Attached is a screen shot of the Standard controls, including the
Textbox.. (which with a little java can be made to only accept numerics)
Calendar .. (depending on what you need to do can be used to setup a schedule type app)
Gridview/Datalist/Repeater.. (again depending on what you need to do with your data)..
I've Personally written a fully working, running Forum code using ONLY the standard ASP.NET controls, and a few snips of javascript, So i do know what i'm talking about...
There are a number of control vendors that offer great improvements over the standard controls. As GremlinSA stated, we'd need to know which controls you are specifically interested in, or what you are specifically trying to accomplish with the controls to know which ones to recommend. I can start naming the big vendors, but not sure which apply..... DevExpress, ComponentOne, NetAdvantage, SoftwareFX, etc.....
The softwarehouse where I work chosed Telerik Extensions for asp.net MVC. Beware, though: if you're going with MVC, you have to forget about server controls as you're accustomed to. The "controls" are now a bounch of JQuery, Html and Css, and you will have to manage Post, Get and Ajax calling to your controllers - no more classic serverside events : the view state is not there anymore.
The extensions I mentioned helped me for Views (as I am not good at design) and also added a plus for some smart functionality (like filters on grid columns), but had of course a drawback: as soon as their "normal" functionality is not enough and you would like to "make" a manual paging on a grid, you might find out it is not all that easy without losing a lot of other benefits (like simplicity as per Jquery Ajax).
I ended the project yesterday, after around 5 months of develope. If I look behind, I do believe I could have done it without extensions, but views design would have been poor and I would have spent at least a month more in developing something that could mimik those extensions functionalities.
...at present time, using mainly Net 4.0, Vs 2010
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