Using and reviewing MVC controls : Syncfusion

Have been spending my time to choose the right controls for ASP.NET MVC 3 project. It an exciting project and yet challenging for the new technology MVC. The constant challenge in IT is, technology keep changing inside out easily compare to physical world. In physical world you will not like the hack you house and build another one.

Have been browsing a list of controls and famous controls makers. Bravo to them and they got new jobs to recreate all the ASP.NET web controls to new MVC 3 controls. Bravo to Scott too, guess some program manager from M'S that make the life thru.

Here are the list of players:-
Since I will going to generate a report for my boss, just blog it here.

Name		Comments
Telerik		Web site front page The demo and sample codes (aspx and razor) A nicely promoted and quite well known. It support both MVC 2 and Razor viewer. Having Their marketing summary:- Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC extend the ASP.NET MVC platform by delivering reusable UI controls built specifically for MVC. A server-based framework integrates with client-side modules built on the popular JavaScript library, jQuery, to deliver productivity enhancing controls for MVC that do not violate the patterns, practices, and guidance of the platform. The Telerik Extensions restore developer productivity to ASP.NET MVC and make it possible to build clean rendering web applications without writing all code by hand.
Infragistic Net Advantage		Website front page Their marketing summary:- Pure Client-side Controls - We bring you pure client-side controls that are server framework-agnostic and target desktop browsers. Data Templates - We use the latest jQuery client template support within our data grid which you won't find anywhere else. DOM Virtualization - Within our jQuery data grid we use DOM virtualization so you can load and scroll very large data sets without lag or a huge memory footprint. This is unlike ordinary virtual scrolling where data is fetched through AJAX. HTML 5 - We include the first HTML 5 video player control that works in both ASP.NET MVC and Web Forms applications. CSS 3 - We improve performance by eliminating img tags and making extensive use of CSS 3 image sprites for fewer HTTP requests and faster page loads. All controls render jQuery Theme Roller-compatible CSS class names enabling complete stylability. Controls for ASP.NET MVC - We provide you with a full set of extensions to the client controls enabling ASP.NET MVC applications to take full advantage of Microsoft® Visual Studio® IDE features like LINQ data binding, Fluent syntax support, paging, sorting and filtering to build full blown MVC applications--all out of the box!  This is "MVC done right," you are never forced to compromise your architecture because our UI controls are designed for the platform from the beginning.
Syncfusion		Their marketing summary:- Essential Tools is a collection of professional user interface components to create interactive ASP.NET MVC applications. Syncfusion Dashboard It can be used to create robust ASP.NET MVC application using Rich Text Editor,Tree View,Tabs,Accordion,Menu,Toolbar, Editor Package (Numeric text box, Percent text box, Mask-Edit text box, Auto-complete text box and Generic drop-down)and many more. Extensive client-side and server-side support View side customization for all the components In-built Skins support for all components Support for W3C-XHTML and W3C-CSS Cross browser support such as IE7+,Firefox2+, Chrome, Opera and Safari Demo and sample codes (aspx and razor) Help documentation
Component Art		The datagrid is very good. Smooth and nice.  However the demo is a bit disappointing, not source code. Demo but no code sample Their marketing summary:- A set of native ASP.NET MVC HTML helpers, designed to provide a comprehensive user interface platform to ASP.NET MVC developers. The controls offer rich client-side behaviour without relying on viewstate or postbacks.

After trying the Syncfusion, I think this is most competitive of MVC 3 controls that is available in the market right now. Have been taking a look on other players, however still Syncfusion give a lot of support. The demo site is well done. Sample source code is given after installing the trials. The code contain both MVC2 and MVC3 code (razor *.cshtml). However, the code is not upgraded to .NET 4.0.

To get start and using MVC 3 controls (which is no longer called control right now, it's a partial view) like Syncfusion you need quite a number of setup. Please do not expect only refer the assemblies and it will pop up in your Visual Studio toolbox. You dont even have toolbox for MVC 3. Also forget about the Properties window.

Syncfusion responsible enough to give step and help here : Syncfusion Help
Before start using the controls you need to:-
1. Adding Reference Assemblies
2. Adding Java Scripts
3. Adding Codes to the Web.config File
4. Add StyleManager and ScriptManager
5. Adding Tools MVC controls to the MVC application

Thanks to the sample code

Sample codes come with trial installation full solution