Exploring the Controls and their Features
This article describes how to use the learning resources that will help you find information about the Telerik controls, their functionalities, and features.
Demos
To see a Telerik control in action and get an overview of its most popular features, go to the Live Demos.
You can download an MSI installer with these demos from your Telerik account and then explore them in the comfort of your IDE. The Telerik_UI_for_ASP.NET_AJAX_<version>_Demos_Dev.msi and Telerik_UI_for_ASP.NET_AJAX_<version>_Demos_Trial.msi files contain a Visual Studio solution with all demos.
Documentation
For each control, the documentation provides a dedicated main section with various sub-sections:
Functionality—Contains articles that explain how to use some of the main features and functionalities of the controls.
Server-side Programming—Contains detailed information about the properties and events in the control's server-side API. This is the first place to look at when you need to implement additional server-side logic in the control.
Client-side Programming—Contains information about the properties and events in the control's client-side API. This is the first place to look at when you need to implement additional client-side logic in the control.
How to—Contains how-to instructions for custom scenarios.
You will also find rich client-side and server-side API references.
Figure 1: Documentation structure for a typical control
Properties and Tags
Visual Studio's IntelliSense allows you to explore the available properties, events, and inner tags of any control.
Figure 2: Exploring IntelliSense in the markup
Figure 3: Explore IntelliSense in the code-behind
Smart Tags and Wizards at Design-Time
Most tasks and configuration options are available in the control's Smart Tag in Design Mode. You will also find design-time wizards and links that can be useful if you are getting started with a feature or even if you are an advanced user who wants to save time with setting up collections, data sources, or properties.
Figure 4: Smart Tag features
Next Steps
Now that you know how to learn more about the controls and their features, you can start customizing their behavior and appearance: