I am happy to tell you that yesterday we shipped the Q1 2013 Beta version of RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX. In this release you can see and try most of the features we promised for this year’s first big release. Let me share a few links for the most impatient of you:
Beta Demos | Release Notes | Trial Download Link | SharePoint 2013 Web Parts Trial Download Link
What Are the New Controls Coming with the Q1 2013 Beta?
If you’ve read our roadmap, you probably know the secret already, but it’s different to see and touch it ;)
We have 3 new dropdown-like components. It’s true that most of what comes with them can be achieved with the existing Telerik ASP.NET ComboBox control, but now it’ll be easier than ever, with less markup, with less html, css and scripts rendered on the client, and of course, it’ll all be working faster. So go ahead and meet the new RadDropDownList, RadDropDownTreeand RadSearchBox. Their names are self-explanatory, and they do just what their name says.
Another new thing that comes now is the RadZipLibrary for ASP.NET AJAX. It provides API for compressing and decompressing files and stream. It’s a component we hadn’t planned to implement, but due to the large demand for it, we decided to plug it in. Check its demos hereto get better idea how it works.
Last, but not least, I’d like to remind you that with Q1 2013 RadPivotGrid is getting out of Beta and becomes official. There are lots of new features we’ve added the last few months, amongst which are:
- OLAP Support through the XMLA and the ADOMD.NET data providers;
- the field list now supports hierarchy
- the PivotGrid is level AA accessible in compliance with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines
- support for .NET 4.5 Model Binding
Check the demos and the release notes for more details.
What Are the Enhancements Coming Now?
Just a few highlight for the rest of the components:
- RadHtmlChart adds two new chart types – donut and bubble.
- RadImageEditor has a few more built-in filters: greyscale and sepia. It also introduces drawing capabilities, now you can use a pencil, or draw circle, line, and square figures.
- RadBarcode can be rendered as PNG and exported to PDF.
- .NET 4.5 Model Binding is supported for RadGrid, RadListView and RadTreeList.
- Accessibility is improved for multiple components to ensure accessibility level AA and additional properties for setting messages for the screen readers per scenario are provided
- Design-time support is improved now as more commonly used and important properties are exposed in the controls’ Smart Tag and Wizards.
Is there anything new for SharePoint?
Probably many of you will be happy to find out that our SharePoint web parts and controls now work in SharePoint 2013. You can download the new Web Parts from here.
That’s definitely not all you can find in this beta release (and more is to come with the official Q1 2013 version of RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX). We’ll be happy if you try it and share your feedback with us, either by leaving a comment below or by using the Beta forum.