On Jul 11 we conducted a webinar titled “Developing ASP.NET MVC Application Quicker with kendo UI”. This is part of the ongoing webinar series we here at Telerik India are doing targeting the APAC region. We call this the Telerik .NET Ninja Developer Webinar series. You can take a look at the Jun-Jul schedule here: https://telerikhelper.net/2013/05/24/telerik-webcasts-june-july/

Kendo UI is a HTML5 based JavaScript framework for developing HTML5 based sites or apps. Its everything you need to develop the sites and apps. Its one package which will give you pretty much everything you need to develop a HTML5 based apps or sites. Although it is a client side framework and that means a lot of JavaScripting, we have you covered if you want to develop on the server side. We have what we call as ASP.NET MVC Wrappers for Kendo UI. This give you the power of JavaScript but the productivity of server side. So this webinar was all about how you can build UI quicker in ASP.NET MVC using Kendo UI.

Slide Deck:

Here is the slide deck which I used for the webinar:

Webinar Video:

For those of you who missed attending the webinar live, we have it covered for you. We record all our webinars and so was this one. Here is the recording of the webinar:

Questions & Answers:

During the webinar, my team tried hard to answer as many questions as we can. With the interest of the time we normally collect all your questions and try to answer them through this recap blog post. So here is all the questions and answers for them:

Q: What is the license cost or purchase cost for Kendo ?
A: kendo UI costing is available at this page: http://www.kendoui.com/purchase.aspx

Q: Can we use Kendo UI for asp .net apps without MVC?
A: Yes you can. But note that Kendo UI is all about client side. So no server side programming of Kendo UI controls. You will need to use JavaScript way of working with Kendo UI in technology other than ASP.NET MVC. The server side wrappers are available only for ASP.NET MVC.

Q: Is Kendo UI available as part of Telerik Controls ?
A: You can buy Kendo UI as a single product. Here is the Kendo UI pricing – http://www.kendoui.com/purchase.aspx.  Also, if you buy any of our DevCraft bundles, kendo UI is included in the bundle. Here is our DevCraft bundle pricing – http://www.telerik.com/purchase.aspx

Q: Any live application developed using kendo UI?
A: You can take a look at www.kendouimusicstore.com. This is a famous reference app for ASP.NET MVC which was developed by Microsoft. We took the same and converted it to a Kendo UI application with front end being completely done using Kendo UI controls and back end powered by Web API.

Q: Before starting development, which language knowledge required?
A: If you know JavaScript, then you know Kendo UI. Kendo UI is built on JQuery. So nothing new to learn. If you want to program Kendo UI using a server side technology – we support Server Side Wrappers for ASP.NET MVC, JSP and PHP.

Q: Can we use kendo UI with Web API?
A: Yes absolutely. Kendo UI has Data Source that easily connects with Web API.

Q: To develop app in Kendo UI little bit JS is enough?
A: Yes, you do require JS knowledge especially awareness of jquery kind of syntax. But you can directly use ASP.NET MVC, PHP or JSP server side technologies too.

Q: How do we decide between jQuery UI and Kendo UI? Do we have comparison charts between these products?
A: Take a look at this article – http://jqueryuivskendoui.com/

Q: Will Kendo UI Support SharePoint 2010?
A: Kendo UI is a client side control set. As long as you develop a webpart which supports accessing external JavaScript and Stylesheet, Kendo UI can be used anywhere.

Q: Can we use knockout.js in Kendo UI or it’s not required because it’s different JavaScript library similar to knockout.js
A: Kendo UI has all the capabilities that you require (even of KO). But you can also use KO with Kendo UI.

Q: What kindsof data sources are supported?
A: Out of the box Kendo UI Data Source can handle JSON and XML.

Q: Does it support multiple cultures?
A: Globalization is one of the features in built in Kendo UI. So you can include the appropriate culture Kendo UI JS file and set the culture you want to work with. Rest will be handled by Kendo UI.

Q: Is Kendo UI a jquery plugin?
A: Kendo UI is not a Jquery plugin or a clone. Kendo UI is written from ground up but is based on Jquery. Jquery is the only dependency Kendo UI has. All the constructs in Kendo UI are similar to Jquery so that the learning curve is less.

Q: What are the key features of Kendo UI Mobile?
A: You can take a look at our Kendo UI Mobile product page – http://www.kendoui.com/mobile.aspx

Q: Is there any Kendo Controls for Winforms?
A: No. Kendo UI is for Desktop Browser based application and Cross Platform Hybrid Mobile Application development. for WinForms we have a separate control suite which you can take a look at here – http://www.telerik.com/products/winforms.aspx

Q: Can we have Scheduler control in Kendo UI?
A: Yes. Scheduler control is available as part of Q2 2013 release of Kendo UI.

Q: Can we use Kendo UI to show data in modal and provide CRUD operations with validations in Kendo UI
A: Kendo UI Grid already supports this feature. Take a look at our Grid demos online at – http://demos.kendoui.com/web/grid/index.html

Q: Kendo UI is only a Java Script library or any server side components are also involved?
A: Kendo UI is a client side HTML5 based JavaScript framework. We have server side wrappers to speed up your Kendo UI programming. The wrappers just output the necessary JavaScript code which otherwise you would have to write.

