverlight/WPF (2010.2.0812)
• [RadGridView] TONS of work, including new commands, performance improvements, and visual
• [RadRichTextBox] TONS of work and refactoring. This release improves greatly on the first Q2 release, but there could be breaking changes. I highly recommend starting with this SP if you’re going to work with RichTextBox!
• [RadChart] Added option to hide zero-value labels + 14 fixes
• [RadDataPager] Added new unbound mode support
• [RadTreeView] Added IsChecked property of type Nullable<Bool> to nodes
• [RadRibbonBar] Added keyboard navigation
• [RadMediaPlayer] Added poster frame support + property to disable seeking
• [RadBook] New support to preload pages
• [RadTransition] New transition effect: Pixelate
• Assembly Minifier performance and optimization improvements
• Team blog post
• RadControls for WinForms (2010.2.10.806)
• NEW! Conversion Wizard to help auto-convert obsolete PanelBar, TabStrip, ComboBox, and ListBox controls to the newer, more powerful RadPageView, RadDropDownList, and RadListControl replacements.
• [RadGridView] Over 25 fixes and improvements
• [RadListControl] A few breaking changes. See the release notes for details!
• [RadScheduler] Improved layout behavior and performance
• Team blog post
• JustCode (2010.2.826)
• Auto-update can now check for new “internal” builds
• Visual aids OnMouseOver can now be disabled, keyboard access added
• Many Good-Code-Red issues fixed (thanks for reporting scenarios!)
• Many improvements to JustCode Unit Test Runner
• Team blog post
• JustMock (2010.2.810)
• NEW! Added support for mocking F#
• ReturnsCollection method moved to Telerik.JustMock.Helpers namespace
• Many improved mocking scenarios. See release notes for full details.
• WebUI Test Studio (2010.2.830)
• Project upgrade wizard (auto backup of project and upgrade to new version)
• [Silverlight] Improved support for handling pop-ups, tooltips.
• Improved translators for RadControls for Silverlight and ASP.NET AJAX
• Many, many improvements across recording, test playback, and Dev/QA Editions. See releases notes for long list of details.
• Team blog post

Obviously missing from this list are Telerik Reporting and OpenAccess ORM. At present, neither of these tools will be shipping a Q2 2010 SP1 and are instead working hard on big new features for Q3 2010. For updates to these tools, make sure you check the Latest Internal Builds page on Telerik.com (OpenAccess currently has a 2010.2.804 build, and Telerik Reporting a 4.1.10.729 build).

Enjoy the new round of bits and stay tuned for Q3 2010 news! As the hot days of summer start to (hopefully) cool, we march ever closer to the next major Telerik release. Road Maps for Q3 2010 will start going live this week, so keep your RSS readers locked-in to Telerik Watch for more updates.

Download all of the Q2 2010 SP1 Telerik tools

Q1 2010 Service Packs Available

While April has become a big month for more new products and announcements from Telerik, the bits released about a month ago as part of Q1 2010 are already receiving the first round of service packs. Of course, with the official VS 2010, .NET 4, and Silverlight 4 releases last week, SP1 is a perfect time for Telerik to ship official support for Microsoft’s latest platforms. And that’s definitely part of what you find in Q1 2010 SP1.

Available now are service packs for (with selected highlights):

• RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX (2010.1.415)
• VS 2010/.NET RTM support
• [RadCaptcha] Audio captchas now embedded in page!
• [RadEditor] Improved Paste from Word support
• [RadRotator] New cross fade animation
• Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC (2010.1.416)
• A few breaking changes: Grid, Treeview
• OSS NOTE: Remember, only the “commercial” license gets updated for SPs and hotfixes. The OSS branch is updated for major releases.
• RadControls for WinForms (2010.1.409)
• VS 2010/.NET 4 RTM support
• Client profile support
• New Office 2010 & Breeze Extended themes
• Major improvements to new Visual Style Builder
• JustCode (2010.1.415)
• VS 2010/.NET 4 RTM support
• Significantly improved/enhanced typing assistance
• Additional memory/performance optimizations

Service packs for the remaining developer tools- Telerik Reporting, OpenAccess ORM, and the RadControls for Silverlight and WPF- will be available very soon, too. These SPs will all focus on delivering official support for VS 2010 and .NET 4, in addition to polishing some of the features introduced in Q1 2010. For example:

• RadBook in RadControls for Silverlight SP1 will introduce UI virtualization, enabling it to handle huge numbers of pages
• Data Services Wizard will become part of the main OpenAccess ORM installer

Stay tuned for the last of the service packs this week and get started now downloading the four SP1s available today!

