which one is better for chart and grid controls?? Flash/Flex VS Silverlight

Question

Hi,

I am developing an application which contains controls like tree,grid and chart. I personally feel silverlight is the best choice for it because its got strong third party controls from Telerik. But, as flash is much widespread compared to silverlight, some members in the design team is supporting flash. To my suprise, I haven't seen any third party controls like Telerik(silverlight) in flash which supplies controls like Tree, Grid and Chart.

I just want to know whether I am right in supporting Silverlight.

Could anyone please let me know if you have known any third party controls in flash/flex??

Thanks, Mahesh

Answer 1

Flex/Flash Builder has built-in tree, chart and grid components which suit for most needs.

Here are some links for further investigation:

• http://flex.org/tour
• http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/visualization/demos/elixir.html

Answer 2

Plain flash doesn't make sense when you can use Flex (for charting). I don't know silverlight but I will answer your question to 3rd-party controls in flex:

• IBM Elixir (expensive): http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/visualization/demos/elixir.html#Interactive%20demos
• Birdeye (free): http://birdeye.googlecode.com/svn/branches/ng/examples/demo/BirdEyeExplorer.html

You can also achieve a lot without 3rd-party controls :)