Dundas Gauge 1.6 for ASP.NET 2.0
Product Review
Bar charts and graphs are a great way to catch the eye and convey useful information
quickly to managers and other business people. However, if the competition has access
to real-time data feeds, charts and graphs often depict data that is too stale to
be useful. While it can be helpful to see a graph of a Web site’s traffic for yesterday
or last week, seeing a live gauge of page requests as they happen brings a whole
new level of control and insight to managers and technicians alike.
While getting access to feeds of real-time data can sometimes be tricky, displaying
that data in attractive and useful ways is downright simple — if you have Dundas
Gauge (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: The With Dundas Gauge you can
create an attractive real-time display of server performance.
Getting Started
The Dundas Gauge installation is quick and painless. By default, the installation
program will install a variety of detailed sample applications. However, the integrated
help didn’t work as advertised. I had to launch the help documentation from the
Start menu and find the desired topic manually.
To use Dundas Gauge, open Visual Studio and create a new Web application. You’ll
find the Dundas Gauge container control already placed in the toolbox. Simply drag
it onto a new Web form and the powerful Gauge Wizard will appear to step you through
the process of creating a customized gauge (see Figure 2). With
this wizard you can pick the kind of gauge you’d like to use. There are more than
20 distinct gauge types, and they can be configured and combined in a seemingly
infinite number of ways. Colors, fonts, and labels can be customized in addition
to behaviors, such as dampening and snapping, that can help smooth out any potentially
jerky gauge movements that erratic incoming data could cause.
Figure 2: The powerful Gauge Wizard can step you through the process of
creating a gauge control that’s customized for your needs.
The Visual Studio 2005 version of Dundas Gauge provides smart tags that enable easy
configuration of most major gauge properties, including functionality for establishing
a data source (see Figure 3). The data source can be bound to a
data control, database, or custom object.
Figure 3:
The Visual Studio 2005 version of Dundas Gauge provides smart tags for easy configuration
of most major gauge elements.
Once you’ve got a control configured exactly as you want it, you can save the template
to allow quick and easy reuse of the settings for other instances of the gauge control.
So How Does It Work?
Dundas Gauge was developed in pure C# code. It can be used for data output as well
as data input. That is, users can optionally tweak the knobs, slide the levers,
etc. The gauge control has intelligent analysis abilities built in. For example,
the gauge control can react to alarming data, raising events and visually displaying
alerts if configurable ranges are breached by incoming data. Other examples are
the control’s abilities to calculate and display rolling averages, integrals, and
rate-of-change algorithms — and that’s just for starters.
The gauge control calls back to the server frequently to get the latest data and
update its display. This refresh rate is configurable. The gauge can be configured
to work in a variety of different ways. For instance, a JavaScript function that’s
output by the server control periodically requests an update of the gauge image
from the server. The server generates a new image upon each request that represents
the current state of the data. This simple technique is compatible with all browsers
that have JavaScript support enabled.
Alternatively, the control can be output as a Windows Forms control (smart client)
providing a richer interface. Of course, this requires all users to run Internet
Explorer and have the .NET Framework installed.
Another way the control can render is as a Flash streamed movie. Although this might
sound like it has high bandwidth requirements, it’s actually the most efficient
option that relies on a small trickle of data from the server. This technique is,
of course, compatible with any browser that has the Macromedia Flash plug-in installed.
This impressive array of rendering options is more than I would expect from any
single control, and is quite a pleasant surprise. With these options, virtually
every conceivable kind of user should be able to be supported in the richest way
possible.
Thumbs Up
Dundas Gauge 1.6 isn’t perfect — the performance within Visual Studio can be a tad
sluggish at times, especially upon initialization. However, run-time performance
is snappy — and that’s much more important. Overall, I can’t imagine an easier or
more intuitive way to display real-time data feeds to users. The configurability
of Dundas Gauge is top notch, and the output is attractive and intuitive.
US$699 will get you started with a developer license, a test server license, and
one production server license. This package includes both ASP.NET 1.x and 2.x versions
of the controls, so you can upgrade to ASP.NET 2.0 at your leisure. Also included
are 60 days of free live support. Maintenance and subscription packages are available,
as well. The companion product, Dundas Gauge for Windows Forms, is available as
well (starting at the same price point). Download a free evaluation copy and give
it a whirl.
Rating:
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Web Site: http://www.dundas.com/products/gauge/
Price: US$699
Review Date: 2006