Q3 2009 SP1s now available, Telerik CDN live

With the Christmas holidays just around the corner, Telerik has delivered some early gifts for your immediate download and enjoyment. The first round of service packs for all of the Q3 2009 Telerik developer tools are now waiting for you download on Telerik.com. If you've been following @Telerik on Twitter, you'd know that we've been releasing these SPs over the last week, but now all products have their updates.

I'll share some highlights from SP1 below, but first I want call extra attention to the new Telerik CDN (Content Delivery Network). Live with the Q3 2009 SP1 release of the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, this new Telerik provided CDN is a new way for you to further optimize your Telerik web applications. CDN's allow you to download CSS, JavaScript, and image resources from remote servers, putting bits closer to users (for faster access), overcoming browser concurrent request limits and improving the "shared cachability" of these bits. I'll talk more about the Telerik CDN in the future, but for now be sure to read Tsvetomir's post on the Telerik Blogs.

Finally, here are some things you don't want to miss in Q3 2009 SP1 (and a quick "official" version number reference with direct link to the release notes):

• RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX [2009.3.1208.1]
• [New] Telerik CDN + Auto support for CDN in "Manager" controls
• [New] Windows 7 common skin
• [VS Extensions] Improved support for VS2010 Beta + CDN support
• [RadScheduler] New visual cue for non-visual appointments
• [RadRating] New DbValue property (primarily to support DbNull values)
• 14+ fixes for RadEditor
• 20+ fixes for RadGrid + new "DefaultInsertValue" property
• RadControls for WinForms [2009.3.1203.1]
• [TPF] Animation loops now possible + More perf optimizations
• [RadDock] Many new properties for easier config + VS 2008 Theme
• 15+ fixes for RadGridView + New features, like select column cells on header click
• RadControls for Silverlight/WPF [2009.3.1208.1]
• Significantly improved VS 2010 support (Toolbox, Designer preview, Property browsing)
• TONS(!) of improvements, fixes, and changes in RadGridView (new things like Delete key support, programatic pre-filtering support, ability to control "insert row" visibility, etc.)
• [RadScheduler] Localization of time markers
• [RadMenu] Fixed memory leaks
• [RadRibbonBar] Now has a Windows 7 theme that matches Office 14
• [RadMap] New support for OpenStreetMap + New extensibility options
• (NOTE: To run the Q3 2009 SP1 demos locally, you need might need WCF RIA Services Beta for VS 2008 installed.)
• [Beta] Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC [2009.3.1210.1]
• [New] Windows 7 common theme (matches Ajax theme)
• JavaScript size and perf optimizations for all extensions
• Items that are selected are now expanded by default
• [Grid] 2+ columns can now be filtered
• [Grid] Screen bounds detection for filter menu
• [Menu, Panelbar] Hierarchal item support
• [TabStrip] Support for nested tabstrips
• OpenAccess ORM [2009.3.1119.1]
• [LINQ] Server-side support for SingleOrDefault
• [LINQ] Improved JOIN support with filtering and ordering
• [Backend] Several fixes for SQL Server and MySql support
• [General] Improved VS 2010 Beta support + Enhanced project wizards
• Telerik Reporting [2009.3.1211.1]
• Improved VS 2010 report designer support
• [Silverlight Viewer] Many fixes and new features (like SSL support and support for Telerik themes) + New API reference
• Minor fixes for both WinForms and WebForms viewers
• [PDF Rendering] New support for bookmarks and document map
• JustCode [2009.3.1211.1]
• (While not technically a "SP1" release, there is a new build of JustCode you shouldn't miss, so I thought I'd include details.)
• Many performance improvements across all operations
• [New] Syntax colorization support (disabled by default for now)
• [JavaScript] New support for "Extract Method" (covering basic scenarios)
• 20+ fixes across C#, VB, ASP.NET, and HTML features

Phew! That's a lot of updates. Enjoy the bits!

