Q3 2010 Special: Live from HQ with ASP.NET MVC

Q3 is getting closer! We wrap-up today's interviews with a quick visit to the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC team. In this video, I visit with Senior Front-end Developer Alexander Gyoshev who shows us how the Telerik Extensions make it easy to embrace accessibility standards in ASP.NET MVC applications using the Telerik tools. Come back tomorrow for our final two interviews with Telerik Reporting and more ASP.NET AJAX!

Watch the ASP.NET MVC interview in full HD on Telerik TV

Q2 Extensions for MVC official

And just like that, the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC Q2 2010 have left beta and are now officially available on Telerik.com! As you know, the Telerik Extensions were released as a beta with the rest of the Q2 2010 bits to ensure that the official release could deliver well-tested new UI extensions- most significantly, a new rich text editor. The extra time has been used extremely efficiently by the product team, and not only do we get polished beta features, we get some new features in the official release:

• In the new Editor, we’ve added:
• Font name and size tools
• Background and foreground color tools (basic)
• Smart indent
• Support for custom tools(!)
• Localization support
• Support for ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1
• Support for the new Razor syntax

This is a major update for the MVC Extensions and it delivers one of the most unique rich text editors available for ASP.NET (any “flavor”). We hope you enjoy the new bits.

Remember, the Telerik Extensions are still free and open source (GPLv2). We’ll be updating the CodePlex download very soon, too, so that you have the option of grabbing the tools there, if you prefer. We’ll also soon announce our road map plans for Q3 2010. We’ve got some exciting ideas for the final release of 2010 that should make the Telerik Extensions even more useful in a broad range of web applications. For now, download Q2 2010 and keep sending us your feedback.

Updated Telelerik Extension online demos

Testing Telerik Menu for MVC in jsFiddle (no server-side processing)

Recently, I’ve been talking a lot about the value of server-side rendering when picking UI components. And while server-side rendering is essential for maximizing SEO efficiency and even optimizing caching and initial page load times, modern web applications must have UI controls that can operate completely in the client to deliver the rich responsiveness of “desktop” apps. That’s why it’s important to pick UI components that can do both server- and client-side rendering.

I recently stumbled across a very cool online (alpha) tool called jsFiddle. It’s a browser-based HTML/CSS/JS scratchpad. Wanting to test it and prove the client-side prowess of the Telerik Extensions for MVC, I figured I’d use this pure client-side tool to “load” a Telerik Menu.

Loading Telerik Menu in JS Fiddle

To initialize a Telerik Extension, such as the Menu, without any server-side processing, you need to execute a few simple steps:

1. Manually add links to the required Telerik CSS and JS resources. For Menu, four resources are required (I pulled them from the Telerik CDN):
   • http://aspnet-scripts.telerikstatic.com/mvc/2010.1.309/telerik.common.min.js
   • http://aspnet-scripts.telerikstatic.com/mvc/2010.1.309/telerik.menu.min.js
   • http://aspnet-skins.telerikstatic.com/mvcz/2010.1.309/telerik.common.min.css
   • http://aspnet-skins.telerikstatic.com/mvcz/2010.1.309/telerik.vista.min.css
2. Manually add the HTML for the Extension, with required CSS classes for skin styling (more on this in a moment). For jsFiddle, I copy and pasted the HTML from a Menu demo as a starting point.
3. Manually initialize the Extension with a simple jQuery call. For Menu, the single line required is: jQuery('#Menu').tMenu();

Follow these steps and you get a fully functional Telerik Menu, complete with proper skin applied and client-side API in-place. You can play with the live jsFiddle example to see and test for yourself.

The Missing Piece of the Equation

While the jsFiddle demo proves that the Telerik Extensions work completely free of any server-side processing, it also highlights the one challenge with today’s model. You have to know how to create the HTML by hand, or you have to copy and paste to get started. Some components, like Grid for MVC, can actually create (some) HTML client-side when bound to JSON data, but most Extensions today do not have simple client-side intializers.

So what?

