Kendo UI is out of beta | Hacker News Reader

Kendo UI is out of beta

kendoui.com

98 pointstnajdek51 comments

Please don't consider using this at least until they make their own demo accessible to non mouse users (I raised the same complaint the last time this was posted, no change).

Honestly, I wouldn't hold your breath. You're probably so far on the fringe that it's not worth their time to fix it for you. They're demo works fine on my phone (Opera Mobile browser), the only mouseless interface I use.

I'm all for keyboard navigation, but I'm not at the point of boycotting if somebody doesn't support keyboard-only interaction.

While it is only a minor annoyance for me, there are plenty more mentally and physically disabled people for which it is a major one.

If you have to work with the US government, it's actually an issue: http://www.section508.gov/

From what I'm told by the "business guys", making your stuff accessiblt to the handicapped is a realy leg-up on some juicy contracts.

The only one i tested, combo box, failed on Android.

When you click the arrow, keyboard goes up and hide the options. If you scroll or press back to move keyboard, options are gone

Well, the goal of using an already-made UI library is to not have to think about these issues. I.e. if you're paying a couple hundred dollars for a library, you assume it has been well tested. (And, if keyboard shortcuts don't work, it's obvious that it wasn't tested enough.)

Combo boxes don't work at all on the iPad (or, presumably, iPhone). Long ones such as in the welcome demo page select items instead of scrolling on drag. Short ones on the combo box page close as soon as they open.

The landing page made a big deal out of supporting touch devices and being a HTML5 app framework; I wouldn't build anything on a framework whose own demos don't work on the most popular touch devices in the world.

Touch scrolling is not enabled for mobile devices since there is native scrolling already (with two fingers in iOS below 5 and with one in iOS5). Custom scrolling can be additionally enabled.

Just wondering why you would pick this over say jquery-ui or a combination of free and open source solutions?

It's made by Telerik, maker of .NET libraries and tools, and some companies go "all in" on their stuff.

I use highcharts at work, and quite happy with it. This seems to have much less options than highcharts.

Is there any place where we can compare the various charting libraries?

Having played with it; and after recently building an app using "jquery-ui or a combination of free and open source solutions" I'd say... because it's actually very good by comparison :)

For an ISV, $399 is next to nothing.

This is way slicker than what you could build using jquery-ui and available plugins unless you are rockstar with the js and have an excellent design person. For instance, the best time-picker plugin I've been able to find for jquery-ui is nice but isn't perfectly cross-browser and not as pretty: http://labs.perifer.se/timedatepicker/

Now look at the Kendo time picker. Design and usability are crucial to a successful product, so I'd say this looks like a smart investment, although I'd have to tinker with it more before buying.

Their time picker is fine as it's little more than a combo box for the end user. Their date picker however isn't any better than any other I've seen and almost all of them have usability or discoverability problems. In this case entering dates in the far past or future requires a lot of clicks, and for me significantly more effort than typing the date. It's also not terribly discoverable as there's not a visual indication that I could see indicating the year portion of the widget was clickable and could be used to drill down into selecting other years, decades, etc.

What about this one?

http://trentrichardson.com/examples/timepicker/

It extends the standard jQuery UI datepicker but you can turn off the date picker part leaving the time picker.

I've recently explored a lot of these different time widgets.

I didn't like that one because dragging a slider for the time seemed like a lot of work.

I'd rather click, so I ended up with this one that is based on jquery ui as well: http://fgelinas.com/code/timepicker/

Michael Vanderheeren's Absolution UI is pretty gorgeous. http://www.michaelvanderheeren.be/archives/382

How does the dual licensing work exactly?

Can't we just use the GPLv3 version on any commercial (or personal) website? As long as I'm not redistributing commercial software with Kendo included, I am within the rights GPL grants me, right?

Under GPL3, if you make KendoUI components available via hosted solution, I think you'd have to release your app's entire source. I think GPL3/commercial dual licensing is a very unattractive licensing approach, but that's just my view.

CORRECTION: My comment is only true under the Affero GPL.

I think that since the only code that is directly linking to the library is your JS, that needs to be released according to the GPL. So if you don't minify everything, you are probably complying already. Otherwise you'd have to provide access to your unminified JS source.

Providing access to your unminified JS is not the same as releasing your JS under the GPL. The GPL explicitly allows anyone to modify and redistribute the software, which is not necessarily a privilege you would otherwise grant when you give someone JS to execute.

I'm not certain whether including a GPL library with your JS code requires you to license your JS as well under the GPL, but if it does then simply choosing not to minify won't be enough protection.

If you use GPL3 licensed software in the backend, you wouldn't have to release the entire source, as long as you don't distribute the software. Which is why AGPL was created. But something like HTML UI components can't really be used without being used over the network, so not sure if it makes any difference here. Anybody know better? Edit: I see that DanielRibeiro has an answer about mobile apps.

"The GNU Affero General Public License

The GNU Affero General Public License is based on the GNU GPL, but has an additional term to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network to receive the source for that program. We recommend that people consider using the GNU AGPL for any software which will commonly be run over a network. The latest version is version 3."

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/index_html

You are correct. I was forgetting the distinction between GPL3 and AGPL3.

I'm not familiar with the new stipulations in GPLv3 and their potential effect on this, but if I had to guess, I would guess that Kendo is relying on the GPL's infectiousness; there is a clause that requires all linked code to use the same license. I suppose Kendo may make a claim or intimate that the terms of the GPL require at least your JavaScript to be identically licensed. GPLv3 may have strengthened or clarified these provisions in light of the massive proliferation of internet applications; again, I am not versed in the modifications of GPLv3 (and I'm not a lawyer, either).