Service Pack 1 for Q2 2009 Telerik ASP.NET controls now available

If you missed the Q2 2009 release of the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, you really missed a good one. Not only did the release feature serveral brand new controls (Captcha, ListBox, BinaryImage, XmlHttpPanel) and tons of feature improvements (like client-side web service binding in RadScheduler), it also featured very few bugs!

A major release always tries to be as "bug free" as possible, but some bugs are a reality in all large software projects. For many major releases, Telerik will ship a "SP1" within 2 to 3 weeks of the release to address all reported issues and fix any major "release bugs." But with Q2 2009, there simply were not a lot of "critical" bugs! So here we are, about 7 weeks after the official release, with a service pack loaded with small improvements and tweaks for all RadControls.

Since so much time has passed since Q2, this really is a bigger than usual SP release. The release notes are a mile long, but I encourage you to browse through them to fully understand what's shipping. One thing you will not find in these release notes: breaking changes. There are none, as there never should be for a SP release!

If you're not interested in studying the notes for yourself, here are some of my favorite Q2 2009 SP1 build highlights:

• [VS Extensions] Full support for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1, including new VS "code shortcuts"
• New "Copy" functionality in RadFileExplorer (hold Cntl + drag to copy item)
• Improved client-side API for web service binding with RadScheduler
• New RTL support in RadSplitter
• Over 20 fixes and improvements for RadEditor - including fix for "the Firefox break tag"
• Over 20 fixes and improvements for RadGrid
• Over 20 fixes and improvements for RadScheduler

The fixes in RadScheduler and RadEditor are going to benefit some of my projects right away, and I hope they do they same for you. There is no planned "SP2" for this release cycle, so enjoy the SP1 bits and then stay tuned for previews of our Q3 2009 bits in about a month!

Read release notes for Q2 2009 SP1 (2009.2.826)

WinForms, Reporting Q2 2009 service packs now available

The first two service packs from the Q2 2009 release are now available for immediate download. The RadControls for WinForms and Telerik Reporting have each been updated to SP1 and these service packs are heavy hitters. Each delivers some compelling improvements (beyond bug fixes) to the suites and each is worth extra consideration even if you’re not dealing with any bugs. Highlights:

RadControls for WinForms (2009.2.9.729)

• 5 NEW events in RadDock, many new properties (giving you more control)
• New DocumentManager in RadDock (makes it easier to manage, manipulate Documents)
• New CommandManager in RadDock (register your own keyboard shortcuts)
• 8 NEW events in DragDropService, new properties
• 50+ bug fixes across all controls

There are 2 breaking changes, one in RadScheduler, one in RadTreeView. The TreeView change will not effect you immediately- it is simply a obsolete property that will be removed in Q3. The Scheduler change, though, is breaking. See the release notes for details.

Telerik Reporting (3.1.9.807)

• NEW! Medium Trust support (big improvement for shared environments)
• NEW support for hyperlinks in HtmlTextBox item (beginning of drill-down report support)
• Bug fixes in rendering, report viewers
• 15 bug fixes / improvements to Visual Studio design-time

The SP1s for the other suites are coming soon. The XAML service pack will likely ship next week and the ASP.NET SP will ship later this month. Also, for Q2 2009, we don’t expect to ship a second round of SPs. We were proud to find that our Q2 2009 release was very high quality, and the current SP round should address all reported issues. Make sure you use the Latest Internal Build tool to grab a hotfix if you need it between SP1 and Q3 2009 – which is now only about 3 months away!

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!

More Q1 2009 SP1s available, Reporting due soon

A couple of weeks ago, I brought to your attention the first round of service packs Telerik released for Q1 2009 controls. This week, let me bring your attention to (most) of the remaining service packs. Now, in addition the SP1s for ASP.NET, OpenAccess ORM, and WebUI Test Studio, we have SP1s for the RadControls for Silverlight, WPF, and WinForms. The new versions (for quick reference) are:

• SP1 for RadControls for WinForms (2009.1.414)
• SP1 for RadControls for Silverlight (2009.1.413)
• SP1 for RadControls for WPF (2009.1.413)