In most cases, you’ll be using the Extensions for MVC…in MVC, so the incredibly easy to configure fluent API syntax will make it easy for you to configure your control and spit-out the needed HTML. If you want to use the Extensions on a “plain” HTML page, it’s definitely possible (again, see jsFiddle), but it requires a little more work today. In the future, we may be able to provide simple client-side APIs for initializing controls completely client-side, but for now, you get the most value by letting the server do the initial render.

Universal Lessons

This demo proves a point, but there are important lessons to takeaway:

1. Just as Microsoft is proving that it is Software + Services that represents the future for application development, the Telerik Extensions demonstrate the power and value of Server + Client for UI development. Don’t get trapped by “client-side only” or “server-side only” controls.
2. You can take complete control over your MVC controls. The Script and StyleSheet Registrars save you time (and help you optimize), but as you can see in this demo, you can manually add resource references and initialize your MVC Extensions.
3. The Telerik Extensions are truly universal. Optimized for MVC, but usable even in plain HTML pages.
4. Don’t forget about the Telerik CDN! A great free resource for further optimizing globally targeted applications.

Enjoy playing around with the jsFiddle tool and watch for more powerful client- and server-side UI Extensions from Telerik in a few short weeks.

Testing web pages with “spider” vision

In my previous post about the importance of choosing UI controls that provide server-side rendering, we discussed the problem that modern “JavaScript-only” UI components present- most notably, their inability to support search engine indexing. We established the importance of picking UI controls- like Telerik’s RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX or Extensions for ASP.NET MVC- that provide both server- and client-side rendering to ensure that your websites can both maximize performance and accessibility (to both humans and search bots).

But how do you know you have a problem? You may be using UI controls now and not be sure if you’re SEO friendly (unless you’re using Telerik controls, of course, in which case, you’re covered). You need a way to see your pages in the same way the bots do.

How do you gain search “spider vision” for testing your pages?

Fortunately, you have a couple of options:

1. Text-only Web Browser – Text browsers, such as Lynx, provide you with a close approximation of what search spiders see when they visit your page. That makes them good tools for testing your content to see how your page renders when JavaScript is not in play. Even Google recommends using this approach to test content.
2. Fetch as Googlebot – This is super spider vision. Google provides a beta tool as part of its Tools for Webmasters called “Fetch as Googlebot.” As the name implies, this tool allows you to plug-in a URL from your site (you have to have verified access to the site before you can use this tool, unfortunately) and get back a processed result that shows you “exactly” what Goolgebot sees when it visits your page. Obviously, Google is probably not showing all its cards with this tool, but it gives you a good approximation and once again clearly highlights the “text-only” nature of search indexing.

With tools available to give us spider vision, what does client-side rendering look like versus server-side rendering? Let’s test.

Using a simple ASP.NET MVC test page, I bind a Telerik Extensions Grid for MVC to customers data from Northwind. Since the Telerik MVC Grid supports both rendering modes, I create one view that uses Server Binding and another that uses Ajax Binding (i.e. client side-binding, similar to how something like a jQuery grid works). Here is what the page looks like in the browser (in both modes):

Now, here’s how Googlebot sees the Server Binding version of the page (relevant Grid section in the screen cap):

Notice two things. First, notice that Googlebot only sees text. Second, notice the data in the Grid (highlighted in red). This is good. This means Google is indexing our Grid content in the same way users see it. Now let’s see what happens if we use Goolgebot vision to load our client-side rendering (Ajax Binding) page:

Where’s our data? That’s right: missing in action! Because our client-side page uses Ajax and JavaScript to initialize, Googlebot (and search spiders, in general) do not see the content. The content might as well not exist as far as indexing is concerned.

Make sure your pages aren’t invisible.

Fortunately, my pages are using Telerik controls, so I can easily fix the problem by enabling Server Binding for crawlers. If you are using “pure” client-side components that provide no server-side option, though, your solution will not be as easy. Take advantage of tools like Lynx and “Fetch” to gain “spider vision” and ensure your fancy pages aren’t invisible to some of your most important visitors. And, of course, save yourself some time and use Telerik tools to avoid the problem!

