Hi guys,

I have a few suggestions (context - I am currently writing a silverlight application for use in various banks - I chose ComponentArt to try and give the UI a consistent overall look and feel)

Before getting started I will say I have been very impressed by the stability of the controls provided - nothing worse than a buggy  and/or inconsistent control.


Additions/Updates (all refer to the Silveright platform - in no particular order):

1)  Context Menu.  Does not currently perform boundary checks for anything except the first menu shown (ie child menus run off the screen).  Considering the Menu already has the correct functionality this seems like an easy addition.  It is extremely annoying not being able to show a context menu with children anywhere near the bottom or the right of the screen.

2)  Context Menu (and I believe Menu).  Does not handle "lots" of items elegantly.  The menu should include the ability to scroll through items in the menu where there is not enough screen space to display the items. (see the DevExpress one as an example)

3)  NumberInput.  More control over input/validation would be nice.   AFAIK you can't enter (using the keyboard) negative numbers in the numerical input! You can guess how impressed finance types are when they can't enter -0.5 in a numerical box. 

4)  Slider.  A slider in the ComponentArt themes would be nice.  It looks silly having a RangeSlider next to normal silverlight slider. (yes, I know I could template my own - but that starts to defeat the point of buying a themed toolkit).

5)  Similarly to 4 - and general set of "basic" items in the componentart themes.  ie RadioButtons, Checkboxes etc  Not quite as crucial as 4 - but would greatly enhance the overall look of the page - for not a great deal of effort.


I think with a bit more of an emphasis on completeness (without losing their stability!), this set of controls would be very easy to recommend to other projects - but just right now I'm not comfortable doing that.


"Big Ticket Items"  - probably much more work than all of the above put together - but would also be nice to have - but personally a lower priority.

1)  A tileview. Like blacklight on codeplex, but more cusomizable and with the distinctive ComponentArt Style.

2)  A scheduler/calender.


cheers and thanks,

Ben

Thank you for your great feedback, Ben.

 

We certainly have your first three points on the radar and are treating them as tasks for the 2010.1 time frame - you should see some movement in either the RTM or SP1.

 

Your suggestion for including skins for some basic Silverlight controls also makes a lot of sense. We have been thinking along the same lines, and will be doing just that rather than introducing basic custom controls where we can't add a lot of value functionality-wise (eg. ComponentArt Button).

 

I can't say yet with complete certainly whether we'll be introducing Slider as a custom control (there *are* quite a few useful things we could add to the basic functionality) or merely providing ComponentArt-compliant skins for the default Slider, but perhaps the latter is a good first step in any case.

 

Thanks again, and do keep those ideas flowing!

 

 

Regards,

 

Milos Glisic

Director of Development

ComponentArt Inc.