The only "missing" SP1 is for Telerik Reporting. The product team is finishing-up some work on fixing bugs in the new cross tab support, and as soon as that work is done, SP1 will be released. Meanwhile, there is a lot to be excited about in these new releases. In WinForms land, there are lots performance improvements and tweaks across the controls. The GridView, in particular, has optimized performance for conditional formatting, and the Calendar now supports drag-to-select operations. For the XAML controls, there is a ton happening in SP1. For the XAML GridView and Charts (remember, SL and WPF share a code base at Telerik), there are many, many new features, including everything from ExcelML export in the GridView to two new 2D chart types in Charts (StackedLine and StackedSpline). Silverlight also adds support to RadDock in SP1 for saving and loading state, so you can now easily persist user Dock settings. For complete details, be sure to check the Release Notes links above. Enjoy the SPs and stay tuned for updates on the Q2 2009 Road Map (coming very soon)!

Q1 2009 Service Packs starting to ship (update)

Looking for some updates for your Q1 2009 RadControls and Telerik tools? Then you may want to start grabbing some of the Q1 2009 first-round Service Packs. So far, there are two SP1s available for the Q1 2009 release:

• SP1 for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX (2009.1.402)
• Sp1 for Telerik OpenAccess ORM (2009.1.405)
• [UPDATE] SP1 for Telerik WebUI Test Studio (2009.1.402)

For the ASP.NET AJAX controls, SP1 marks Telerik's official support for Microsoft's latest and greatest version of IE. If you need to officially support IE8 for your customers, make sure you install Q1 2009 SP1. In fact, if you want the most recent build with even more fixes, check-out the Latest Internal Build (2009.1.408) for the ASP.NET controls. You won't get an installer with the Latest Build, but you will get the most up-to-date set of hotfixes for your code. For ORM, SP1 is also loaded with fixes and improvements. Most notably, SP1 continues to deliver enhancements to OpenAccess' support for LINQ. You can now use String.Compare and Collection.Contains() in your LINQ queries and the proper OpenAccess SQL will be parsed. There is, of course, much more, so I encourage you to review the release notes (linked above) and see if SP1 addresses issues you've been having with OpenAccess. For the other Telerik products, SP1s are coming soon. The Silverlight and WPF SP1 releases are just around the corner and should be available on Telerik.com by early next week. The WinForms SP1 is about a week away and the Telerik Reporting SP1 is about two weeks away. I'll post another update once all of those SPs are out the door. Until then, grab the service packs from your downloads page and continue to enjoy Q1!

UPDATE: Forgot to mention the Sp1 for the Telerik WebUI Test Studio! Thanks Konstantin! Find the link the the release notes above.

OpenAccess Q3 2008 SP3 released today

For those of you already working with Telerik's cool new OpenAccess ORM tool, there is a new service pack that dropped today that you definitely want to check out. The service pack- officially dubbed Q3 2008 SP3 (or 2008.03.1327.2 by the version number)- packs tons of fixes and improvements in to both the OpenAccess run-time and design-time experience. Among my favorite improvements is the new support for the LINQ Count method, which now allows you use .Count in your LINQ queries and have it it executed on the database server for optimum performance. For a complete run-down on what's fixed, check out the official release notes. For those of you not using OpenAccess ORM, what are you waiting for? I recently built the entire Telerik TV portal using OpenAccess ORM Forward Mapping, and speaking as a developer, the experience was great. It saved me a ton of time (and code), and made it very easy to build a complex site in my spare time in a matter of days. If you're using LinqToSql today and want something that gives you that same "quick start" experience, but then also has the power to perform when you need to take more control, give OpenAccess a try. With a free version for free databases, what do you have to lose?

Sitefinity 3.6 Beta, WinForms SP2 released

I don't usually "bundle" news items in to a single post, but since it's Friday and I have a couple of releases to announce, I'll make an exception.

First, early this week Telerik released the second service pack for the Q3 2008 RadControls for WinForms. This SP addresses a number of issues across the entire suite, but you can find some highlights in WinForms Evangelist John Kellar's blog post. If you're using the RadGridView for WinForms, this release does a lot to improve the memory management and resource footprint of that control, so it's probably worth your time to download the latest bits. Full release notes, of course, are available online.

