Should I buy Obout? Help, Please.

Question

We started a new project and the nature of the project is very interactive and a Rich UI is required.

We would need a set of controls that would require for Rich UI development. I found Obout while googling. I never heard about them and never seen fellow members telling me such name except Telerik, ComponentOne, NetAdvantage. These are the famous names we heard but no this one.

But, the controls give a positive feeling. But as two things matter always when you are buying some services: How good are their customer support? and How much feasible their price is?

Another, How quickly they release patches/updates? As, what if we find a bug or an error during development what will gonna happen? Do they provide a quick solution for this?

I hope you understand my query. I'm bit confused making a decision here. I need your assistance, experience and feedback.

Please, assist! Thanks.

Answer 1

If I were you I'd look strongly at using jQuery and the hundreds of great plug-ins that will provide just about any functionality you need. jQuery is heavily supported and best of all it's free (open source).

It will provide all the client-side functionality you need and it's VERY easy to work with. One of the things you really need to use jQuery is to have control over the id and names of your HTML controls (DOM elements). When you use those third-party control packs (and most of the built-in ones in .net too) you typically lose a good deal of control of the HTML they produce. You can either wait for asp.net 4.0 to come out which will resolve the control id issues or rely on repeater controls and have complete control over the ids and other HTML it produces.

It's well worth the small investment in learning jQuery and the repeater control if you haven't done so already.

Answer 2

I've used Obout controls before. They are definitely lesser known than something like Telerik or ComponentOne, but they've been around for quite a while and definitely put out a quality product. They are also a good deal less expensive. Overall I had a very positive experience with them and never had any trouble with support requests at all. My first experience with them was about 5 years ago and they were very good then, and they've only gotten better.

I don't know specifically how quickly they put out releases, but I can tell you that over the past few years they have released a whole lot of new stuff. I believe you can download all the controls and try them out before you buy them, so I would encourage you to do that. If it meets your needs and you find it easier to use than the alternatives then go for it.

Also check out this question to see some additional feedback: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/57382/obout-controls-in-c-net

Answer 3

if you don't need something too well integrated into asp.net, definetly have a look at extjs. its THE rich ui library.

Answer 4

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

I think I had to contact them on a couple of occasions, and received prompt support both times, solving the problem we had.

However, whether their controls (in terms of UI, API) meet your expectations is quite a personal thing- the support is good, but you might find that you don't like the look of them, or the API doesn't fit in with the way you do things (although it was fine for me). You should really evaluate them yourself and see how you get on with them.