Q: Can we bind data from SQL DB?
A: You need to create Web Service or Web API which can return the data as JSON. Kendo UI has a JavaScript data source which can work out of the box with a service returning JSON payload or xml payload.

Q: Does that mean apps developed using Kendo UI can be used on mobile browser?
A: Yes. Kendo UI Web controls are touch aware and can run on all modern browsers.

Q: How do we compile to native app after completing the app in Kendo UI mobile?
A: If you are using our Cloud Based IDE – ICENIUM, it lets you build for iOS and Android platform right from the IDE. Otherwise you will need to use PhoneGap build mechanism to generate the package.

Q: How Kendo UI is different when compared with Knockout.Js ?
A: As far as I know, Knockout.js is a library to achieve data binding where as Kendo UI is a complete framework which provide Widgets/MVVM/Validation etc.

Q: Is there any project template for VS2012 from kendo UI?
A: Yes. When you install Kendo UI using our installers, we ship in a Visual Studio project template to speed up your ASP.NET MVC development with Kendo UI.

Q: Can we integrate WPF app in this Kendo UI?
A: WPF is a different technology set. Kendo UI is meant for Web applications & not WPF.

Q: What are the mandatory script files need to be included in kendo UI on working in MVC 4?
A: You need to include Kendo UI Web JavaScript and Kendo Stylesheet files into your project.

Q: Does charts in DataViz support on IE8 ?
A: Yes, it is supported.

Q: Can the CSS be modified as per our need?
A: Yes absolutely. We even provide an online tool to facilitate this: http://demos.kendoui.com/themebuilder/index.html

Q: Can you talk about Kendo UI licensing?
A: Kendo UI is licensed on per developer basis. For more details and discounts, please write to sales@telerikindia.com

Q: Do you have any facility for group license?
A: Yes, absolutely. Please write to sales@telerikindia.com

Q: In the era where the line between PC/Laptop display and mobile display getting blurred day by day, e.g. PCs getting touchscreen, mobiles/tablets getting Full HD/Retina displays, how one should plan their investment for web application? I mean if we are targetting global reach, how you recommend Kendo UI for mobile/MVC?
A: Kendo UI Mobile is used to create Cross-Platform Apps. Using that you create apps for devices and phones . Kendo MVC Wrapper is used in MVC based web apps .

Q: Is this light weight control?
A: Yes, Kendo controls are very light weight controls with no addition to ViewState etc. Since it can use the client side processing capabilities as well, the performance is phenomenonal. It also supports virtualization etc.

Q: Can you elaborate more on “Virtualization”?
A: do take a look here: http://demos.kendoui.com/web/grid/virtualization-remote-data.html

Q: what is MVVM framework?
A: Kendo comes with its own optimized MVVM framework. Please refer to the following webcast that we had done on the same: https://telerikhelper.net/2013/05/31/resources-for-webinar-mvvm-validation-using-kendo-ui-in-web-applications/

Q: Can we use trail version control in any professional web site?
A: No, trial license explicitly forbids you from using it in live/professional web sites. Please write to sales@telerikindia.com and we can help you further with more information.

Q: Not clear how chart series changes according to data
A: Learn more about charts here http://demos.kendoui.com/dataviz/bar-charts/index.html

Q: How can we do conditional validation in KENDO UI?
A: Please do take a look at the demo here: http://demos.kendoui.com/web/validator/index.html

Q: Kendo is for web based or mobile based services?
A: Kendo UI web is meant for web apps. Kendo UI Mobile is meant for mobile. They both share a common base framework.

Q: Will there be wrapper for ASP.NET wrapper in future. We currently use ASP.NET Telerik.
A: We already have a wrapper for ASP.NET MVC. If you are using WebForms, the RadControls are the ideal controls to use. We are constantly adding & updating those controls.

Q: Can we use Kendo UI for java web application
A: Yes, we have a JSP wrapper for the same. More details here: http://www.kendoui.com/server-wrappers/jsp.aspx

Q: Can i use knockout.js with Kendo UI mvc
A: Pls take a look here: http://rniemeyer.github.io/knockout-kendo/

Q: Can we use kendo controls in VS2008
A: Sure, you can. they are simple JS libraries that can be added. It has no IDE requirements.

Q: Is there any other separate editor for Telerik development?
A: We don’t have any IDE requirement for Kendo UI. If you are doing MVC development you will want to use VS and Kendo UI wrapper for MVC

Q: Does the kendo mobile support in all the browser?
A: Yes. It only requires HTML 5 support in the browser. All modern browsers support that.

.NET Ninja T-Shirt Giveaway:

we select 2 person from the webinar attendees and give away our .NET Ninja T-Shirt in each of our webinars. we have picked up 2 lucky persons in this webinar too. They are:

• Karthikeyan R

• Harvinder Singh

Congratulations to the winners. We will be contacting you shortly and we will ship your t-shirts. Rest of the folks don’t worry – we still have loads of webinars lined up for this year. So do attend our future webinars without fail and try your luck to be the .NET Ninja.

Till next time – Happy Coding.