# F# and 3rd party .Net controls/Report writers/Frameworks

**URL:** <https://forums.fsharp.org/t/f-and-3rd-party-net-controls-report-writers-frameworks/277>\
**Category:** General\
**Tags:** beginners\
**Created:** [June 4, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://forums.fsharp.org/t/f-and-3rd-party-net-controls-report-writers-frameworks/277 "2018-06-04T18:31:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mchean](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forums.fsharp.org/mchean/32/209_2.png) [@mchean](https://forums.fsharp.org/u/mchean)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://forums.fsharp.org/t/f-and-3rd-party-net-controls-report-writers-frameworks/277/1 "2018-06-04T18:31:14Z")

</div>

I am interested in anyone’s experience in using F# with 3rd party vendors .Net tools such as Telerik, Devexpress? I’m particularly interested in reporting as I currently use Visual Foxpro for ad-hoc reports. Devexpress’s xtraReports looks very interesting to me, though the package is expensive. I think that most of the usage examples are in C# or VB, maybe doing some in F# would help with adoption of users of these packages? Please mention any others that you’ve used.

Mike

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![isaacabraham](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forums.fsharp.org/isaacabraham/32/52_2.png) [@isaacabraham](https://forums.fsharp.org/u/isaacabraham)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2018, 10:24am UTC](https://forums.fsharp.org/t/f-and-3rd-party-net-controls-report-writers-frameworks/277/2 "2018-06-05T10:24:50Z")

</div>

To be honest most of the time we use Power BI for ad-hoc reports although it doesn’t have a direct .NET SDK and doesn’t really work as something that can be embedded into e.g. a WPF app.

I’ve used DevExpress controls in a WPF app with an F#-backed view model, it worked without a problem.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mchean](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forums.fsharp.org/mchean/32/209_2.png) [@mchean](https://forums.fsharp.org/u/mchean)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2019, 10:00pm UTC](https://forums.fsharp.org/t/f-and-3rd-party-net-controls-report-writers-frameworks/277/3 "2019-05-09T22:00:15Z")

</div>

DevExpress has released free UI controls to use with Blazor,[https://demos.devexpress.com/blazor/](https://demos.devexpress.com/blazor/)  
and they are having a webinar for anyone who is interested. [https://www.devexpress.com/go/Webinars\_May2019\_Blazor.aspx](https://www.devexpress.com/go/Webinars_May2019_Blazor.aspx). I’m very new to web development, and it seems that most people who are not familiar with report writers hand code their reports.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![charlesroddie](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forums.fsharp.org/charlesroddie/32/45_2.png) [@charlesroddie](https://forums.fsharp.org/u/charlesroddie)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2019, 1:22pm UTC](https://forums.fsharp.org/t/f-and-3rd-party-net-controls-report-writers-frameworks/277/4 "2019-05-11T13:22:53Z")

</div>

Generally .Net Controls have good APIs which are easy to consume from F#.

Occasionally you come across objects where there are constructors with no inputs, where you have to set properties afterwards before use. These are no harder in F# than C# but feel less right to F# users.

Some 3rd party UI controls are very tied to nasty binding frameworks with DependencyProperties, DataTemplates and who knows what else. These make a mess of our code so we tend to avoid them.