Telerik Extensions for MVC, JustCode now official and commercial

One of the bigger news items in the Q1 2010 release is the “official” release of both JustCode and the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. Both of these products have been in beta since late 2009, but now they are ready to take-on the world as full-blooded members of the Telerik portfolio. The transition to v1 has inevitably created a few questions, so let me try to provide you with some quick answers to satisfy your burning desire for info:

Are these tools part of the Telerik Premium Collection?
Yes! The Telerik Extensions and JustCode join the other 6 products in the Telerik Premium Collection, delivering even more value at the same $1,299 price tag. The Premium Collection now delivers over $6,000 worth of Telerik software at 1/5 the price. It’s probably one of the best values in .NET developer tools. (I’d love to learn about better values!)

If I’m an existing Premium Collection customer, do I get licenses for these tools?
Yes! If you have an active Premium Collection subscription, these tools are automatically added to your bundle license. Like I said, incredible value. Oh! And there are more tools to come. More details soon…

Can I buy these tools separately?
Yes! If for some reason you don’t want the value of the Premium Collection, you can buy these tools separately:

• Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC: $999 developer license + priority support
• JustCode: $199 developer license OR $249 dev license + subscription/priority support

I thought the MVC Extensions were open source. What happened?
You are correct. The Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC are dual licensed. That means there is an open source license (GPLv2) and a commercial license. The tools offered under both licenses are identical. The open source tools are not a “light” version of the Extensions.

Why would I want a commercial license for the MVC Extensions?
There are three very plain reasons why you would want the Extensions’ commercial license:

1. You want Telerik’s premium support for the MVC tools
2. You want access to Service Pack and Hotfix builds of the MVC Extensions (the open source branch will only be updated during major releases)
3. You are building commercial software for resale

The commercial license is also convenient for organizations that are not “open” to open source software. You know the type. Lawyers get involved and everything gets messy.

How do I know if I need a commercial license?
If the support and service pack benefits are not interesting to you, and you’re just trying to understand when you must purchase a commercial license, here’s a good rule of thumb:

• If you’re building free open source software, we want to help and support you with free open source tools. (Open source license)
• If you’re trying to make money on the software you’re building (that is, you’re selling it), so are we, and we’ve got a license for you. (Commercial license)

It’s really no more complex than that. If you’re building an internal website for your company, you can use the open source tools. If you start selling that website, though, you need to convert to a commercial license.

Now that the JustCode beta is over, what are the limits of the trial?
The JustCode trial is a fully functional version of the software. It’s only limit is that it will expire after 60 days. Hopefully two months is enough time for you to fully evaluate the Visual Studio productivity plug-in and decide if it’s worth buying. (It is.)

Enjoy the latest releases of these tools and join me in welcoming them to the world of non-beta software.

Working with the Grid for ASP.NET MVC

One of the main "challenges" in making a switch from ASP.NET WebForms to ASP.NET MVC is- or rather has been- the lack of a functional data grid. There are many examples showing you how to use a different views for reading and editing data in MVC, but few that show the true "grid experience," where data review and editing can occur in a single view.

Enter the Grid for MVC in the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, and specifically the new data editing features in the Q1 2010 release.

With the Telerik Grid (which is open source, by the way), you can easily perform core data grid operations connected to MVC controller action methods. Things like sorting, filtering, paging, and now grouping and editing are a simple matter of configuration. To help you get started quickly with these features, I've created six new videos that you can find on Telerik TV:

1. Getting Started with Grid Data Binding
2. Configuring Grid Ajax Data Binding
3. Configuring Grid Web Service Data Binding
4. Getting Started with Grid Data Editing
5. Data Editing with Ajax
6. Getting Started with Grid Columns

These videos will guide you to a complete understanding of MVC Grid data binding and data editing, both "server-side" (in other words, using HTTP GETs) and using AJAX (or, binding to JsonResults). Enjoy!

