I'm working on a Winforms product that merges both control libraries, and I'd like to see it consolidated into one or the other. The application uses Infragistics more heavily than DevExpress so that seems to be the likely candidate, but Pivot Grid functionality utilizes DevExpress making it a big hurdle to jump in convincing others involved to switch over to Infragistics. My question is how they compare. I'm fairly new to both Libraries, and instead of simply comparing documentation and features, I'm hoping to know if anyone has experience in switching from one control to the other, and what "gotchas" might be in store if such a move is made. Also, which is more powerful, and how so? This will help give me some expertise credit that I can use to create an argument one way or another. Thanks in advance!
Related
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 4 years ago.
Improve this question
I've spent a few hours already studying some CMS solutions for one of my customers' new business...In the end, I've taken in consideration these two: DotNetNuke and Composite C1.
I know all of these have a lot of features, a lot of capabilities etc.
What I would like to know:
is overhere any .NET guy who have worked with both of these? (if yes, can you please share your opinion - PRO and CONS?)
if for some reason I do need to add some new ASP.NET code (for some custom things), which of these two is better for this?
You should definitely go with Composite C1. I have been using DotNetNuke for many years and been very frustrated due to its limitations.
Below I have summed op what I think is best/worst for both CMS products (note: it's been two years since i set up a DNN site, so I do not know if there has been any improvement):
PROS for DNN
List item
VERY simple administration interface.
It is possible to edit pages directly by simply clicking on content when you are signed in.
Huge user/developer base - many extension modules available. Many of them for no charge.
CONS for DNN
The simplicity in DNN is basically the root for all cons;
Hard to extend - you have to develop packages for DNN with your specialized code or generate user controls in .NET (.ascx) files.
Difficult to skin
A lot of overhead related to webforms AJAX files (100+ kb without compression)
No build-in nice urls (but easy to find extensions enabling nice urls)
Relies on SQL-database ( = additional costs)
PROS for C1
Easy installation and setup.
Can run on file system only (and easily be upgraded to SQL support).
Build-in package manager with easy to install extensions.
Support for MVC, XSLT, Webforms and the best: Razor syntax!
Specialized code can be developed easily due to great API.
Great templating support. Can be made very simple and very advanced depending on your skills.
Nice URLs in the 3.0 releases.
Easy to set up multi-site support.
Supports Windows Azure out of box.
CONS for C1
Based on XML for data storage (can cause problems if server shuts down unexpectedly etc. - I have not experienced this)
THe many features in the backend can be a little overwhelming.
Backend takes quite a while to load because it is build like a webapp.
Not as large user base as DNN
Bottomline; Composite C1 is far better than DotNetNuke. Specially if you want to add custom code/functionality.
If you want even more functionality and a more mature CMS than Composite C1 you should take a look a Umbraco. It is open-source just as C1 and of course developed by great Danes ;)
I have quite some years of experience with DotNetNuke.
Avoid it at all costs. I'm serious.
Edit: Since I'm being asked about my reasons for this bold statement, I'll try to provide them.
The company I worked for had around 300 clients on DNN. Many of them were rather large corporations. I have a lot of epxerience with DNN.
First of all, DNN is riddled with bugs. Bugs that are never fixed. Instead, the guys behind DNN seem to be concerned more about introducing new features than providing stability. I've personally submitted a boatload of bug reports to their tracker. How many were fixed? Virtually zero. In most cases I even took the time to provide a patch! To no avail. When they made the switch to C#, they simply closed most of the open issues because their laziness began to bite them in their ass. "In order to better manage and assess issues for fixing, any issue that has not had any activity logged previous to January 1st, 2011, will be auto-closed. " (See here)
I've been bitten by so many bugs in those years. It was a rather frustrating and unsatisfying experience.
Secondly, new features are usually problematic and faulty. DNNCorp also often decides that these new features are not that important and subsequently abandons them for new features. For instance, their taxonomy module has some serious issues when you set up multiple portals and try to use system-wide vocabularies. To my knowledge this hasn't been fixed yet. Their MetaData / ContentItem / ContentType API had some serious problems for a long time and probably still has. It's not even really used for anything, even tho it could alleviate some of the problems that I describe later down (architecture).
Thirdly, their documentation just sucks.
More importantly, I think DNN's architecture is rather outdated. It carries a lot of old baggage. Their tab / module approach makes it very hard to create structured content and make relationships between content items. As soon as you try to create complex web sites, it falls flat on its nose. Not just from a programmer's perspective, but also from the perspective of a content administrator.
The overall impression is that these people are a) not very good programmers and b) don't know what they are doing.
I have worked with both CMS systemes (and many others) and I would recommend you to use Composite C1.
It is in my experience much easier to learn and much faster to be productive in Composite C1. The UI is much better (prettier and eaiser to understand). They have lots of good resources on their website. In my POV the most powerfull feature of Composite is that you don't have to bother about the datalayer - you just create your datatypes as classes or in the GUI and a 'ORM' just make the whole thing happen. That is if you even need datatypes (changes are you don't if it's a simple website).
