Infragistics is hands-down the greatest general-purpose suite out there for Windows Forms controls. The web controls are cool too but I don't do enough web development to comment. I purchased C1's product and it was lame, buggy, and what a waste on the subscription... they didn't release ANYTHING new that was even removely worth while during the year. Infragistics was a little buggy a few years back but 2005 volume 1 through present has been fantastic for even the most daunting tasks I've thrown at it. I also found the design time experience better than that of Dev Express and several other competitors (especially C1). I'm not knocking DevExpress though, their XtraReports is a great little tool. I think you'll be happy with the purchase of Infragistics. Have a peek at the trial version and then decide.
Terry_Hunter_23787, 1/25/2005 12:19:47 AM
I am a beginning programmer, and needed a way to have what I could not personally produce, specifically the look & feel of world-class Windows apps, long before I became a world-class Windows progammer (eg, NEVER [g]). I decided to start with VB.net, since I really didn't know anything else, anyway. I figured I could 'get ahead of the wave' this way. The key for me was & is Infragistics' enterprise package (now called Priority Support). For a nominal amount of money in the initial purchase, and an even smaller 'delta' on renewal, I have a bevy of experts (some better than others, of course) essentially at my service. I can get help by email, and also by direct, immediate phone-in. I am also an MSDN universial subscriber, and the kind of assistance I get from Infragistics for an ENTIRE YEAR is less than what a single MSDN incident for a single question costs, even at initial rates, but especially at Infragistics' renewal rates. I just renewed my subscription expiring in July 2005 for slightly more than $500 through Xtra.net. Frankly, I think their UltraToolBars & Menus (including priority help) ALONE are worth this price, and the Outlook-style scheduling components TWICE this amount, again. In other words, just a tiny part of the entire suite is worth TRIPLE the renewal costs, in my view, since my time is my most expensive component! Lest you think my opinions are totally uninformed because of my limited experience, you can read my negative report on Component One's total lack of effective help, even with their most comprehensive package. I may have limited experience, but that experience is concentrated on current component packages.
Although I am impressed with the Winforms product (have not used the Web suite), they DO need to improve their documentation. The help, including the tutorials, seems a bit 'hit & miss', and a global approach that starts with an overview, then moves in an orderly fashion to show implementation of the typical tasks that a programmer would likely have to accomplish would be a BIG improvement. I have found a couple of bugs, and those are under repair. Overall, I am impressed with the Winforms suite and their excellent help, and would recommend it.
RobertCallahan, 11/30/2004 10:31:56 PM
There are definitely bugs in the suite. But then the format is clear from the marketing: we pay for the cost of development by subscribing to their component service. They write code that frequently adds features or takes interesting approaches to problems I want to avoid. Some of this code arrives with bugs; troublesome bugs get quick attention in some cases. In others, especially when bugs hit humbler components like tabs, you can be eaten alive while awaiting a fix. But then they supply full source code so you can make make quick adjustments as you see fit. It's a shame that the business tolerates poor commercial code, but that's the game we play. Infragistics is much like its competitors in this regard.
At the same time, they do supply a lot of code and a lot of it is very good and all of it supplies source. At the asking price, which has lamentably risen - a fact I've not yet had time to process - it's hard to argue that this isn't as good as you can get in the current market for this type of code set. They could use more practical sample code, clearer commenting, easier integration of components with each other, and better documentation, but then so could everyone else. The documentation and support has vastly improved in the last two years, buy the way.
For ease of use, most of the tools have jumped forward in that respect as well in recent releases. This is a work in progress, and one hopes they don't lose sight of the need diligently to tighten weaknesses as they go forward at least as vigorously as they work on fancy new features. And all bugs need to be addressed as they're uncovered. Should these things continue to improve, Infragistics will solidify a strong hold on a market they won with solid pricing and a reasonable attitude toward source code.
DavidWeeks, 8/20/2004 6:43:42 PM
I recently upgraded to Infragistics NetAdvantage 2004 Vol2 and have been using Infragistics NetAdvantage since version 2.0 Vol1 and absolutely enjoy using it. I've tried similar products from other vendors, but none can compare with the functionality or finished product look I gain by using NetAdvantage. The learning curve for using the product is high, but no worse than other products of the same caliber I've used in the past. The knowledge base could be better, but the PDF help files they recently introduced are a great improvement over what was available in the past. The best help files I've encountered are their sample code projects and the product source code itself. By disecting the source I was quickly able to better understand and use the product. Granted, not everyone wants to pay the additional couple of hundred dollars for the subscription and source, but that extra expense has saved me countless hours of understanding the product.
