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Infragistics Ultimate 14.2 UI Toolkit Inspired by Microsoft Office
An incremental but important update to the cross-patform tools developer's UI suite adds a WYSIWYG Page Designer, new data visualization and charting controls, and a Xamarin.Forms component.
Infragistics Updates Ultimate Toolkit
Infragistics Inc. has updated its Ultimate toolkit to include new and expanded features aimed at developers building "Microsoft Office-inspired," touch-enabled, high-performance business apps. Infragistics Ultimate 14.2 adds a WYSIWYG Page Designer, new data visualization and charting controls, and a Xamarin.Forms component.
The Xamarin.Forms component is the result of a recent partnership with cross-platform specialist Xamarin Inc. that will allow developers to use the Infragistics toolkit to target Apple iOS, Google Android, and Microsoft Windows Phone with one shared code basewritten in C# and XAML.
The company said the new Web-based WYSIWYG Page Designer was developed for line-of-business Web apps built with its HTML5/jQuery controls. HTML and JavaScript code is generated by the company's Indigo Studio prototyping tool; that code can then be used at design time to finish the app.
This release also includes a new set of data visualization and charting controls for Windows Forms enterprise app development. The company is calling its Windows Forms Data Chart "the most modern" on the market, thanks to its Motion Framework, which allows devs to animate data over time, create composite charts and use multiple series.
The evolution of the Infragistics toolset is a response to changes in the software development process that have been bringing design into the app dev lifecycle much earlier, said Jason Beres, SVP of the Infragistics Developer Tools group. "It used to be that the developers would write the app and then hand it to designers," he said. "But today, the message is, do a bunch of good design up front before we make any mistakes with the code. We really preach 'great UX up front' to deliver great experiences on your app."
And the demand for high-quality UXes is no longer just for consumer apps, Beres said. Enterprise users expect the same kinds of UX at work.
"I'd argue that the stakes are even higher in the enterprise," he said. "When the internal systems are polished and provide a great UX, you can attract talent to your company. And those employees will be more productive."
Cranbury, N.J.-based Infragistics makes desktop, Web, mobile native, and mobile hybrid UI toolsets, as well as design tools for rapid, interactive prototyping. Infragistics Ultimate 14.2 is provided on a subscription basis.
About the Author
John K. Waters is the editor in chief of a number of Converge360.com sites, with a focus on high-end development, AI and future tech. He's been writing about cutting-edge technologies and culture of Silicon Valley for more than two decades, and he's written more than a dozen books. He also co-scripted the documentary film Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, which aired on PBS. He can be reached at [email protected].