DotNetMagic <--> Krypton Toolkit

[gnauck]

Hello Phil,

again you created a great toolkit, and the best controls available IMHO.

We are currently evaluating different UI Toolskits.
What i am currently a bit concerned about is the relation beween the 2 products DotNetMagic and Kypton Toolkit. Both contain different useful controls, and both contain the same controls with different functionality (eg. TabControl). So could you let us know about your plans in the future. What we need is a combination of both . The pricing is not a problem. A problem would be if we buy both and work with 2 different products and codebasis.

Thanks
Alex

[Phil Wright]

Thats a good question.

DotNetMagic started as a free set of controls that were created in my spare time. It grew into a commerical product that has more recently allowed me to give up the day job to concentrate full time on writing user interface components. I had to decide if I was going to spend my full time working on improving and adding to DotNetMagic or start again from scratch.

There are many features I would like to add to DotNetMagic but which are just not possible because the base code is not designed in a way to allow it. In order to add all the features I wanted it would mean rewriting so much of DotNetMagic that it would actually be quicker to restart and so that is where Krypton was born. You can think of Krypton as the next generation of DotNetMagic and hopefully it will be a major step forward.

Once I decided to go ahead with a 'start from scratch' approach it was a simple decison to create a new separate company. The reason for the new company is that I have relocated from the UK to Australia and in the long run it makes sense to have a company in my new country and not try to have a legal entity based half way around the world. Plus an additional factor is that I did not own 100% of the DotNetMagic company and I wanted to ensure I did own all of the new software I write.

That is the histroy of how I have ended up in the current position. Going forward I will still continue to fix bugs and keep DotNetMagic up to date. Indeed, just yesterday I released verion 5.0 of DotNetMagic which now has the Office 2007 look and feel. But I will not be adding any new components or major areas of functionality.

As for Krypton, a year from now I expect to have added docking windows, a office 2007 style ribbon control and tabbed windows components. Plus many other smaller controls to the free Toolkit section as well.

Sorry for the long ramble but in short I would advise the following. If DotNetMagic today does what you need then it is well worth buying and using. If DotNetMagic has something missing, that you need, then it will not be added in the future and so you may prefer to look elsewhere. Krypton will continue to expand with new commercial add-ons as well as a gradually expanding free toolkit offering. The goal being to offer the full set of components you need to manage the client space of your application.

Hope that helps.

[gnauck]

Phil, thank you for this detailed response. I'm looking forward to new features in the Krypton Toolkit.

Alex

[deadlyviper]

Well - as someone who recently just paid for a year of DotNetMagic upgrades, I'm quite disappointed with this, maybe even feel a little cheated. I've been getting a lot of my clients to buy DotNetMagic because it's a top-notch product. But what you're saying now is you're winding down development of it, leaving those of us who put our trust in your product with no upgrade path.

From my perspective, I've been putting a lot of work into building toolkits and updating Microsoft's Smart Client Software Factory guidance package to work with DotNetMagic (which would sell a lot of DotNetMagic licences). I feel as though I backed the wrong horse on this one, because now I have to use another set of UI components.

I appreciate every product has a finite lifecycle. And this could be the end of dotnetmagic's, which is OK, that's life. I do think you have an obligation to tell us when it goes from being a "growing product" to a "maintenance only" product.

All that said - I can't wait for the docking windows in Krypton!

[Phil Wright]

I appreciate your point about feeling disappointed. Once Krypton has a similar set of components to the 'TabbedGroups' and 'Docking Windows' it will be possible to provide some kind of upgrade. Maybe offering a discounted price for existing DotNetMagic customers or even free licenses to bring them into the Krypton world.

[deadlyviper]

I've mused on this for a few days and I've come to the same conclusion as you. DotNetMagic, great as it is, is just miles off Krypton. I've been looking through DotNetMagic's code, and I've noticed a lot of the themes are hard coded in, whereas Krypton is very open and extensible with pallettes, etc.

So, I can't wait until Krypton has docking.

When you do work on it though, please put more work into the persistence. We still have to do a lot of the heavy lifting to rehydrate the contents of docking windows when it opens up again. It would be good if krypton could do more of that work. If it's not practical to put into the control itself, maybe you could document a few good patterns to do it. I spent an evening or 2 having to figure it out for myself before I got a working solution.

[mcbrideben]

What is the current state of the TabbedGroups control within the Krypton base? Do you have any idea when the functionality will be available? Also, we use the serialization available with the tabbed groups control. Will there be some upgrade/migration strategy for the xml we have stored in databases to be converted to match the new tabbed groups control in Krypton?

Thanks.

[Phil Wright]

I am not sure if it will be compatible but it would be simple enough I would think to create an XSLT to convert between whatever the two formats will be.

[lextm]

I am looking forward to seeing a DockPanel Suite alternative from you Phil. The open source DPS lacks of an Office 2007 theme.