Rank 1
I'll be brutally honest, I'm not a fan of doing web front ends (UIs). I've done my share of Silverlight 5, ASP.NET AJAX (relatively new to this), ASP.NET Core, HTML, HTML5, JavaScript and I find them incredibly cumbersome, wordy, and often filled with overly complex methods to accomplish the most simple of tasks.
I've gotten used to Silverlight 5's OOB and elevated privileges (required for one of my apps), it's the closest experience to a Windows Forms app which is what our user base really prefer. However, since the very powerful SL5 has long since be killed and has a support ending date of October 2021, I'm looking into alternatives to migrate our SL5 and/or ASP.NET code over to our IIS web servers ... what we need from our next platform:
1. OOB or something that can hide the Browser (i.e. no forward or backward buttons) from the user
2. Needs unrestricted access to file locations on a "clients" drive (does NOT need access to OS restricted areas but does need to get to folders like "C:\Some3rdparty\..." or a network share "\\Win10_P1\DataFiles\..."
3. Support for Grids with editable content and checkboxes, images, etc. that doesn't require extensive lines of code just to respond to a checkbox in a grid that is bound to data
Is there any new/current web UI technology that can support the above running from IIS web server?
Alternatively we would consider stand alone apps so long as we could use ONE development tool (i.e. VS and source code set) to build and deploy them across platforms (iOS, Windows, Android).
Thoughts?
Cheers, Rob.
EDIT: I did ask this same question in 2010 and it's why we went with Silverlight 5 as it was the only technology that could fulfill the 3 requirements above ... but as we know it was deemed a threat by Apple and hence Microsoft caved in.
3 Answers, 1 is accepted
I am not sure whether the questions are related to the Kendo UI for Angular suite of components (as suggested by the chosen Product), but I will try to address some of the questions in general.
Typically we are abstaining out of guiding customers towards some technology or specific product, as there usually are a lot of factors that we are not aware of - for example specific project requirements, preferences and experience of the development team, etc.
A possible approach is to use Electron with Angular - this is the closest our components get to the outlined situation. You can check out our Electron + Angular + Kendo UI for Angular integration example here:
https://www.telerik.com/kendo-angular-ui/components/installation/electron/
I can suggest inspecting the various UI suites for .NET or JavaScript that we provide:
https://www.telerik.com/devcraft
... and determine which set of tools can most fully match your needs.
Onto the alternative approach you mentioned -- we do offer a UI suite for Xamarin Forms (https://www.telerik.com/xamarin-ui).
It includes components, that you can use to build apps for iOS, Android and UWP. The suite features a DataGrid control (https://docs.telerik.com/devtools/xamarin/controls/datagrid/datagrid-overview) with Boolean and Template columns. Note, that if you need to target Windows version prior to 10, you will need to develop a separate app, possibly using our WPF and/or WinForms suites.
Once again -- this is not a recommendation for platform, but merely presenting the options we can provide for development within Visual Studio.
For a more detailed consultation and possibly further custom-tailored arrangements or solutions, I can recommend our separate dedicated offering - the Progress Professional Services:
https://www.progress.com/services/consulting/telerik
https://www.progress.com/services/consulting/kendo-ui
Let me know if you are interested in benefiting from their expertise and I will arrange for someone from the team to contact you.
Regards,
Dimiter Topalov
Progress Telerik
Rank 1
Hi Dimiter,
Unfortunately your forums don't have a "General Discussion" area so I had to pick a specific technology.
Xamarin looks interesting ... they appear to be single code base with builds for multiple OS's (Win10, iOS, Android) generating "stand alone" apps for each of those platforms? But Telerik/Progress lists the development technology as "Mobile"?
How are Xamarin applications deployed? And/or what are the deployment options?
Cheers, Rob.
Xamarin is a technology that lets you use .NET to build iOS, Android and UWP application (others platforms are in preview, such as Tizen, WPF and Mac). Xamarin.Forms is a technology on top of Xamarin, that uses XAML to build your UI in a similar style to Silverlight, that will be used across all the platforms.
They are native applications, which are installed to the devices directly. You would typically publish and distribute the native app through the respective app stores (iTunes, Google Play, Windows Store), however you can also use whatever private distribution options provided by those platforms (e.g. enterprise distribution, side-loading if the device is developer unlocked, etc)
Telerik UI for Xamarin provides controls for use in Xamarin.Forms (i.e. DataGrid, ListView, Charts, Gauges, etc). See that link for a list of the currently available controls and their respective getting started tutorials.
I hope I was able to answer your question about Xamarin.Forms, if you have any specific questions about any of the controls, feel free to open a new support ticket for that control and one of the support engineers will assist further.
Regards,
Lance | Tech Support Engineer, Sr.
Progress Telerik