Telerik Offers Q2 2011 Milestone Release, with Focus on XAML, HTML5, and Data Access

Telerik announced its Q2 2011 milestone release of productivity tools for .NET developers. This latest product refresh updates 14 different Telerik products and addresses a "shifting technology landscape, with tools that support software development shops in meeting today's and tomorrow's needs," said Todd Anglin, chief evangelist at Telerik. In the context of addressing future needs now, three areas are highlighted in the Q2 2011 milestone release: XAML, HTML5, and data access.

The Q2 2011 release includes seven new controls for XAML. In addition, Telerik has added the Windows 8 Metro UI theme to Telerik's RadControls for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). "Telerik is shipping controls with a common Metro theme, including for WinForms. We think this helps developers embrace today changes coming in the near future and gives them a way to embrace the Metro future," said Anglin.

On the HTML5 front, Telerik has added a new HTML5 charting control. The charting control is part of Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC, features a "lightweight JavaScript footprint" according to Telerik, and also supports older browser versions. SVG and VML are combined under the hood of our [HTML5] controls, so developers can use them and still have back browser support," said Anglin. "As we've been slowly adding more HTML5 and CSS3 to our controls, developers can leverage those features without alienating older browsers."

In this release, Telerik is also attempting to make working with object-relational mapping (ORM) frameworks more attractive to developers. "The biggest challenge with adopting ORM isn't really with the ORM tools themselves. Where develpers traditionally are challenged are in the performance of those ORMS—how does my LINQ query turn into SQL?" said Anglin. In response, Telerik has added a profiler to its OpenAccess ORM tool, to give developers more insight into the code generated by the ORM so that it can be optimized. "The OpenAccess ORM Profiler gives developers a picture into the ORM 'black box'. It lets them see the SQL that's being generated, detects common [performance] problems, and gives guidance on how to optimize the code," Anglin said.

In addition to these highlights, Telerik's Q2 2011 release also includes the official release of JustTrace, a .NET performance and memory-profiling tool. You can learn more about Telerik's Q2 2011 release at www.telerik.com/whats-new.