It is not a good choice for the novice or someone wanting a quick implementation without taking the time to learn the product.
WilliamLucking, 7/12/2004 4:30:52 PM
After more use of Infragistics, with now maybe six months invested, I have converted all of a sizable application’s components to Infragistic. Infragistic offers a lot more than any other component suite, hands down. A problem is that the documentation worth anything is the VS.NET integrated help (the PDF help sucks and their KB sucks) and yes there is definitely some trial and error and some of their methods are obscure, but there is actually a pattern to how they establish their properties and once you learn it, it can help. They do have some good tools that help you build and manage your components, some just came out recently. When I first used 2004 V1 I had several bugs that I reported in the Toolbar. They acknowledged the bugs and then some time later a hot fix came out and all of the bugs disappeared. This company focuses heavily on features and aesthetics, which I like. Bugs haven’t caused any problems with my implementation, but I’m not using charting and a few other components. Also, when I use the grid I don’t bind to an active data connection, I just to bind to datatable object, so I could be missing a chunk of the Grid functionalnity. What I have used very successfully, after a learning curve, is Dock, ExplorerBar, MaskedEdit, TabbedMDI, TabControl, and Toolbars, and Grid in the context I mentioned earlier. The suite is very focused on aesthetics and capabilities, less on documentation. But, folks, the field out there for these component suites leaves some to be desired and despite its hang ups, Infragistics seems to be the best at least in the components I’m using, including WinGrid. I don’t use Infragistics for everything, but from spending the last year and thousands of dollars on .NET components I’ve been surprised how some companies are better at some components than others.
EdwardWeller, 6/30/2004 7:31:15 PM
Don't listen to the nay sayers. These products are excellent. I have used the .NET package since the first version. Yes, there were some issue but thats what subscriptions are for. I only wish they would create a drag and drop drawing control.
ChadBiggerstaff, 1/31/2006 2:08:58 AM
For the value I think this is one of the best suites out there. To me what some may call a plus to this suite is actually a negative to me, which is that nearly every control in this suite is generic enough to suit many tasks. The problem with this approach is that it takes a fair bit of configuring and scrolling thru dozens of attributes to get most of the controls setup for your specific need. The grid control for instance Wow is it powerful but Wow will you spend some serious time getting it setup.
I use their grid control when a simpler one doesn't fit my needs. I love their webbutton in Mac mode, makes a pretty graphical button with little effort. The masked textbox controls are also fantastic.
Even if you just utilize a fraction of the suite I feel you'll get your monies worth.
TomWilson, 8/3/2005 8:33:06 AM
I used their COM components and was very pleased with them. We use .Net components now and the functionality, flexibility and end results using these controls are very impressive. Our applications are visually robust and offfer the features of high end commercial Windows apps. There are only 2 things I find need improvement. 1, the time it takes to resolve bugs. It sometimes takes a couple of months or more and I don't have time to wait in many cases. 2, the big one, is documentation. Some controls like the color and font pickers aren't documented at all. I had to email them to find out where the selected color/font was being returned. I've asked them repeatedly, 'how am I supposed to know how to use these controls if you don't document them'? The documentation is still as bad. But their support is top notch. I still recommend the product very highly.
neoe, 9/20/2004 4:20:05 PM
I have to say Infragistic components for asp.net looks very nice, but it's bugy. even for the 2004 v2, I am testing the build version 26, lots of bugs. can't get the hotfix since it's demo version.
koo9@hotmail.com
LarryAultman, 7/20/2005 9:40:55 AM
Our company recently purchased the Infragistics NetAdvantage suite subscription. We are trying to use the product with varied success. However the documentation that is provided with the product is almost useless. Our company is paying a tremendous price in time and we are not getting the full use of the advertised features because the documentation is so very poor.
I have seen glowing accolades for it and it does produce a quality interface once implemented. But I suspect that the developers are spending a lot more time in development just getting up to speed than should be expected. We have been able to dig out functionallities only through the trial and error method; BUT we are clearly not able to exploit the product for which we have paid because the cost of discovery is too high.
The reason we can't rate Infragistics high is because of the very poor quality of the documentation.