Web optimization with MVC webinar this week

This week's Weekly Webinar puts me back in the driver's seat to take you on a tour of some very cool tools in Telerik's open source Extensions for MVC. We'll be taking an extended look at the web asset optimization components, ScriptRegistrar and StylesheetRegistrar. These tools have been around since the beginning of our efforts with MVC, but they have been significantly improved with the evolution of the Extension suite. In this webinar, we'll dive-deep and explore the various ways these two components make it easy to embrace the four "Cs" of web optimization:

• Combine (reducing initial requests)
• Cache (reducing follow-up requests)
• Compress (reducing bits over the wire)
• Content Delivery Network (reducing latency to bits)

If you're working with MVC, this will be an event you don't want to miss. The techniques I will demo will make it possible to optimize your JavaScript and CSS resources as much as technically possible. We'll also explore the new Telerik CDN (with support for MVC), and cover some future-looking topics about the next release of the Telerik Extensions. It will be a fast-paced, info-packed, Todd Anglin signature webinar. If you want to join, register now to save your spot and get a link to the live event. You must attend live to participate in the Q&A, and that is often where some of the best info gets shared. The live event happens this Thursday, February 4th at 11:00 AM EST (8:00 AM PST, 4:00 PM GMT). See you on Thursday!

Webinar Replay: What's New in AJAX and MVC in Q3 2009

Another day, another Q3 2009 Release Week Webinar. Today we covered what's new in the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. Literally hundreds of people tuned-in live to see what we are shipping in this release, so a big thanks to all of you for participating in our Q3 2009 release. The webinar was recorded, processed, and it is now available on Telerik TV for your on-demand viewing pleasure (in addition to being embedded above).

The webinar starts by covering what's new in the AJAX controls, focusing on the three new controls (Rating, SiteMap, and ListView + DataPager) and the major enhancements to the existing controls. After some demos and a look at the ListView design-time, we move on to discuss the Telerik Extensions for MVC. We look at the new demos, go through step-by-step adding the Extensions to a MVC project, and then wrap-up with some follow-up resources.

Enjoy the webinar content and to those of you that attended live, we'll be announcing today's "webinar winner" on Twitter very soon (@toddanglin)! Today's winner will get a Telerik Premium Collection license.

Watch the recorded webinar on Telerik TV (in full size)

Telerik Extensions for MVC Unofficial FAQs, Part II

After we released the first preview of our new UI Extensions for ASP.NET MVC in August, there were naturally many questions surrounding the release. Why is Telerik building MVC Extensions? What does this mean for WebForms? Are the Extensions for MVC really open source? To help address some of the burning questions, I created a complete list of answers in Part 1 of my "Unofficial FAQs" for MVC. Many of those answers remain valid today with the release of Q3 2009, but there are some new questions that I'm starting to see asked multiple times.

So, it's time for Part 2 of the Unofficial FAQs. In this post, I'll try to provide answers to many of the new questions surrounding Telerik's updated release of the Extensions for ASP.NET MVC and hopefully help curb the rumor mill. If you have an unanswered question, send it to me on Twitter (@toddanglin) and I'll update this post.

Q: What's new in this release of the Extensions for ASP.NET MVC?

The Q3 2009 release marks the introduction of the first Telerik UI Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. In our CTP, we introduced the core framework (the server-side fluent API) that the new Extensions are built on, but we did not introduce any Telerik crafted UI rendering. This release builds on the work of the CTP and ships four new UI Extensions for MVC: Grid, TabStrip, Menu, and PanelBar. You can see all of the new Extensions in action in the online demos.

Q: What does the "beta" tag mean on this release?

If you remember the transition for the RadControls for ASP.NET to the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX ("Prometheus"), you may remember that we kept the beta tag on the suite until our transition was complete. The beta tag in this case implies that the suite is not final. The controls in the suite are not beta quality. They are tested, production-ready UI components.

We will likely keep the beta tag on the suite for at least the next one or two releases. Once we have added more UI Extensions to the suite and it represents a more complete LOB toolbox offering, we'll remove the beta tag. Of course, these are open source controls, so you can always modify the current versions if you find some bug or issue you want changed during our "beta" period.

Q: What happened to the jQueryUI wrappers?

As we outlined in our CTP FAQs, the jQueryUI wrappers were merely proofs of concept, a way for us to show-off the more important server-side fluent API without building our own rendering. The jQueryUI wrapper source remains on CodePlex and we encourage the community to pick-up and extend the wrappers if they are valuable to MVC projects. Going forward, Telerik will not be actively updating or supporting the jQueryUI wrappers.

