Given the nature of the documentation (lots of reference but relatively cursory otherwise...despite what marketing thinks:-)) the demo code is obviously important. However all the aspx pages reference a masterpage that is not provided. Obviously your normal masterpage file is for your online version of the demos and someone has simply been lazy in translating that content for offline use in the downloaded version.

Do you have a neutral masterpage file that can be placed somewhere suitable relative to the demo code so it can be fully useful?

What I want is demo files I can right click on...open in VWD...and goto design mode to see the control setup as I would for building your controls into my own application.

Thanks

It is? Hmm...one moment...! OK found it...again your docs regarding this are lacking although I now see that you expect us to open up a "web site" at the VB or CS subfolder level below the Samples folder; there are no project definition files...or a hint in the docs...to make that more obvious of course.

I do understand the desire to keep it easy from your side (export your demo project as-is rather than something designed for integration to a developers client based workflow) but it does at least sort of work now (I am getting Error Creating Control errors on the aspx for the several of the first demos I tried looking at..not a confidence booster). It would be FAR more useful to be able to open functioning demos from the download version for specific controls as standalone pages within VS/VWD when the active project is already open to make it easy to cut and paste from a functioning test whilst building my apps functionality.

However...I guess your a&^ is covered!:-/

Thanks for the speedy response at least.

PS: I had to upgrade the demo site to work with .Net 3.5...I assume that is acceptable? It should be compatible with 3.5 yes?

Hehe...predictable. I am not 'an average computer user'...and thank you for the impied insult! I do however have better things to do than endlessly play detective trying to figure out how to effectively utilize a library I've paid good money to use.

OK...let me try this as a Web site developer...what I would really like is access to some proper technical documentation. Ideally UML Package and Class diagrams to some reasonable level (obviously there is a point of diminishing returns...especially for protected code vs public code). I am not looking for internal design information...just the publicly accessible stuff you expect me to be able to use. If not that then at least one of those cute "object trees" that MS produce for most of their stuff - one per top level component would go a long way to accelerating understanding of your class/object dependancies.

Sure I can fire up the object browser, turn off all the protected stuff and go hunting (I mean...who writes code with procedures and funtion names like a(), b(), c(), d() etc...oh yes...you guys do...that's what you go for lots of interdependancy! ;-)) I can then go mining to figure out the class relationships for myself...but as a Web developer I don't think it is unreasonable for a class library to provide a little help understanding the relationships between publicly accessible classes etc within the library. Especially for a library that appears to use a high level of interdependancies in its basic design.

And please note I am not complaining about the level of componentization...just that there is very little available information to help me get up the learning curve about which components are dependant on what. I can see a lot of potential power...but actually utilizing most of it involves a level of divination beyond that I expect as the norm for a paid 3rd party toolset.

Is that clearer?