Top 10 Asp.net Controls for ASP.NET Developers

Top 10 Asp.net Controls for ASP.NET Developers:

In this post I want to list of some important Asp.net controls that ASP.NET developers are most likely to need for the average development project like navigation menus and ASP.NET AJAX. When we working in my projects then we learn practically use of these controls more and more time. The .net framework gives many types of asp controls for developing web and asp.net windows Applications. Here we want to give some controls see these.

AJAX:

This is kind of a weird one. Most of the major third party controls are AJAX enabled already. What I was looking for here was a way to AJAXify any page whether it be with standard ASP.NET controls or third party controls. It turns out there is really only one good option here RadAjax for ASP.NET AJAX.

Menu:

Of all the basic controls that you could ever need for your ASP.NET website, menus undoubtedly top the list. I had three major considerations when reviewing menu controls. First, it needs to be easily styled using CSS. Second, it has to have the ability to be databound. Lastly, it has to be search engine friendly. Unfortunately, there were three controls that met my criteria and have virtually identical features. So, ladies and gentlemen, we have a three way tie between the ComponentOne Menu Control,  ASPxMenu, and RadMenu for ASP.NET AJAX.

Sitemap

Let's face it, every site needs a sitemap these days in order to be search engine friendly. Now, you can always use the built-in ASP.NET sitemap features However, they are a bit cumbersome to use, especially if you have a large number of pages. What I was mainly looking for was a way to improve the standard page- full-of-links look while maintaining a search engine friendly structure. I must say that when I went searching for a winner I was surprised that sitemap controls were few and far between. Because of their slightly easier development the winner in this category is RadSiteMap for ASP.NET AJAX.

Tab Strip:

If you want a truly rich and intuitive UI you have probably used or looked into tab controls. For the most part, tab controls consist of the tab control itself that displays the tabs and handles clicks, a container for handling the different panels that correspond to the tabs, and page view panels that contain the actual content for each tab. Since most tab strip controls function basically the same way I wanted a control that was AJAX enabled, easy to develop, and easy to style. Again, this one was close between DevExpress,. They both have similar features like hierarchical tabs, scrolling, databinding, etc. However, I gave the nod to RadTabStrip for ASP.NET AJAX because of their EntityDataSource and LinqDataSource options.

Graphs & Charts:

Charts and graphs are very popular among ASP.NET control suites. Everyone has them and they all have the same basic functionality. However, there is one chart & graph package that I have found to be more complete than the rest, Dundas Chart for .NET. This package has everything you need to make beautiful charts and graphs. It has more chart types than you will probably ever use including pie charts, bar graphs and even animated graphs. This, however, is a stand-alone software package. Unlike most of the other winners on our list this one is not part of a suite. Dundas only makes a few specialized controls for.NET, so what they do offer is very focused and complete. If you don't use charts and graphs that much in your development or you just don't want to shell out the cash for a stand-alone control package then both DevExpress and it also have excellent chart and graph controls in their suites.

Scheduler:

Another close one here between DevExpress and talrik. Notice a trend? The nod for this one goes to the DevExpress ASPxScheduler Suite. While the features and style options are virtually identical, better performance and ease of development gave the edge to DevExpress.

Editor:

This is for sites that need any kind of web-enabled content editing. Here I like the RadEditor for ASP.NET AJAX. The control is intuitive and feature rich. Deployment is as simple as drag and drop. It has excellent spell checking capability as well as customizable toolbars. It is an all- around good editor that is versatile enough to apply to a broad range of situations.

Data Grids:

Control developers have been looking for way to improve the data grid ever since ASP.NET was first released. It has become a cornerstone for ASP.NET development and probably carries more weight when considering controls than all the others. Based on features, performance and ease of development the winner is the DevExpress ASPxGridView with Editors Suite hands down.

Reporting:

This was an interesting one. I'd venture to say that just about everyone that reads this article does not have any great love for creating reports. Therefore, I gave a lot of consideration to ease of development, just out of shear sympathy for anyone that has to develop reports. Ease of development coupled with the fact that reporting is a separate suite with DevExpress gave the win to the DevExpress XtraReports Suite.

Input:

This one is kind of unique in that it encompasses multiple controls like input boxes, combo boxes, list boxes, date pickers, color pickers, sliders, etc. Since all controls that fit in this category are almost feature identical, it came down to pretty much just a numbers game. That means that RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX gets the win.
Conclusion


You should know that all of the four major players in third party ASP.NET controls industry, ComponentOne, DevExpress, Infragistics, all sell their controls in suites.


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Comments

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