Mega Sites
There are several Web sites out there that provide entire libraries of Web controls
for you to browse. Many of the controls are free, and most of them at least provide
free demos. When you’ve got some time on your hands, I suggest you dig into these
fine Web sites and mine the gold that is contained within.
The open source ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit is stuffed with dozens
of useful and attractive controls that integrate quite well with ASP.NET AJAX.
Of course its all free, so download it and see what all the commotion is about or
simply try their
demos online without having to install a thing.
http://Ajax.asp.net/AjaxToolkit/
In case you missed it, Microsoft released several free Web controls
shortly after the release of ASP.NET. The download is quick and easy, and provides
several controls that make fine additions to any Web developer’s toolbox. Their
TreeView control is one of my favorites, although there are also nice implementations
of a Toolbar, Tabstrip, and Multipage
control. As you’d expect from Microsoft, the documentation is thorough, and there
are plenty of examples.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/aspnet-usingtreeviewiewebcontrol.asp
You might say this web site is a mini-mega site. In case
you haven't ran across them yet, there are a variety of free controls available
here, such as a MessageBox control, a Confirmation Button,
and Window Opener control, a Bar Graph control,
a Numeric TextBox, a Rollover Button, a ComboBox,
an Export Panel control, a Streaming Media control,
and more! Find them all here:
http://SteveOrr.net/articles/
CodeProject.com provides dozens of open source Web controls, such
as Schedule Controls, Master Page solutions,
Cookie Encryption, and more.
http://www.codeproject.com/index.asp?cat=4
SourceForge.net is the world’s largest open source development Web site. It provides
thousands of projects, although most of them aren’t .NET, so you’ll have to sift
through to find the ones that suit you. Luckily, you can do searches and filters
based on language. This site contains .NET projects for RSS news aggregators,
SMTP, Bar Graphs, Wiki, etc.
http://sourceforge.net
If you don’t know about
http://www.asp.net by now, it’s time you learn. The Control Gallery
lists hundreds of Web controls, including Charting Controls,
Navigation Controls, Image Libraries, and much more.
Even though not all the controls are free, this Web site definitely deserves to
be saved in your IE Favorites because of the sheer volume of useful information
contained within.
http://www.asp.net/ControlGallery
MetaBuilders, headed by cohort Andy Smith, provides more than two
dozen completely free high-quality Web controls. There are controls for practically
every need you’ll ever come across, such as a Slide Menu, a deluxe
ComboBox, a Scrolling Panel (which retains its
scroll position between postbacks), and an intriguing Master Pages
system, just to name a few. The C# source code is freely available, as well, so
you can learn from the master and build on his creations.
http://www.metabuilders.com
Carlos Aguilar Mares provides several nice free controls on his
Web site, such as a client-side DataGrid (mentioned earlier), a WebChart control
for creating charts and graphs, and an ExcelWriter
component for exporting content to Excel. There are several other controls you may
find useful, too; I recommend you take a look.
http://www.carlosag.net
Excentrics World provides a dozen free Web controls that will likely
come in handy at various points in your development, including (but not limited
to) a Masked Textbox, Numeric Textbox, and
Calendar Popup. Although the controls are free, the source code can
be purchased for US$75.
http://www.eworldui.net/CustomControls/default.aspx
411ASP.net provides links to hundreds of ASP.NET controls for
Charts, File Management, Content Management,
Site Statistics, and oh so much more. They aren’t all free, but
the variety is quite pleasing.
http://www.411asp.net/home/assembly