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Thread: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

  1. #1

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    Post Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    When it come to 3rd party products you use when developing Visual Basic applications, other than Visual Basic/Visual Studio, what are the tools or libraries you use?

    This question is aimed at developers - not at those selling a product. Do not list a product you are selling or marketing, but rather only products that you or your company use.

    Include planning, design, testing, debugging, performance management, deployment, or any other products that are part of your efforts.

    Thanks!

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  2. #2
    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    I've used some parts of the DevEx suite of controls, though we've somewhat moved away from them. Initially, these were sold much like any other software, and much like other software, they have moved towards more of a subscription model to keep their customers interacting with them more, perhaps financially. We weren't doing enough to warrant any kind of subscription, but they do have an excellent grid with many features that make it superior to the DGV that MS includes in the .NET framework.

    Having said that, my general experience has been negative with third party control suites. It's not so much their fault, as the fact that we tend to create things and leave them alone for an extended period of time. This allows us to fall generations behind, or worse. Even with DevEx, we got some five full versions out of date, which started to cause trouble whenever we did need to go back and make any changes to the programs. A second program is even worse, as the company making the third party tool went out of business in the interim, which means that we have a tool with no support, no documentation (if we ever had any, it was lost during a move and/or a few retirements), and no clear path forwards with it. In that case, though, since the tool was VB6, I simply re-wrote the functionality in .NET.

    So, while it is possible to get components that fill specific niches and exceed that which is included in the frameworks, there is always the potential for the third party tool to simply disappear, or get upgraded to the point where what you has no longer has any support of any sort. Of course, the existing tool is likely to continue to work as it has for an extended period of time, you just have to be aware that it has a lifespan and issues that are separate from that of Visual Studio.
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  3. #3
    Wall Poster TysonLPrice's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    VBSendMail
    PDFMeld
    FarPoint VASpread
    BlackIce image controls
    Crystal reports
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  4. #4
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    (.Net) We use Telerik Controls at my place, and they are not bad. The Desktop controls are better than the ASP.Net controls i would say. They are not cheap but if your company is paying that isn't an issue

    The Desktop Grid is a lot better than the standard Grid and the Ribbon & Ribbon Form are particularly useful if you need that type of menu structure.

    Other than that we use the free ImageMagick library for converting Images to PDF. This is a great library, really fast and works with pretty much all image types including large Tiff files.

    We use Adpose Word - for converting Word files to PDF

    We use PDFExchange - for creating and editing our own PDF Files progammatically.
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  5. #5
    Randalf the Red honeybee's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    MZ Tools - a great add-in for VB6 and now available for DotNet as well
    InnoSetup - alternative to the P&D Wizard, very flexible and extensible too
    Infragistics - grid and other UI
    Crystal Reports - thought it was part of the visual studio :-D it's so deeply embedded
    Win Help Creator for creating CHM and HLP files

    Something off the top of my head....
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  6. #6
    PowerPoster Arnoutdv's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    ActiveX:
    ComponentOne: vsFlexGrid
    CodeJock: Suite Pro
    vbRichClient

    DLLs:
    Compression Libraries (zLibWapi)
    MZTools 3 (VB6 Add-In)

    Other:
    MSI-AdvancedInstaller
    TextPad
    Paint.NET

  7. #7
    Wall Poster TysonLPrice's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    MZ Tools - a great add-in for VB6 and now available for DotNet as well
    I don't think the .Net version is free like VB 6.0.
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  8. #8
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    Active Reports and various export filters
    Ultra Edit

    MS Office
    SQL Server

    A few custom programs that I have written myself to help here and there.

  9. #9
    gibra
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    IDE:
    - MZTools v. 8.0.0.169

    COMPONENTS:
    - ComponentOne - Studio Ultimate
    - ComponentOne - ActiveReports 11


    PROGRAMS & UTILITIES:
    - 7-zip (free)
    - InnoSetup + ISTools + InnoScritp Studio (free)
    - Adobe RoboHelp 11 / 2015
    - Help & Manual 7
    - HelpNDoc
    - MS HTML Help Workshop (free)
    - Notepad++ (free)
    - UltraEdit 24.10
    - Agent Ransack 2016-867 (free)
    - Resource Hacker 4.5.30
    - NirSoft RegDLLView

    OTHERS:
    - MS Office 2013
    - SQL Server 2014
    - PostGreSQL
    - MySQL
    - Firebird SQL
    Last edited by gibra; Sep 20th, 2017 at 11:41 AM.