They may also just be falling back on the old corporate dogma that employees are not allowed to touch a GPL library with a ten-foot pole. Or the old corporate dogma that everything needs a support contract so that managers can CYA.

There is a AGPL[1] license for web apps. But if you package it in your mobile apps, then GPL should suffice.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License

As someone who does JavaScript and HTML5 UIs for a living, I'm interested to understand more about the market of customers who pay for UI components or libraries.

Can anyone comment point me to an successful MVP in this area or tell me about customers who buy this stuff?

My untested opinion is quality JavaScript libraries are something everyone needs, but few are willing to pay for because Open Source has taught the majority of web developers to demand everything be free all the time, and include free support, otherwise they won't touch it.

The place I've seen these libraries heavily used is for internal business web apps. Think in terms of replacing MS Access within an organization with web apps. Developers want a consistent platform to use and management wants to be able to guarantee support by throwing money at some business to keep the lights on for many years. Using a paid product is less risky for these groups.

Sorry I don't have an MVP to point to.

Several of our clients, big consulting firms for the gov heavily use these and have no qualms about picking them up.

Generally the same people who buy Windows Server, businesses and governments. ExtJS is reasonably popular, probably the best example I can think of here (but I'm not in the market).

http://www.sencha.com/products/extjs/

Having quality support available is probably alone worth several times the price.

Fortune 500 and mid-market companies are the target market. I've consulted at several in the Chicago area that strongly prefer to work with a vendor who can provide long-term support and training.

No MVPs to offer, but Sencha and Highcharts are making a living licensing their Javascript libraries. If you're interested in this market, I'd recommend libraries for building complex infographics. Something beyond the standard business charts you see everywhere.

Any examples? Doesn't have to be HTML.

Probably missed the chance to get you useful information. But I've worked for a few companies looking to create dynamic versions of the typical "tower of infographic" visualizations. If you notice this and need some examples / general requirements to get you going, my e-mail address is on my profile.

Here's my explanation from experience...

99% of writing code is basic stuff that anyone out of school can do.

(Yes I made 99% up out of thin air but in my experience it's reasonably accurate)

In the world there are a lot of programmers that can do 99% of the work fine but who freeze at a problem. This isn't meant as a criticism. These people are good workers, good citizens, and so on. But in my experience they are the type of people who got a CS degree because they heard "it was the future" and are happy with a 9 to 5 job where they don't have to think about technology or code past 5:01 PM

When you supervise coding in a corporate environment you generally have 1 or 2 stars and then a bunch of other guys who fit the above description. You don't want your stars constantly being distracted by the others when they hit a problem so you seek out tools with support contracts. Then when someone hits a problem they file a support request and move on to something else until they get a response.

When support solves the problem those guys go back to coding the 99% of the stuff that they can do and everyone's happy for a fraction of the price.

$399 a year is cheap when it allows you to hire programmers who are competent but not stars (and who are accordingly cheaper)

I consider myself a potential customer - I'm a developer who can do the whole stack, including front-end JS/CSS/HTML, but I don't have strong design aesthetics. In other words, I'm not a designer. Therefore, being able to leverage some slick UI components is nice! To me, this is similar to purchasing a theme from theme forest.

Last time this was posted, I griped that it still failed to fill gaps that jQueryUI and other kits also lack. It's looking vastly improved since then, and looks like something people might want to pay for. Nice work!

I've never heard of your product before and your homepage tells me nothing about what exactly it is.

My best guess is that it's some sort of web development tool that I can pay to get support for.

I found this to be quite helpful:

Kendo UI Web is a framework for modern HTML UI. Engineered with the latest HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript standards, it delivers everything needed for client-side, jQuery-powered development in one integrated, compact package.

I believe that the parent is referring to the link that the OP submitted. If so, the parent is correct. The link submitted doesn't state much at all, other than purchasing options. The OP should have submitted the actual homepage, the page that contains the information that you provided.

As a rule of thumb I search for "About" link on any website if I don't get the whole thing. Isn't it quite straightforward?

Can someone explain me what is considered 'open-source' in a web application?

For instance, say I have a sushi website where people can order. The web site (html+css+javascript) is obviously public but the backend is private. (Database containing credit card + django code for instance).

If I use this library on my website (I.e. including the javascript on the client side), should I have to pay 400$?

Looks cool, some of the components did look a lot nicer than jQuery UI's.

I checked this out when researching a few frameworks for a new application. Even though it was an ASP.Net project we decided to go with Dojo http://dojotoolkit.org which I feel has a better product and model. It's free but if you need professional support you can get it through Sitepen.com. I've been impressed with it so far.

What you did wrong with this site is that you need to CLEARLY describe on the first page what your product does.

http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ is a good example of how to do this right

Well, we have all that on http://www.kendoui.com/, but unfortunately we didn't post this news piece.

This is a nice UI kit but it seems to any multiple select widgets like http://harvesthq.github.com/chosen/.

I could see this becoming a popular enterprise piece of software, but most of the functionality can be glued together with jQuerys UI library or the Google Closure Widgets.

Does anyone have experience with both Google ChartTools and KendoUI's DataViz? I'm really curious to know how they compare.

Anyone has idea what this line might mean: "Your Trial Support Package is active for 60 days after download."

A 60-day trial -- you can ask questions in the support forum and evaluate whether you want to purchase a commercial license.

Thanks, I thought part of the script depends on some other script on their server.

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