Controlling the Web Environment with the Telerik RAD Control Suite - ' The RAD Experience ' (
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Developers are always in search of a silver bullet that eliminates the most irksome or tedious parts of their jobs — or, failing that, they'll take a tool that minimizes the effort they need to exert. Let someone else worry about the uninteresting parts of programming. Let someone else do the stuff that you aren't good at. The tools that are most precious to us are the ones that let us focus on the puzzles we like to solve.
It is no longer enough to create an interesting Web site; you must also create it quickly, meet all of the required standards, ensure it works with multiple browsers with accessibility features. Most developers find that "interesting" is sufficiently hard without having to do everything else that people expect. That's where the Telerik RAD Control Suite comes in. The 13 tools in the suite claim to add functionality to your Web applications — some useful, some simply cool — and, for the most part, the software succeeds. Not only do you get a really interesting Web site, but the Web site also meets all of these other demands while letting you get the job done fast — at least once you overcome the learning curve of using this well-designed tool. Any developer who spends a lot of time building corporate Web sites that require a lot of pizzazz will want this tool because it does so much for you.
The Telerik RAD Control Suite is a set of 13 individual tools that help you create impressive Web applications with minimal effort. These tools include: r.a.d.multipage, r.a.d.editor, r.a.d.grid, r.a.d.callback, r.a.d.chart, r.a.d.combobox, r.a.d.treeview, r.a.d.menu, r.a.d.tabstrip, r.a.d.panelbar, r.a.d.dock, r.a.d.spell, r.a.d.designer, and r.a.d.rotator. (The vendor plans to introduce additional controls sometime soon, including r.a.d.toolbar, r.a.d.input, r.a.d.window, r.a.d.calendar, and r.a.d.upload.)
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Many of these controls are replacements for controls you get with Visual Studio. For example, the r.a.d.menu control replaces the general menu control and augments its functionality. However, some of the controls, such as r.a.d.spell, are definitely additions that provide your application with additional fit and finish.
All of the controls work as expected, and they all deliver value for the Web developer who needs to create great looking pages quickly. Of course, many tools fall into this category, but most tools can't promise you great standards support and maximum accessibility. The best of them is the r.a.d.callback control, which is the most powerful; it lets you create extremely efficient applications, even when they use a complex interface. The value of using a callback is that you don't request an entire Web page; the application retrieves only the data on the Web page that changes, making calls far more efficient and your Web application significantly faster.
Most developers will want to check out the r.a.d.chart control as well. Sure, it contains most of the common charts that you've seen in higher-end products. If you look at r.a.d.chart and stop at the charts it provides, you'll miss one of the better points of using this product. The feature I really liked is that it's how easy it is link this control with a database. Consequently, the chart is dynamic; it changes as your database changes. In fact, using the right setup, you can make the changes real-time, so it's possible to build administrator tools using this product.
There's a lot to look at here. Let's check it out using an example.
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