Second, today Telerik released the Sitefinity 3.6 Beta. Sitefinity 3.6 is the next "major" release of Silverlight and it's packing a lot of new and improved functionality. The Sitefinity Team and Sitefinity Evangelist Gabe Sumner have both blogged about the new features, so I encourage you to follow those blogs if you're a Sitefinity developer. For those not willing to follow the links, here are some of my favorite improvements in SF 3.6:

• All built-in templates are now Embedded Resources (making it much simpler to customize SF control templates and -significantly- reducing the SF file count)
• New, simplified custom module architecture (backwards compatible)
• Latest versions of both RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight
• Support for hierarchal categories (great when tagging related content)
• "Unbreakable" dynamic links

Even though this release is only a "minor" version tick, it's got enough improvements to warrant major version status. Sitefinity continues to be one of the easiest "CMS" (or, from the developer perspective, "development platforms") for ASP.NET developers to learn and extend since it does not "break" (or modify) ASP.NET the way many other CMS systems do. If you haven't checked it out yet, grab a free copy of the community edition (which you can use for commercial projects) and have fun!

RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX SP2 now available

Today Telerik released the second service pack for the Q3 2008 RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. It's been about a month and a half since SP1, and in that time a lot of great fixes and improvements have been added to the controls. The release notes, as always, have the full run down of what's changed in this release, but here are some especially cool highlights:

• New! Telerik HTTP Compression Module that works with AJAX and web services
• New! Code-less support for client-side binding directly to ADO.NET Data Services in RadGrid
• Top and Bottom pagers now supported with client-side data binding in RadGrid
• New! Web service validation in RadInputManager (and new Required Validation property for all input controls)
• New client-side events in many controls, including RadToolTip, RadTreeView, RadGrid, RadWindow, and RadCombobox
• Tons of fixes for all controls (11+ RadCombobox, 30+ RadEditor, 25+ RadGrid, 15+ RadScheduler)

All service packs are helpful, but this one really has a lot of great enhancements (in addition to the requisite fixes) that should make it worth your time to download and check-out. I'm particularly excited about the enhancements in RadInputManager and the new HTTP compression module. With the new web service validation support and required field property, RadInputManager is quickly becoming the fastest and most efficient way to add form input validation to your ASP.NET project. Check out my post on the Telerik Blogs for a deeper look at how easy form validation is with RadInputManager.

The compression module is also a cool new tool in the RadControls suite that will give you even more power to optimize your AJAX web applications. You can find a first look at this tool on Vladimir Enchev's blog, but I'll be sure to bring you an in-depth look at it's capabilities and performance impacts soon. Until then, enjoy SP2 and stay tuned for more details on Q1 (which is rapidly approaching).

Download RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q3 2008 SP2 (2008.3.1314)

(Quick Note: The RadControls for WinForms service pack is coming early next week, too.)

New SPs available for Telerik Silverlight and WPF controls

Listen-up all you XAML developers. There are two new service packs available from Telerik this week that are just for you. First, the RadControls for Silverlight suite has received its second service pack (making this Q3 2008 SP2, for the record) and a special "futures" build with some previews of controls coming in Q1 2009. The service pack is your "standard" bug-fix SP with the addition of some improvements to the Silverlight "Vista" theme and a brand new "Office Black" theme. The "futures" build includes two controls: RadDocking for Silverlight CTP and RadGridView for Silverlight Beta. When installing the latest bits, you should use the SP2 installer OR the Futures installer. You cannot install both. The SP2 release is just a subset of the Futures release (sans the new controls), so for most, installing the "Futures" build probably makes the most sense. For WPF, this week brings the Q3 2008 Service Pack 1. The WPF SP has got a little more happening than the Silverlight SP2, and the bulk of the fixes can be found in the RadScheduler for WPF. There you'll find improvements in the drag/drop experience, the templating support, and even a new demo showing you how to use XML data with the Scheduler. Other controls getting some attention in this SP are the RadGridView, RadCarousel, and RadChart for WPF. All controls, like Silverlight, also received the new Office Black theme, so now that theme can be used with any Silverlight or WPF RadControl. There's tons to talk about with these releases- especially with the new Silverlight Docking and GridView controls- so stay tuned for more detailed posts focusing on those controls. Until then, check out the release notes and download the SP bits today!

RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q308 SP1 released today

In our relentless pursuit to deliver improvements for our RadControls, today Telerik shipped the first service pack for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q3 2008. Usually, our goal is to ship SP1 about a month after an official release, but due to a few important post-release issues reported by you (our brilliant customers) we have released SP1 a little faster. Like all other service packs, this release focuses mostly on bug fixes and CSS tweaks, but there are a few notable new features in the release to look for:

• The "Register Handler" SmartTag option now adds sections to your Web.Config for both IIS 5/6 and IIS 7 (in other words, it registers the handlers/modules in both system.web and system.webServer)
• New NoRecordsTemplate and AlwaysVisiblePager for RadGrid with client-side data binding
• RadInputManager now supports server-side and client-side disabled styling
• Multi-day appointments in RadScheduler month view now render as a single elements (vs. single elements per day). Month view also now supports a new rendering mode to "auto expand" to content size (vs. being a fixed height).
• New OnClientLoad property added to RadSpell
• Server-side memory performance of RadTreeview node searching significantly improved

You can find the full release notes for the Q3 2008 SP1 release on the new Telerik.com and then download the new bits right away. Enjoy the fixes, the new helpful features, and stay tuned for the Q1 2009 Road Map coming very soon.

RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX SP2 released

As I promised last week and mentioned yesterday, the second service pack for the Q2 2008 RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX has just been released. The primary focus of this service pack release is delivering complete support for Google's new Chrome browser, so again, if you need that support, download and install this release right away. A few additional things have made it in to SP2, too, beyond the normal bug fixes. Among the most interesting (in my opinion):

• Memory leak fixes across all controls for better IE performance
• New client-side event in RadCombobox: OnClientTextChanged
• Image editor functions (crop, resize, etc.) provided with RadEditor can now be used outside of Editor!
• Many new client- and server-side events in RadGrid
• New EmptyDataText property in GridBoundColumn (for setting null text at the column level)
• New AutoPostBack property in RadRotator

So, I guess I was wrong last week when I said there was "nothing" new in this release. But in this case, I'm happy to be wrong. Enjoy the extra goodies in this SP2 release and keep an eye out for the Q2 2008 beta soon. Read full Q2 2008 SP2 release notes

Telerik Reporting SP2 released

All you Telerik Reporting developers out there, don't miss Telerik's latest Reporting update. Released late last week, the second service pack for Reporting Q2 2008 is mostly a maintenance build. If you have been having any of the problems described in the release notes, download this update from your Client.net account and update away. If not, you may want to wait for the Q3 release that is only about a month away. That release will pack many new features, including support for cross-tab reports.

Still haven't tried Telerik Reporting? What are you waiting for?! If you have a Telerik Subscription license, you've got this in your toolbox and I think you'll be impressed with how far we've advanced our reporting solution in the last year.

RadControls SP2 coming next week, Official Chrome support

Here's a quick heads-up before the weekend arrives. Next week Telerik will be shipping Service Pack 2 for the Q2 2008 RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. This release will primarily be a roll-up of bug fixes since SP1, and no new major functionality will be introduced. We will, however, be delivering complete support for Google's new Chrome browser in SP2. Even though Google's browser is still a beta product, we know that many of your sites need to support it, so we're fixing-up all of the issues Google's browser introduced and giving you full-support next week. Grab SP2 when it comes out next week if you need to fully support Chrome.

For those interested in seeing new functionality, you'll get to see a preview of the new features coming to Telerik's flagship UI suite in the "Q3 Futures" build for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX due mid-October.

RadControls for WPF service pack released

For those of you already building cutting-edge applications with WPF and Telerik's RadControls for WPF, there is a new service pack out that you should check out. Officially released yesterday, the first service pack for the Q2 2008 RadControls for WPF is mostly a bug-fix release. There are a few added small features to RadGridView and RadNumericUpDown, but there no significant new features or new controls in this maintenance release. So, I guess this is release is more like a "Vista SP1" than a ".NET 3.5 SP1." Either way, you can check out the release notes for all the nitty-gritty details and then download the updated bits directly from your Client.net accounts.