They're both free and open source. DotNetNuke have a lot more modules that you can buy from third party developers, but Composite C1 still have a lot of what you need.
It's easier to develop new modules in Composite just because of the whole 'ORM' concept.
Only downside I can think of when I compare these to systems is that extranet functionality (logged in users that are not admins) is built into DotNetNuke. This is a module that you have to buy from Composite or develop yourself.
Composite C1 is the best out there for custom functionality and high flexibility. I've been using it for a few weeks and my site will finally be up and running because of it. Short learning curve (speaking for myself) but still very robust and flexible. Love it because you can use Razor with it.
DotNetNuke is still using WebForms and even though it's got a huge user base, but it is somewhat outdated.
What exactly is dynamic data? I saw the term in the ASP.NET Overview on msdn. Is it something that we use all the time thats not really mentioned when working with data?
I've built a few web applications already and never came across this term. Is it something that should be used or maybe considered?
UPDATE: I guess I'm not really sure what it's for. I've never had a problem doing LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework before. What makes using Dynamic Data worth it? Is it simply a pattern?
Dynamic Data was a new project type in VS 2008. It used scaffolding & templates to help code faster.
Two big reasons I saw for its usage:
Stand up an admin back-end really
quickly where doing much on the way
of modifying the front-end may not be
needed.
Quickly stand up CRUD apps that are
simple.
Now, it can be modified very heavily. Check out these links for some work others have done on this.
http://aspnet.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Dynamic%20Data
Matt Berseth - http://mattberseth.com/blog/dynamic_data/
Stephen Naughton - http://csharpbits.notaclue.net/
http://weblogs.asp.net/craigshoemaker/archive/tags/Dynamic+Data/default.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/rickandy/archive/2009/01/08/dynamic-data-faq.aspx
Fast Forward to Today:
As MVC has matured they have introduced many of the ideas that were in Dynamic Data. Scaffolding, templates, etc... to help one quickly get up and running BUT also have the ability to modify more easily and is designed for many other desirable features.
Where does Dynamic Data fit today, especially with Light Switch thrown into the mix? Great question and my only answer at this point is it still fits for the two items originally mentioned but with the advent of MVC having these abilities WITH added capabilities and Light Switch it's going to see minimal usage.
The page you linked to has a link to the ASP.NET Dynamic Data Overview. Is there something on that page you would like explained?
Dynamic Data is a way to have your CRUD data logic written for you automatically using the Database Schema.
Take a look at this walkthrough to give you a quick jist.
It isn't something I use, but I can see where it has merit in a really rapid development scenario. I don't know if it will stand the test of time or prove useful or maintainable.
The DevExpress XAF does much basis work for you, it creates a database based on your business objects, and dynamically generates a UI based on these, with basic functions like add, delete, sort etc. already present.
This leaves me wondering how to go about properly designing and modelling an application built on this framework. I could only model my business objects, or I could identify functions provided by the framework and include them in a details model down to sequence diagram level, but so much is being done by 'external' calls that I feel I would be wasting valuable time.
I am hoping someone with experience modelling application designs for this specific framework can give me some advice on what areas I should focus on.
As for DC, as Leon mentioned above, it has many benefits compared to the regular persistent classes. If all goes according to plan, we will release the Domain Components technology in the near future, and resolve all the remaining issues with it.
If you feel that it is hard to learn, please let us know the most difficult parts you experienced. We will be glad to review them and possibly make the things easier for you and other users.
P.S.
I apologize for the delay in responding; I was on sick leave. You will receive more timely responses if you post your questions in the DevExpress Support Center.
#ProfK:
Am I correct that you are looking for something like visual designer for your business models?
If so, then I am afraid that XPO (XAF) does not currently provide such a functionality. However, you can use free third-party tools for modeling, such as Liekhus ADO.NET Entity Data Model XAF Extensions
I hope you find this information helpful.
I'm using XAF for almost two years now and I'm very happy with it. Developing an app is very quick, nice architecture, both Win and Web the same time and great UI. As with all frameworks, it has a learning curve, but if your already familiar with DevExpress controls that it's not very hard.
As Dennis mentioned, most behaviour can be overriden or extended. Regarding your modelling question, if think an important choice you have to make is whether or not you will use their Domain Components technology. Basically they have 2 ways: the old fashion way by inheriting from the XAF or XPO base classes or by using DC. DC allows a clean separation in modules and allows multiple inheritance. They can do that by generating classes runtime, but it still has some issues.
And the framework comes with a Business Class Library, a set of common classes which may be useful.
When I get stuck or cannot find the answer myself, I always use their fantastic Support Center. Most issues I ran into were already asked and answer on that site.