  10. #10
    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    I'm all web based now so I only have 3rd party stuff in back end web services. I didn't think you were interested in JS libraries - or are you??

    At any rate - back end:

    PdfSharp for creating PDF reports
    OpenXml for creating Excel spreadsheets (can do Word docs also - I just never used that functionality)

    And of course MS SQL Server

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  11. #11
    Karen Payne MVP kareninstructor's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    Back in the day when developing desktop applications I used Aspose PDF Kit which allow for parsing PDF files with no structure, split PDF files using complex logic. This library was used in five projects dating back to around 2006 and all but one (retired) has functioned well. At one point the library had a major stumbling block which I discussed with their dev team, within a week I was presented with a new build that resolved the issue.

    Also use RedGate's SQL Toolbelt, this is an excellent tool for beginner to advance knowledge of working with T-SQL. VS2017 has a slimmed down version of SQL-Prompt which lacks all of the paid version features yet well worth working with.

  12. #12
    Still learning kebo's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    I have used some third party tools in the past, and the general result was that most of them would do 70-80% of what I needed. The rest was up to me to "get creative" and find a work around. This usually ended the same way; creating the class or control from scratch. I get that it's economically better to buy a controls package for $500 than to pay an employee more than that to create them, but in the end, if there is a specific need for the tool, I've found it's often easier to just write the darn thing to do what I need.

    Having said that there is a great benefit to 3rd part stuff, the foremost being stability. It's assumed that 3rd party stuff is tested released and further tested by those who have purchased and used the code before me. Of course this is not always the case, but generally speaking I don't thinks it's that far off.

    Just about the only 3rd party tools I use now are from SoftwareToolBox and provide OPC Server and PLC connectivity. These tools are solid as a rock and are far too involved for me to write on my own.
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  13. #13
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  14. #14
    Frenzied Member pnish's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    ClosedXML is a wrapper for Microsoft's OpenXML library, specifically for creating Excel spreadsheets. I love it!
    https://github.com/closedxml/closedxml/wiki
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  15. #15
    Frenzied Member jdc20181's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    I keep any 3rd party libraries at a minimum especially if they include paying for it, this is because all my work is open source, at least so far, I do not have a actual job with programming, still learning more and more everyday, the one thing I do use is Advance Installer, which you can get a professional license if you qualify under a few things any of them not all of them make you qualified.

    Here is the link to that page: http://www.advancedinstaller.com/free-license.html

    MVPS, MCTS, Open source projects, and they even offer it if you have a blog and do a nice blog article on the product. This is so far the best solution to deployment I have found that is easier than whats offered in VS. I used installshield for years and never knew they offered this, until I got a new computer and couldn't use installshield anymore. It is also a seperate application from VS so, its really easy to use, no matter the version of VS you are using, which sold me even more due to the InstallShield thing.

    Licenses are lifetime as well, they gave me an extension on my maintaince plan for free, I was worried about it expiring, basically what that does is extends support, updates etc.


    The only other 3rd party dependency I use is GeckoFX, which will give you an error on VS 15, and 17, all you have to do to solve that is change xml. Its way better than the IE Control.

    Other than these really I don't use anything third party. Except maybe icons - all of which are opensource/public domain.
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  16. #16
    Angel of Code Niya's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    DotNetZip for compression.

    I more often than not write my own things. Like 90% of ALL the code on my HD are libraries, controls etc.
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  17. #17
    Junior Member HeribertoLugo's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    DevExpress.. absolutely love the controls and customer service.
    JetBrains dotPeek.. decompiler.
    winMerge.. file comparison for differences.
    notepad++..

