The long answer...

As of right now we are working directly with the Experince Team in order to respond to the UI/UX critisism & feedback which we have seen from a variety of sources.  This obviously is something which will be phased in over a few key steps -and is already starting to take shape. 

The first step is something which the Community Team lead by Scott Willhite (DNN) has recently completed, the Skinning Contest.  A huge gain (from my perspective) was that group of submissions really demonstrated that you CAN create some beautiful works of art on top of DNN. 

Next we brought on board Jenni Merrifield who is now leading our all of our efforts towards "User Experience". This was a very important step in the right direction.  Her ability and focus on UI/UX should send a significant signal to the community of our dedication to this effort.

The third step, which sits on Jenni's plate is to work with the Experience Team to build and maintain a Style Guide.  At a high level, the primary focus is on creating an amazing experience utilizing industry best practices. (Yes, I said that and it sounds loaded, but read on...)   :)

Specific goals include focus not only for the future of the our internal product development (CE, PE, EE, etc..) but also 3rd party modules and skinning.  Some of the critisism which we have received in the past is partly due to an improper alignment between these various actors in the ecosystem (DNN Corp, 3rd party Modules, and 3rd party Skins).  We need to work together and set a common ground from which we all strive to towards -bring UI/UX consistency throughout.

Once the draft is complete we will be publishing this for broader industry feedback; watch for this soon...

Now, onto the questions...(step 4..?)

"Can anyone tell me what the plan is with the Telerik wrappers"?

A portion of the Style Guide will include a hard look at each of the standard modules which we use (for example the DNN Grid, the DNN Label Control, etc.) and see what is the right "next move" for us.  How can we achieve a more consistent look/feel/experience in a graceful and stunning manner?

This is where Telerik comes into play.  Our plan is to not simply provide generic wrappers around Telerik's control suite as a whole, but to actually consume them (where it makes sense) in our UI elements which align with our Style Guide. 

For example, Telerik has a Slider Control.  As of right now I cant recall any place in DotNetNuke which uses a Slider control.  This means you will NOT see it mentioned in the Style Guide, nor will we ship a wrapper for it.  On the other hand the Grid is something you will see a wrapper for. 

"Which controls are in the process of being wrapped?"

For this sprint, none.  The plan is to first build the Style Guide and then start our transition towards Telerik.  We feel that this is the responsible approach to the problem.

"Are there controls that will not be wrapped?"

I would say yes.  Like the slider control example I gave above, you could probably look at each control from Telerik and quickly determine which will be included and those that will not.  With that said, our list of "wrapped controls" will grow on an as needed basis.  If, for some reason, we do need that pretty little slider control for an upcoming release, we will wrap it.

"Are there controls in the AJAX suite that are not packed in the DNN distribution version?"

It is my understanding that the build which we ship is as close to the actual RTM bits from Telerik as we can get, with only licensing changes (AFAIK).

 

I hope this makes sense.

While the Telerik dll includes the controls, they all can't be used unless you have a DNN wrapper. For example, RadEditor needs the RAdEditor DNN provider. The provider is a set of files. Is this provider what people are calling a wrapper? Last time I checked 5.2 CE, the provider wasn't included. Basically this means RadEditor couldn't be used. It doesn't matter if it's in the dll if the provider is not in the DNN zip files. To my knowledge, RadEditor can't be used in DNN if the provider is not there (or unless you create your own)? Does the DNN+Telerik license allow you to create your own DNN RadEditor provider?

Or can someone explain this some more. Is there a provider included in the 5.3.1 CE version now or only in the PE version?

And basically Telerik controls are only useful and usable for CE users/developers where there's a DNN wrapper for. so if the dll has 35 controls and there are 5 wrappers only for 5 controls. There other 30 controls are not usable? Does the license allow a developer create their own wrapper and distribute thie rmodule witha that wrapper? I mean does a DNN wrapper have to be developed by the corp to be used by the CE community?

The table Telerik provides is confusing. I don't know the difference between commercial, community and developer edition of Telerik controls. When you purchase the controls from them whether as the ASP.NET Ajax package ($800) or the suite ($1300), the license gives you the right to create anything you want and to redistribute the controls with your app. Unless you develop a DNN module where you redistribute the dll which came with DNN instead of the one you got from Telerik. As a developer, it doesn't matter technically, unless your purchased version is older than the DNN one. This could be a problem if the DNN's newer one is not 100% backward compatible with your older one. Commercial vs developer vs community in terms of the Telerik controls does not make much sense to me. Isn't there just one type of license when purchase the controls? Sorry I just can't get my head around the Telerik controls completely.