Q: Are the Extensions still open source?

Definitely! Keeping the UI Extensions for ASP.NET MVC open source has always been a primary goal for our project. We know that the MVC community thrives on open source projects and software, so as a good .NET citizen we wanted to ensure our time saving UI Extensions were freely available to this community. With the Q1 2010 release, the Telerik Extensions will ship under a dual licensing model:

• GPLv2 - This is a very popular and common open source license (I've seen some stats that say 70% of OSS is GPL licensed). It allows you to freely use the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC in any project. The only restriction is that you cannot redistribute software that uses GPL code under a more restrictive license (like a "proprietary" license). For that, we offer a...
• Commercial License - The commercial license provides you (today) with at least two very important benefits: 1) it grants you access to Telerik's legendary support, and 2) it gives you a legal (and lawyer pleasing) way to use the Telerik Extensions in proprietary, redistributed software.

Q: Why did you go with the GPL license vs. alternatives like MIT or LGPL?

We spent a long time evaluating all open source license alternatives. We had many lengthy internal discussions, and at the end of the day we settled on the GPL for a few key reasons:

• GPL is a popular and widely used open source license (Linux is licensed under the GPL) that many businesses already know how to understand (read: the lawyers have already approved the GPL)
• GPL has a good "philosophy." It basically says, if you want to use our generosity to build software, all we require is that you pay it forward (i.e. keep your software free). If you instead want to make money off of your software, then we are now in a commercial relationship, and we simply ask that you pay us for our work just as you expect to be paid for your proprietary software.
• GPL is the most community friendly open source license in that it ensures the "intent" of open source developers is respected. That is, open source licenses are for open source developers. If you are a commercial developer, you need a commercial license.

Other OSS licenses like LGPL and MIT are good and definitely more liberal, but they can more easily be abused. Our goal is to support the OSS community with free software, and continue to provide well supported, commercial software to commercial developers.

Q: I still don't get the GPL. Is my software "infected" or not if I use the Extensions?

The best way to understand the impact of GPL on your software is to follow this simple decision tree:

1. Do you plan to redistribute your software? -->NO: GPL will have no impact on your software -->YES: ====>Commercial? GPL is not ideal. Purchase a Telerik Commercial license. ====>Open source? GPL is fine as long as your OSS license is compatible.

Q: Is the commercial license for the Extensions part of my Premium Collection?

Yes! So, if you're a Premium Collection subscriber, you don't have to worry about the GPL vs. Commerical license question. You've already got a commercial license (when it's introduced in Q1), so feel free to use the Telerik Extensions wherever you need them.

Q: Why would I buy the commercial license? How much is it on its own?

As we've outlined above, the commercial license is for commercial software first and foremost. There are other reasons you may want to buy a license, though, such as:

• Access to Telerik's premium support
• Access to Major Release and Service Pack builds (OSS project will only receive Major release builds)
• Ability to use Extensions in closed-source/proprietary projects

Pricing will be set in Q1 2010, but it will likely be on par with the other UI suite licenses.

Q: Is the standalone commercial license available with Q3?

Since we only have four controls in this release, we have decided to wait for the Q1 2010 release before offering a standalone (i.e. not part of the Premium Collection) license for MVC.

Q: So, there is no commercial license in Q3? What is the "Beta Go-Live" license?

Correct, the Q1 2010 release will be the first to ship with the commercial standalone license. In Q3, the Extensions ship as both GPLv2 and "Beta Go-Live." The Beta Go-Live license allows you to use the Extensions in your project while you wait for the Q1 2010 release.

Please see the official licensing FAQ on Telerik.com for more details about the Extensions licensing.

Q: Is the source available for the latest release?

Yes. The full source for the Telerik Extensions ships with every download. You can find the source in the Source > Telerik.Web.Mvc folder. The Q3 2009 are also available on CodePlex if you prefer to download from that location.

Q: Do you ship any themes with the Telerik Extensions?

Definitely. We have prepared 13 common skins for all UI Extensions that have been designed to closely match the skins of the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. The AJAX and MVC controls do not share skins, but we have created skins with the same names and look-and-feel so that you can easily build "hybrid" applications that leverage the best of MVC and WebForms.

