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Infragistics Inc., a maker of reusable presentation-layer development tools, plans to ship a new version of its presentation-layer tool set, NetAdvantage 2005, 45 days after Microsoft Corp. releases Visual Studio 2005 on Nov. 7, Infragistics officials said.
The new NetAdvantage 2005 tool set is compiled natively against Microsofts .Net Framework 2.0 and contains other features exclusively for Visual Studio 2005.
Infragistics NetAdvantage is a tool set for building the presentation layer of Windows Forms, ASP.Net and Tablet PC applications, said Steve Dadoly, Infragistics director of development, in East Windsor, N.J.
NetAdvantage 2005 Volume 3 employs some of the new ease-of-use features in Visual Studio 2005, enabling developers to build applications consistent with the Microsoft look and feel while writing less code than they would using .Net Framework 1.1, Dadoly added.
After Visual Studio 2005 ships, Infragistics will maintain two versions of NetAdvantage. One version will be built on Microsofts .Net Framework 1.0/1.1, Dadoly said. This version will allow customers to continue to build and maintain older-generation Visual Studio-based applications, he said. The second version will allow development of NetAdvantage-based applications on .Net Framework 2.0, using Visual Studio 2005. NetAdvantage 2005 will include a utility for upgrading existing applications to Visual Studio 2005, Dadoly said.
“We are currently in the process of rewriting two of our major applications originally written using Microsoft Access XP and Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0,” said Tim Maloney, founder of Alliance Consulting LLC, in Holland, Mich. “The NetAdvantage 2005 Volume 3 controls give us the flexibility that we need in data binding, events and control properties.”
New features in NetAdvantage 2005 for Visual Studio 2005 include snap lines, smart tags, new data binding support, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) support for WebGrid, design-time data binding, integration of editors into the in-box grid and more, company officials said.
In addition, Infragistics is delivering a new DataPresenter feature, which helps to separate code from presentation and styling.
Infragistics will also announce Beta 1 versions of its next-generation Grid and Chart controls for Microsofts Windows Presentation Foundation, formerly code-named Avalon.
The DataGrid control features the ability to display data in a variety of user interface formats; the ability to include two- and three-dimensional animations; and TabularView, a classic grid presentation of data, said Grant Hinkson, lead visual designer for Infragistics Avalon product team.
Among the many new charting control features are a gallery of high-fidelity built-in styles for visual design; advanced data interactions and image rendering; and the ability to interface with various data sources including the Windows Communication Foundation, formerly code-named Indigo, Hinkson said.
“Our goal remains to provide developers with a set of tools that they feel comfortable with right out of the box,” Dadoly said.