UI component and developer tool provider Telerik today announced the Spring 2013 release of Kendo UI, its framework that helps developers build JavaScript and HTML5 websites and mobile apps.
The first of three planned major releases for the year, the Spring 2013 release includes new PHP server wrappers, as well as added support for Windows Phone 8 and the modern Web Single Page Application (SPA) architecture. SPA architecture, the company said, helps developers create modular and maintainable Web applications.
With its new Windows Phone 8 support, the company said Kendo UI helps developers create mobile Web and hybrid mobile apps across all major mobile platforms. One of the things that Kendo UI did not have support for, up to this point, was Windows Phone. “That was primarily because Windows Phone 7 didn’t really provide a capable-enough HTML5 runtime to make this work,” said Todd Anglin, executive VP of cross-platform tools and services at Telerik.
“Fortunately, Windows Phone 8 does have that capable runtime. So in this release, we’re adding Windows Phone 8 support in addition to the existing iOS, Android and BlackBerry support.”
The company also said Kendo UI is now the only front-end framework to offer server-side wrappers for ASP.NET, PHP and JSP. With the new PHP wrappers, the company said developers can build modern HTML5 apps without hand-coding JavaScript. They simply code in their preferred server-side language, and Kendo UI renders the JavaScript needed to power its widgets and framework features.
“Kendo UI channels developers’ HTML wish list into one framework, enabling them to leverage either JavaScript or familiar server-side programming to deliver rich, Web and hybrid mobile apps that run across all of the major platforms,” Anglin said.
This release also delivers the most new Web and UI widgets and chart types since the original Kendo UI release in November 2011, the company said. The new charts include Sparklines, Bullet Graphs and DataBars. New widgets include the Multi-Select, ColorPicker and Tooltip widgets.
In addition, to assist developers interested in integrating Kendo UI with other JavaScript libraries, the company said a new Kendo UI Labs site has been launched to incubate open-source integrations with projects such as AngularJS and Breeze.js. The Labs opened today at labs.kendoui.com.
