.NET Components and .NET Controls
What is a .NET component? .NET components are pre-built pieces of software that you can re-use within the Microsoft .NET Framework (pronounced dot net framework) to help you create your application faster and hopefully with fewer bugs. By re-using .NET software components you not only save time and money, but you also get the opportunity to use other people's expertise and knowledge that will give your app extra functionality and features - fast. In this filtered view of our product catalog you will only find .NET compatible products, these products include both .NET Components and .NET Controls as .NET downloads for you to try and buy.
What is a .NET Control? A .NET Control has a visual aspect and can be used on a form or Web page to control the behavior of the user interface, so the user of the app can use a .NET UI Control to: enter data, click on a button, select from items displayed on a drop down list, draw a chart or graph based on data that they have entered into a .NET datagrid control etc.
What is the difference between a .NET Component and a .NET Control?
A .NET Component does not always have to have a visual interface, for example a .NET Component could work behind the scenes on a server and be used to calculate the tax due on an invoice for goods sold to a customer or to create a PDF version of that invoice and then email it to the customer's email address. .NET Controls are User Interface (UI) controls and they are a subset of .NET Components and as such all .NET Controls are therefore .NET Components, however, the reverse is not true, a .NET Component is not also a .NET Control, as a .NET Component does not have to have a visual or visible interface and it does not have to appear on a Windows form, Web Form or Web page as part of the UI.
In this .NET Components marketplace you will find both .NET Controls and .NET Components - available as commercial grade, quality .NET software component products. You will find ASP.NET controls that you can use as an ASP.NET developer for your latest Web site or Intranet project, VB controls for your Visual Basic app and there are numerous VB .NET control products listed here as VB.NET Controls. If you are a C# developer looking for a C# component or C# controls you will also find a wide selection of C# .NET controls, C# .NET component products and .NET custom control products that will meet your needs.
The range of .NET Component and .NET Control products includes: .NET WinForm Controls, ASP.NET Controls, ASP.NET AJAX Controls, .NET Class Components or .NET Class Libraries, .NET Web Services, .NET Compact Framework (.NET CF) products for mobile & hand-held device apps, .NET LINQ Classes for data access, WPF Controls or Windows Presentation Foundation Controls and Silverlight Controls for the latest .NET Framework 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 environments. Finally you will also find a special form of ASP.NET server control that can be used inside SharePoint, these are called Web Part Controls.
Our .NET component product range will give you a choice of controls for .NET, whether you are using them as a control in C# or as VB NET controls for your next VB project or in any other .NET development language or .NET based IDE that supports the use of .NET software components. There are well over 1,000 commercial grade, high quality .NET component based products available in this .NET component product gallery that you can search for, compare, download, review, try and buy!
Silverlight Controls & Silverlight Components
What is a Silverlight control? A .NET Silverlight control is a Silverlight software component that is utilized in the user interface of a Silverlight based application to allow the end-user to enter data, display data, or interact with the app in some way to control the way the Silverlight app behaves. A Silverlight control is visible and can be seen and interacted with at run-time on their screen, example being a Silverlight list box or combo box that allow users to select items from a drop down list to input data into the Silverlight program.
What is a Silverlight component? A Silverlight component is a special type of Silverlight object in that it may not have a visible interface that the user can see, but runs hidden in the background. For example you can download a Silverlight file upload component from our Silverlight product gallery that allows you to upload files over the Internet using HTTP, you cannot see the interface to this Silverlight component, as it is non-visual.
Silverlight itself is part of the Microsoft .NET Framework and is the latest user interface app platform from Microsoft aimed at Internet developers to use to create dynamic Web sites and corporate Intranets. It can be viewed as a step on from ASP.NET, in as much as it supports multi-media, video, sounds, graphics and animation better than previous Microsoft technologies and thus offers a cross-platform and cross-browser alternative to Flash from Adobe. You can use Silverlight to create Silverlight apps that run on Windows PCs, Macs, Windows Phone 7 devices and some other Symbian based mobile phones.
Silverlight has gone through several developer iterations already: Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 2.0 & Silverlight 3.0 with Silverlight 4.0 being the latest version released in April, 2010. The latest Silverlight 4 release added support for new Web browsers like Google Chrome and support for local Microsoft Component Object Model objects (also known as COM objects or COM components). There is also an implementation of Silverlight that runs on Linux as a plug-in from Novell, another ComponentSource partner, and this is known as Moonlight, but at present is several versions behind Microsoft and only supports Silverlight 1.0 compatibility.
In this filtered view of our full product catalog, you will find both .NET Silverlight controls and .NET Silverlight components, as well as some Silverlight utilities to help you create your Silverlight app faster. The Silverlight component products listed here are created as third party Silverlight components by software companies specializing in the creation of Silverlight software component products. As such by using a Silverlight library, you are re-using the knowledge and expertise of another Silverlight developer inside your app. For example, by downloading a Silverlight charting control from our Silverlight product gallery, you are able to implement lots of different chart types and graph layouts for your users rapidly, without the support burden falling on you or your team. Or if you need to add a good text editor to your Silverlight app, you will find several Silverlight Rich Text editors to compare, download and review from our Web site.
The selection of Silverlight controls available is growing very fast, so the width and depth of Silverlight products listed here is expanding all the time. To help you keep up to date with this fast moving area, there is a Silverlight News RSS feed for you to subscribe to, with all the latest Silverlight News on product releases.
