Microsoft .Net 3.5 Charting Control
If you are like me when developing you are always on the lookout for reusable nuggets of code to make you life easier. It's even better when that nugget of code comes with support that will aid you when you run into trouble in using that control. One of the things I love about the .Net platform as compared to many other development platforms is the fact that Microsoft publishes controls that are for the most part usable and relevant to the most common things we as developers need. Albiet we do not have all the controls we need but I'd say the 80/20 rule applies. Once again Microsoft has now released a new control for use with the .Net 3.5 framework that is sure to help created fabulous and dynamic data driven web applications, enter the Charting control. Used like any control and added to the VS 2008 toolbox this control will allow you to create static, cached, and dynamic charts in any ASP.Net web page. In the past to get something like this with an OOB tool I'd have to use SQL Reporting Services or some other similar tool. Now with native .Net I can create charts next to data grid and create really dynamic reports all with native ASP.Net! To learn more about the Chart Control you can visit the following:
Download the free Microsoft Chart Controls
Download the VS 2008 Tool Support for the Chart Controls
Download the Microsoft Chart Controls Samples
Download the Microsoft Chart Controls Documentation
Visit the Microsoft Chart Control Forum
You can also visit ScottGu's Blog as this is where I first learned about this cool new tool!