Steema Central

I was going to search the Steema forums for a couple of how-to tips involving charts, when I saw the picture of the gauge control on the steema.com home page. Unbelievably cool! Looks great! We've been waiting for this feature for years!

...uh, oh. Hold on a second. "TeeChart for .NET... and Gauges...". The .NET version has new gague controls and the VCL version doesn't?!? There's no mention of gauge controls in the feature list for the V8 beta, so am I to assume that those controls are not going to be available any time soon? Or at all? Yes, I know that the VCL version has gauges, but they look like crayon drawings compared to what it looks like the .NET version has.

Is this the beginning of the end for VCL support? I know that more and more people are investing in .NET technologies, but we as a company have no interest in forcing our customers to install a 20MB .NET framework just so that they can display a chart. Are there not enough new VCL customers anymore to justify development? Please, Steema, don't forget that your VCL customers are the foundation that you've built your success on. We really want gauge support and would even pay extra for it. Please keep the feature list of both products similar and don't force your VCL customers into second-class status.

Hello,

It is fully intended to include Gauges in an early version 8 update. They won't make the first release as they're not quite ready and version 8 is long overdue its ship date, packed with many, many other new features that we'd like to make available as soon as possible. But please be assured that Gauges will follow very soon and Steema is fully committed to the VCL line of development, that remains central to development enthusiasm at Steema!

Regards,
Marc Meumann

That is great news! I see more and more companies that seem to be dropping VCL support in favor of .NET development - it is really good to see a company stand behind their VCL customers. It makes me feel much better about future development. Thanks again for your quick response.

I'm also looking forward to a VCL release with the updated gauges! Hope it's not too far away.