Q2 2008 SP1 available for ASP.NET, WinForms, Reporting (update)

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on Telerik Watch Minute (see, it pays to watch), today Telerik shipped the first round of service packs for three of the major products: RadControls ASP.NET, WinForms, and Telerik Reporting. If you've had any nagging issues with Q2 2008, odds are that they're addressed in this release. Plus, there's some fun new stuff in this release, too, so even if you aren't having trouble, there's good reason to upgrade. Here are some Q2 2008 SP1 highlights:

RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX

• [New Feature] RadFormDecorator can now skin TEXTAREA, TEXTBOX, FIELDSET, LEGEND, LABEL, H4, H5, and H6 elements
• [New Feature] New saveContent() client-side method in RadEditor
• [New Feature] Many new client-side events in RadRotator
• [New Feature] New view in RadScheduler: Multi-day
• [Optimization] Improved client-side data binding support in RadGrid
• [Optimization] Improved client-side initialization time in RadTreeView
• [New Feature] Hierarchical databinding support in all navigation controls

RadControls for WinForms

• [Optimization] Many improvements to Excel export in RadGridView
• [Fixes] Over 20 fixes for RadGridView
• [New Feature] AutoFilter now supported in RadMultiColumnCombobox
• [Optimization] Slight performance improvements in base TPF

Telerik Reporting

• [Optimization] Improved barcode rendering
• [Fixes] Over 55 improvements and optimizations across the product
• [Optimization] Reduced PDF rendering memory footprint
• [Optimization] Web and Win report viewers improved

For complete details, feel free to review the release notes for each product (linked below).

RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Release Notes

RadControls for WinForms Release Notes

Telerik Reporting Release Notes UPDATE: Telerik Reporting SP1 now available for download.

Service Pack 2 released, Firefox 3 support delivered

While I did my best to keep you "in the know" while away on vacation last week in the Colorado Rockies, a few important updates had to wait for my return to the office. Key among those is the announcement of the new Service Pack 2 release for the Q1 2008 RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. The 2nd and final service pack release for the Q1 2008 controls is mostly a roll-up of hotfixes fixing issues reported since SP1, but, as usual, there are some new features in the release, too. Highlights:

• SP2 delivers full support for the just released Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5 browsers
• New load-on-demand caching support and client-side events in RadCombobox
• 20+ fixes in RadGrid and in RadEditor
• New perf optimizations in RadEditor (dialog rendering, shared tools)
• Problems with RadManagers fixed (gzip, medium trust)
• New support for custom spell providers in RadSpell

If for no other reason than to support the latest releases of two popular browsers, you should download and prepare to deploy this service pack to your projects. Firefox 3 did introduce some bugs due to changes in the way client-side events are processed, and SP2 addresses those. For a complete overview of the fixes in this release (2008.1.619), check out the release notes.

And that's about it for Q1 2008. With Q2 2008 quickly approaching (currently targeting a late July release), there will be no more service packs for Q1. The next release will be a Futures release that will preview some of the enhancements coming in Q2, so look for that to drop in the next few weeks. Otherwise, enjoy the updates and be sure to keep sending us your honest feedback.

First Service Pack for RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX released

About a month ago (hard to believe that much time has already passed) Telerik released the big Q1 2008 RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. By many standards, it was one of the most successful releases in Telerik's short history, shipping right on time with relatively few problems. But even great releases need to be serviced, so today we're shipping the first Service Pack for the Q1 2008 release. The SP1 release, as usual, is loaded with fixes for all of the RadControls and it also packs-in a few handy new features, too. The full release notes are available online, but for those too busy to look now, here are some highlights:

• Over 20 fixes and 8 new "features" for RadGrid
• 19 fixes for RadEditor and several improved dialogs
• New client-side "click" events in RadMenu and RadPanelbar
• New client-side enable/disable methods in RadTabStrip
• Change to modal RadWindow behavior- Escape will now not close the window

The one obvious "gotcha" to look out for in this SP release is a breaking change in RadTabStrip. Specifically, the "ReoderTabsOnSelect" property has been changed to "ReorderTabsOnSelect" to fix the obvious typo. Otherwise, this SP should be safe to apply to your projects and begin testing for roll-out to your Prod environments. Hopefully the new fixes and features will suite your needs 'til the next big release- Q2 is quickly approaching, you know!

Download the Service Pack now from your Client.net account