Playback

Another cool feature of Dundas Gauge for .NET is its ability to store and “play back” historical values. The data can be retrieved from the history maintained for a gauge or even from a separate data source. And time compression (or expansion) can be applied so that the trends can be analysed more quickly, or specific intervals of interest can be slowed down for in-depth analysis.

This feature is extremely useful in applications where it is necessary to analyse historical values, say in analysing the load on an application over a set time period.

Web Controls

As I said at the outset, the Dundas Gauge component come in two flavours, Windows Forms controls and ASP.NET web controls. Until now I have used the Windows Forms controls as the basis of my review, but the functionality exposed by the web controls is more or less the same.

For the ASP.NET web controls version, one cool feature that is worth mentioning is the support for real-time streaming. This enables the controls to poll the web server at preset intervals and display up-to-date values without refreshing the entire page. The controls can be rendered as images, flash movies, or smart client controls.

Like the Windows Forms version, the ASP.NET version of the component comes with a samples application that showcases its capabilities, which serves as a good quick start for a developer who wants to become productive with this component in a short span of time.