Q: What version of the ASP.NET MVC framework to the Extensions require?

The current Extensions target the officially release ASP.NET MVC v1 framework. That means you need .NET 3.5 and ASP.NET MVC 1.0 to use the Telerik Extensions. We are already experimenting with the ASP.NET MVC 2 betas, and we plan to target that framework after it is released by Microsoft.

Q: Is there an installer for the Q3 2009 MVC release?

There is no installer for the Telerik Extensions in Q3. The download is a simple ZIP archive that contains all required assemblies, documentation, examples, and source. To work with the Telerik Extensions in Visual Studio, simply add the DLLs to your project and follow the guidance in the docs for configuring your MVC web.config file.

We do plan to ship a simple installer by Q1 2010, but for Q3 we wanted to focus our efforts on the completeness and quality of the shipping UI Extensions (primarily, Grid).

Q: What's next for the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC?

Now that we have released our first four UI components, we will continue to build on this progress to ship a more complete LOB toolbox for MVC in Q1 and Q2 2010. First-up will be a focus on delivering editing support in the Grid, which will also force us to address a number of controls required to serve as column editors (such as date pickers, calendars, input controls, etc.). Plans for Q1 and Q2 are still being discussed, though, so make sure you share your feedback on the Telerik MVC forums! Your feedback will have a huge impact on our direction for the next release.

Understanding Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC webinar replay

Did you miss today's Weekly Webinar? If you did, you missed a fun event talking about the new open source Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. In an hour, we covered everything from the root reason web developers need somthing like ASP.NET MVC to how Telerik's Extensions work in Visual Studio to what you can expect in the next Extensions release. There was even a good Q & A session at the end of today's event, but that's a perk for those people that attend the event live (thanks, by the way, to all of you that joined me today!).

If you want to catch the content on-demand, the recording of today's session is now on Telerik TV (and embeded above), so start it in the background and enjoy some Telerik MVC information. Meanwhile, Telerik is working hard to prepare some great MVC UI components for our Q3 2009 release, so stay tuned to Telerik Watch and the Telerik Blogs for more details very soon!

Watch recorded webinar in full resolution on Telerik TV

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)

Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC Unofficial FAQs (updated)

