Should I buy Obout controls?

Question

We started a new project, and the nature of the project is very interactive, and a rich interface is required.

We will need a set of controls that will be required to develop Rich UI. I found Obout while playing on Google. I never heard of them and never saw my friends participating tell me such a name, except Telerik, ComponentOne, NetAdvantage. These are the famous names that we have heard, but not that.

But control gives a positive feeling. But, since two things always matter when you buy some services: how good are their customer support? and how feasible is their price?

Other, how quickly do they release patches / updates? Like, what if we find a bug or bug during development, what happens? Do they provide a quick solution to this?

I am a little confused when deciding here. I need your help, experience and feedback.

Answer 1

I used to use Obout controls. They are definitely less well known than something like Telerik or ComponentOne, but they have long existed and definitely produce a quality product. They are also much cheaper. In general, I had a very positive experience with them, and I never had problems with support requests. My first experience with them was about 5 years ago, and they were very good, and they only improved.

I don’t know specifically how quickly they release releases, but I can tell you that over the past few years they have released many new things. I believe that you can download all the controls and try them before buying them, so I would advise you to do this. If this meets your needs and you find it easier to use than alternatives, then look for it.

Also check this question to see more information: Obout controls in C # .Net

Answer 2

Do not think so. I bought their kit and every time I tried to use one of my controls, it sucked.

Example 1. I use their grid and want to use the filter options. For 400 records, the grid filters only twenty records that are on the first page. Thus, it does not account for most entries. I contacted my support and I sent them the files they requested. That was five months ago, and despite repeated attempts and emails, I never received an answer.

Example 2: Today I use their datepicker. A good attempt, but it opens in a strange position on the page, and there is no way to change this.

Answer 3

We have been using their tools for over a year now, and we are very pleased with them. Cost is part of what competition charges. They work great, they look beautiful, and this reduced our development, so our project was completed two months before the expected, even when learning new tools.

The learning curve is a little steep, but this applies to any of the comparable packages. Technical support sucks, only by email. When we first bought it, they had a support forum, and you could find most of your answers on the forum, but unfortunately they ended the hit. Now it takes several days to get an answer. But when running the entire application, we had many pages to work on, waiting for answers. Most of the time they pointed out problems or told us how to solve them. And I sent them a lot of messages telling them to ignore previous requests, finding answers on the Internet.

Their examples are simple, and if your needs are simple, there will be enough. If you are creating a full-blown application to replace an outdated application and running your business, for example, we did, you need better support. However, it was well spent money. We use the grid and filters to search our client database of 200,000 records and we can usually find the person we need in less than 10 keystrokes by name. Performance is very good on our intranet.

I note that when I thought I discovered software bugs, it was just me. The comma where the period should be, poor capitalization, improper use of functions, etc. Javascript is very sensitive to syntax and is not friendly with error messages, so much time was spent on code execution to detect not so obvious errors.

And our requirements probably go beyond the majority of people's needs, our main screen has a combination of superform and 7 data grids, each of which gives a modal form for data entry, all on the same web page. But it works well. In total, we have about 60 pages of data entry and another 60 pages of reports that we created using the oBout tools. Report pages allow users to set report criteria (for example, dates, customers, products, etc., using pop-ups, calendars, switches, etc.) and send them to SSRS reports, a kind of special reporting. Thus, we created projects with more than 125 web pages and more than 150 reports in less than one year, which is quite a significant achievement, given the small workforce.

Answer 4

If I were you, I would look a lot at using jQuery and hundreds of great plugins that will provide almost any functionality you need. jQuery is highly supported and best available (open source).

It will provide you with all the necessary client functionality, and it is VERY easy to work with. One of the things you really need to use jQuery is the control over the identifiers and names of HTML controls (DOM elements). When you use these third-party management packs (and most built-in .net too), you usually lose a lot of control over the HTML that they produce. You can either wait for asp.net 4.0 to appear, which will solve problems with the control identifier or rely on relays controls, and will have full control over the identifiers and other HTML code that it produces.

It costs a small investment in learning jQuery and repeater control, if you haven't already.

Answer 5

I used Obout controls a few years ago (from memory, their ASP.Net TreeView and Slidemenu).

I think that I had to contact them a couple of times and received immediate support in both cases, solving the problem that we had.

However, if their control (in terms of UI, API) meets your expectations, this is a pretty personal thing - the support is good, but you may find that you do not like the look or the API does not work, t fits into the way you do things (although it was good for me). You must really evaluate them yourself and see how you deal with them.

Answer 6

if you don’t need to integrate too well with asp.net, be sure to check out extjs. its rich library ui.

Answer 7

I am using Obout controls. And I would make one more choice if I could. The controls are cumbersome and quite often erroneous when you try to inherit them. Bad choice for me.