Briefly, each XAF application consists of Modules. There can be standard (system) and extra (user-defined) modules. Each Module can contain business objects, so-called Application Model customizations, Editors, Controllers, and Actions to provide additional business logic, customize UI and provide interaction between framework parts. You can model and customize your application on each level listed above, including but not limited by the underlying framework's metadata and data store ones. You can find more information about the framework's architecture here:
http://documentation.devexpress.com/#Xaf/CustomDocument2559
I should emphasize that it is possible to override behavior of almost every part of the framework. For instance, create your own editors for detail and list forms, override certain standard controllers, etc.
If you experience any further difficulties with our framework, feel free to contact us through our Support Center. We will be always glad to not only answer you questions, but advice a certain technical or design solution, provide some example code, etc.
I'm planning to set up an online store for a friend, unfortunately his product line introduces some demands most out-of-the-box solutions don't fit. I'm hoping somebody here has had some experiences with an open source package that they can recommend.
The specific issue is that the products are going to number in the hundreds of thousands. Since the type of products have a lot of clearly defined specifics, searching and sorting can be (and needs to be) very granular and efficient. For this reason, the primary requirement is that I replace the product and search-related parts of the app, but only those parts. I'm hoping that there's an ecommerce solution with the product segment abstracted so that I can change the database tables, product display code, search code, and create the obvious code to interact with the database.
I'd prefer something that's built on ASP.Net MVC since it'll play nicely with some extensions I am considering for the future but I'd consider WebForms. I'd also like it to be something that functions on GoDaddy's Hosting, though I'm not optimistic, I just got the account before I discovered how terrible of an ASP.Net web host they are. And finally I need something that's reasonably mature as I don't have time up front to deal with a system that hasn't been tested, and the majority of issues worked through already.
I'd appreciate any ideas.
Edit: I've done a bit of searching already and I've found several (at least 8) MVC projects, but I haven't had time to examine them properly for the needs listed above. I also can't be sure which ones have matured from real world application...So I'm mostly looking for advice either based on a familiarity with using the app or at least reading enough about it that you would feel it's good to recommend.
Thanks Everybody!
Check out http://code.google.com/p/sutekishop/
Check out http://thebeerhouse.codeplex.com/
We are currently designing a business application that has two primary requirements for it's UI:
1) run on the Desktop (WPF) for enterprise users to provide a rich user interface, interoperate with other applications, access the filesystem, work offline, work with special local hardware, etc.
2) run on ASP.NET/Ajax to provide several components of this application to customers (internet). Unfortunately Silverlight is not (yet) an option.
Even though we don't have to make the full application available on the web, some of these components are fairly complex and we would like to share as much UI code as possible with the WPF implementation.
What options do we have to reach this goal? Is there a pattern that works well with both technologies?
Update:
Thanks for the answers even though they don't include the one I was looking for! :)
I don't think UI generators are a good option. Like Eduardo pointed out you will probably end up with problems in both worlds. I will check out Sculpture though.
I've been thinking along these lines for a while now, and I've yet to come up with a great answer. That being said, here are some of my thoughts:
If you used some variation of the various MVP/MVC/MVVM UI methodologies and you were very disciplined in this approach (i.e. not mixing presentation stuff with behavior stuff), you'd probably be farther down the road.
You might consider investigating the various DSL toolkits that have cropped up, the idea being to create a simple "language" to describe your UI at a high level and generate a representation of that UI in WPF/ASPX.
Also, I ran across this recently. I have no idea how good it is. I'm planning to take a closer look when I get the chance.
Good luck!
The unfortunate truth is that Asp.net/ajax (the web in general for that matter) and WPF (and heck, let's throw WinForms in there for good measure) have very different User Interface models and what works well for one is not necessarily going to work well for another. That's not to say that you can't share logic between applications written for either technology, but, I'll make a stretch here, your UI logic is not going to be in that category.
I've been using a variation of MVVM for WPF and ASP.Net MVC most recently and I'd say they are very good fits for the technology at hand. However, while they are very similar, they have their differences and I'm not sure you could write an abstraction layer (in any decent amount of time) that could take advantage of the great features in both technologies.
Ultimately, I'd say that your best bet is to follow some SOA patterns and extract as much of your business and data access logic into common libraries as possible. Then, write separate user interfaces in WPF and Asp.net to take advantage of those common libraries. This is the approach that my company is taking at the moment, and it's working like a charm.
It may seem daunting to write your UI logic twice (once for asp.net and once for wpf), but I think it's worth it so that your code can fit the patterns and practices that best fit those technologies.
As an aside, even though Silverlight is not an option, have you considered XBAP?
If a former job we did something similar. As Daniel Pratt says, we describe our interfaces in XML and then a render will create the form, report or whatever we decided to create.
We have to provide a Javascript function to do some UI validations in the HTML render, and a call to a java function in the Swing render.
Beware that you may end with imperfect apps in both worlds.