With the introduction of our brand new Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, I know there are a lot of questions in the community about this new product. New products always generate questions, but when you factor in the CTP nature of this release and the fact that this is Telerik's first open source product, the questions abound. To help ensure you get answers to all of your burning questions, I've compiled some answers to the most common questions I'm seeing (or expect to see) in the community. The "unofficial FAQs." If you have a question not answered, be sure to add it to the comments and I'll update the post with an answer (if I can). Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC Unofficial FAQs Q: Why did Telerik build these extensions? ASP.NET MVC represents a very different way of building standards-based websites with .NET, and Telerik recognized that the current efforts to provide UI "components" for MVC were not fully embracing the principles of the platform. Telerik is providing a UI Extension framework for deploying reusable UI components in MVC views that is purpose built for the ASP.NET MVC platform- no postbacks, no Viewstate, no page life cycle. These new UI extensions will finally give MVC developers more productivity while creating views without sacrificing the concepts (like testability, clean HTML, SoC) that make MVC an important step forward for ASP.NET developers. Continue reading Telerik Extension Unofficial FAQs Q: Is Telerik transitioning to ASP.NET MVC? How does this affect the future of WebForms components? Definitely not! Just as Microsoft makes clear with the ASP.NET MVC framework, MVC is an option, not a replacement for ASP.NET WebForms. Telerik remains fully committed to the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and has a great road map of planned features for those controls. We are offering the Extensions for MVC for those developers that have decided to use MVC and want a more productive way to create rich views with .NET. Q: Are the Telerik Extensions really open source? Yes! In fact, they're licensed with the same OSI-approved license that covers the ASP.NET MVC framework- the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL). This is one of the simplest open source licenses out there, and one of the most "open." You are free to use the Telerik Extensions in any open source or commercial product. Q: What if I want support? What do I do if my company doesn't allow open source software? Telerik will make a commercial license for the Telerik Extensions available with the official release. This license will include Telerik's "legendary" dedicated support and it will make it possible for you to use the Extensions in an environment where open source software is hard to get approved. Pricing and additional commercial license details are not available at this time. Q: What's so special about the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC? How are they different from other UI components for MVC? The Telerik Extensions are the first UI "components" natively built for MVC. These are not "ports" of WebForms controls. Many of the solutions for MVC you see available today are trying to cram the WebForms model (or some hybrid version of it) in to MVC. The Telerik Extensions are built from scratch to embrace ASP.NET MVC. The Extensions are designed to easily work with MVC controllers and they render lightweight, clean HTML. They also work with any ASP.NET MVC view engine! Q: What are these wrappers for jQueryUI? Why would I use them? For this CTP release, we did not have time to begin building custom UI rendering on top of our new UI Extension framework. To show-off the framework's power, though, we created wrappers for several jQueryUI components. These wrappers demonstrate how the server-side API works and give you a sense for how our "homegrown" components will work in the official release. The wrappers are also open source and you can use them to gain a native .NET approach for adding jQueryUI components to your MVC views. Q: Will the jQuery wrappers be updated in the future? Will you cover more controls? Not by Telerik. These wrappers are "proofs of concept" designed to show-off the framework. Their source will be published and we encourage the community to adopt and enhance the wrappers to make jQueryUI as accessible as possible to MVC developers. Future releases of the Telerik Extensions will feature new UI components not built on jQueryUI. Q: When will we see Telerik components built-on the Extensions framework? In our next release, you will begin to see new, homegrown components added to the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. Our plans are to start with three components for the first release: Grid, Menu, and TabStrip. These UI components will more closely match the skins of the existing RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and will offer more rich functionality that Telerik customer's expect. Q: Wait! Telerik is building a TabStrip? I thought there was already a Tab component in the CTP?! True, but remember that the CTP components are simply previews of the framework's power. The components themselves are jQueryUI components, not custom designed Telerik UI Extensions. The CTP wrappers are not considered components in the official release of the Telerik Extensions. Custom-built Telerik UI Extensions not based on jQueryUI will be built for all MVC components, including TabStrip. Q: Will the Telerik components be based on ASP.NET AJAX? Will they use the same rendering as the WebForms controls? No on both accounts. The Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC will be built on jQuery, the popular JavaScript library supported (officially) by Microsoft. The new UI Extensions will have a brand new HTML rendering model that is a clean as possible and that exclusively leverages jQuery on the client. The skins will be crafted to look identical to the skins for the RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX (for consistency), but the renderings will be different. We are working hard to leave as much control as possible in the developer's hands over what gets rendered to the page. Q: Can I use the Telerik Extensions in multiple ASP.NET MVC View Engines? Absolutely! Since these UI Extensions are built from the ground-up to support ASP.NET MVC, they are fully desiged to work with any ASP.NET MVC View Engine. In fact, the downloads on Telerik.com include two sample projects showing the Telerik Extensions used in the Spark and NHaml MVC view engines, in addition to the default ASPX view engine. Q: Where can I download the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC? You can download the source, binaries, sample projects, and documentation from Telerik.com. The complete source (and the source only) is also published on CodePlex. You can submit contributions through CodePlex if you want to help extend this open source project. Q: I don't see the MVC download in my Telerik.com account. How do I get it? If you do not see the download for the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC on your downloads page on Telerik.com, it means you have not yet accepted the "community license" for this download. Simply accept the license and the download link will be added to your list of available Telerik downloads. Q: Where can I offer my 2 cents on these new Extensions? There are official forums on Telerik.com dedicated to the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC. We are eager to hear your feedback and get your suggestions as we start the push towards the first official release of this product. Speak now or...speak later. But we'd prefer you speak-up early and often! Q: What's next for the Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC? We are now turning our full attention to building the first three UI Extensions that will be part of the official release this fall. There will be at least one more preview release before the first version ships, and that will be your first chance to see some of the Telerik Extensions in action. Stay tuned to Telerik Watch and the Telerik Blogs for updates.

New Telerik ASP.NET MVC UI Extensions CTP launched today

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

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

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