  18. #18
    Ex-Super Mod RobDog888's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    Resharper for increasing productivity
    Telerik controls save allot of time, especially with grids as they come with such great build in features
    GitHub Desktop for source control
    NotePad++

    We try to really limit 3rd party controls in our apps and only use Telerik as its very well supported.
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    Junior Member HeribertoLugo's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    Quote Originally Posted by RobDog888 View Post


    ...only use Telerik as its very well supported.
    its funny you mention how they are well supported.

    before we started using devexpress, i made a spreadsheet to compare about 7 companies and their controls. from features to look and feel. i narrowed it down to devexpress and telerik. it seemed telerik had a few features devexpress didnt have and vice versa. so i downloaded both to try out and compare. then contacted both companies for more info and pricing.

    devexpress got back to me the next day. it took telerik about a week and a half. customer support turn around time is important to me, so we chose devexpress.

    after i replied to telerik and explained i had already went with another company, they started spamming me with deals and such. i unsubscribed 3 times.. finally the emails stopped after the third time, in which i threatened to report them for spam.

    6 months later, the spam started again, so i did end up reporting them.. lol..

    devexpress always gets back to me within 24 hours whenever i have any issues.. they build sample solutions sometimes, without me een asking for it. very helpful.

  20. #20
    Ex-Super Mod RobDog888's Avatar
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    Quote Originally Posted by HeribertoLugo View Post
    its funny you mention how they are well supported.

    before we started using devexpress, i made a spreadsheet to compare about 7 companies and their controls. from features to look and feel. i narrowed it down to devexpress and telerik. it seemed telerik had a few features devexpress didnt have and vice versa. so i downloaded both to try out and compare. then contacted both companies for more info and pricing.

    devexpress got back to me the next day. it took telerik about a week and a half. customer support turn around time is important to me, so we chose devexpress.

    after i replied to telerik and explained i had already went with another company, they started spamming me with deals and such. i unsubscribed 3 times.. finally the emails stopped after the third time, in which i threatened to report them for spam.

    6 months later, the spam started again, so i did end up reporting them.. lol..

    devexpress always gets back to me within 24 hours whenever i have any issues.. they build sample solutions sometimes, without me een asking for it. very helpful.
    that's good to hear as good service is so hard to find now a days. We have too much invested in Telerik to change. So for now its the status quo
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  21. #21

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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    I'd be curious to know how long ago the slow response time with Telerik was. Did that occur before they were acquired by Progress or after?

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  22. #22
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    Quote Originally Posted by brad jones View Post
    I'd be curious to know how long ago the slow response time with Telerik was. Did that occur before they were acquired by Progress or after?

    Brad!
    this was about 2 - 2.5 years ago. their response time was about 1 week after i initially emailed to inquire about their products. after about the second day after emailing them, i decided to just download the trial and check it out. i ran into multiple issues with the installer, so i emailed them again to get some help. we purchased devexpress almost a week later, and then i received a response form telerik for each of the 2 emails about a day apart.

    at some point i figured out the installer problem was my anti-virus. but by that time it didnt really matter anymore.

  23. #23

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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    Thanks for the responses everyone. At this time, this thread will be closed.
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  24. #24

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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    By popular demand - or at least by request - we are opening this thread back up! If there are a great third party tools you are using, share what they are, what they do, and why they are great for VB .NET developers. (Please don't try to sell a product here, just tell about tools others might find useful).

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  25. #25
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    Re: Input Wanted: 3rd Party Products

    I'm glad to see this thread unlocked.

    Tools

    - Notepad++ - regular text editing. Plug-ins like JSTool and Markdown Panel are real helpers
    - VSCode - view and study 3rd party sources. Works well with really large repos like .NET runtime source
    - SQLYog community - very good MySQL/MariaDB tool, similar to MSSQL Management Studio
    - DB Browser for SQLite - like SSMS and SQLYog
    - WinMerge - visual diff and merge tool

    - Fiddler and Postman - web APIs tests
    - Different browsers - Explorer 11, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave... - sometimes used, sometimes abused

    - JustColorPicker - pick colors from your screen, including graphics apps and then paste in the proper format for the language that you use
    - Inkscape and Gimp - icons and graphics creation (vector and raster)
    - Paint - best way to express visually in few seconds
    - Dia - different type of diagrams, including UML, DB design, network and others

    - VMWare Player or VirtualBox - create and use virtual machines with different OS versions, servers installed, etc.


    Libraries

    There are many but here are some of them:

    - Dapper - fast ORM for data access used everyday on StackOverflow sites
    - StackExchange.Redis - again another library used on StackOverflow - this time for Redis server (caching and pub/sub)
    - Newtonsoft.JSON (Json.NET) - most used JSON (de)serializing library for .NET
    - nats.net - pub/sub client for NATS server

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