I don’t know of any other way to bring sufficient pressure on the company to document the product accept to complain to the resellers.
This product is the worst documented product of any we have ever purchased. For a mainline product we the purchasers expect to get full value for the features. I am not getting this from Infragistics.
There should be some way to force the company to document to a minimal standard short of a refund. I hope that companies like yours would survey or review the documentation among your clients.
If I were to create a documentation rating standard for this product (and similar) I would create a scale of 1 to 10 and place at the middle position (5) Microsoft Visual Studio documentation for which this product is intended to be used as the comparison. This way it would rate relative to a baseline product.
Using my scale Infragistics rates only a 1, as compared to the Microsoft documentation for the Visual Studio product for which it is intended to be used. It by far is worse than Microsoft documentation. This scale doesn't comment on the usefullness of the Microsoft's documentation rather compares the usefullness of Infragistics to the documentation of its environment.
Larry Aultman
RickSchoenborn, 7/9/2004 11:15:31 AM
I have been using NetAdvantage 2004 for about 9 months. I find it to be a very powerful tool. However, the documentation (in the form of help files) is probably the worst I have encountered in my 20+ years of programming. I have spent many hours trying to discover which properties I need to use to make the controls do what I need them to do. It's basically a trial and error method because the HELP files DON'T.
The support staff have never once understood any of the issues I have raised with them and give me answers that have nothing to do with the problems I experience. I have ceased submitting questions to them because I never get a proper response.
Everything I know about the web tools, I have figured it out on my own or with the help of other developers.
PaulPest, 5/7/2004 2:10:38 PM
While coding a VB6 project for a client, I incorporated UltrGrid2 into the code. This was decided after dealing with too many issues with the standard controls. This introduced a glitch. A Hot Fix was published and it fixed the glitch. We then progressed a little further along. Now, the application would crash when accessing certain data records. Design time would work. Executable would not. Infragistics dismissed my claim to a bug. Being a DBA, I inspected the data for invalid data, white space, embedded hex values, etc. etc. It wasn't invalid data. It seemed to be related to the length of the data. Finally, 4 months later they put out a Hot Fix that corrected the problem.
So, basically I've paid for a 1 year subscription and without getting the benefit for more than half of the time.
Am I going to pay for another 12 months? No. Why? Because I can not rely on Infragistics to address issues when they are encountered. Quite frankly, I'd like a refund, or at least a credit, for t
JimSnyder, 10/14/2005 3:41:00 PM
The only control that I have attempted to use is the UltraWebGrid. It has made my life a living hell. I am running behind, and about to give up on it entirely.
I suspect that the documentation is actually intended to conceal the fact that the product does not work. The content of the help files is so shallow as to be virtually useless. The online documentation is voluminous, but so disorganized as to be utterly useless. For instance, there is no discernible order or categorization to a given products "How To" or "Tutorial" articles. My guess is that they are hoping that customers will spend $$ on the training classes. When you do find an article that appears to be on point, it is highly unlikely that it will be both comprehensive and accurate.
If you work for a very large organization and need to find a niche -- by all means, invest your time in NetAdvantage tool package. You can spend years figuring it out and, when you do, you will probably be the only one on your floor that knows it.
If your time is short and your TODO list is long, find something else.
RonNelson727033, 7/12/2004 4:39:02 PM
I am currently in the weeds with Infragistics ASP.NET controls. In the past I used their UltraSuite products for ActiveX components and I was generally pleased. That evaporated when I uncorked this latest debacle. Bugs, bugs, and more bugs is the best way to discribe this combination of Infragistics and .NET. I can create a web application that runs like champ on my localnet. However, all bets are off when I place it on the Ap Server. Javascripts go in the tank and I can't get a decent debug session for the life of me. Infragistics had decent help files in the past but these NetAdvantage files are useless.
BruceHemmerich, 6/27/2004 7:14:40 PM
I also would like a refund. Infragistic's marketing hype is far ahead if its actual functionality. I would use three words to discribe Infragistics NetAdvantage product. Buggy. Buggy. Buggy.
I have been using Infragistics UltraWebChart and UltraTab. I have encountered several bugs in both controls that Infragistics has confirmed were bugs. I thought I was buying a winner and I bought a lemon. I've got months of development time invested in using Infragistics and I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to work around bugs.
There has got to be a better product out there to buy than this one.
15 Review(s) have been written.
