Marketing tools in full effect

In LLBLGen Pro I currently use the 1.7.4.0 release of the Magic Library for several GUI elements like docking windows. As this release was the final release before the library went commercial, no support was given, but that version was free, came with sourcecode, so no complaints here. As I'm adding new GUI functionalities to our O/R mapper, I required a nice tab control which not only looked nice but was more flexible than the .NET tab control. As Magic contains such a tab control, it was the obvious choice.

However I ran into all kinds of bugs and after a day and a half I gave up (which was yesterday). So I googled a little for tab controls but on the freebee side, nothing was very usable, so I went to Component Source and browsed their catalog. I took my time, as a lot of vendors have something to say about their product. I registered at Component Source to download a trial of some tab control (which wasn't that great) so they had my email address and of course started tracking me.

Today, I received an email from a Component Source sales person, that I'd spent more than half an hour on their site in a specific category and if I needed help selecting the product I want.

I was stunned. Their system apparently tracks visitors, which is perfectly fine, but their system is also clever enough to list the people who apparently have trouble making a choice and that they perhaps need assistance. A perfect example of how IT can help your business and how software can make the difference!

(Btw, I chose the Infragistics suite, as it was the most stable control set and contained the most value)

8 Comments

  • Nice to see you are still putting so much time in LBLGEN and working hard for it after such a great time! Keep us informed!

  • This is the commercial version :) (and our main product). The old, free, open source version is no longer supported.

  • I got annoyed getting e-mails from my account manager at ComponentSource every time I browsed their site and told him so. Now he doesn't contact me anymore. On the other hand he also helped me find a specific component when I was under some pressure. Instead of evaluating dozens of tab controls you could try to specify some requirements and then see what they can come up with. Ah, you have decided already, but then maybe next time.

  • Impressive. I'd be embarassed to know how much time I spend on some sites.

  • Frans, best of luck in your use of the Infragistics tools. We use them in our application, and absolutely love them about half the time, and hate them the other half. I'll post something on my blog in the next few days about our experiences. Long story short, if you think you've found a bug - you probably have!

  • Eric: I bought them because of the tab control, and that's absolutely a great control. I've also moved away from the dreaded .NET grid to their grid, and it's a tough learning experience but it pays off. I found of course a glitch, but not a big one: if you define a set of columns in the DisplayLayout and you bind an ArrayList with objects to the grid, the data shows up nicely, your column definitions will too, but if you then bind an empty ArrayList to the grid, the column definitions are gone, and the next time you bind a non-empty ArrayList, you get default columns.

  • For some time now, I'm looking for a comparison of the Infragistics suite to the DeveloperExpress suite.

    Until now - nothing found.

  • Frans,



    What was the deciding factor for you pick that Tab control? Which features were you sold on?

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