I was looking for an outlook bar style control for WPF. I knew a guy named Divil from IRC had written some stuff so I decided to take a look. The first thing I looked at was Wunderbar, looked like what I wanted so I downloaded the trial.
I opened up the demo solution to see how it all works, but the problem is that the single window shows how it ALL works. It doesn’t demonstrate different concepts in different windows, it shows you how someone who already knows how to use the controls would create a complex user interface with them; that was no help.
So, I decided to click on the “User guide” link in the start menu to read what each of these controls do. There was only help for one of the controls, so how am I supposed to know what the other controls are for, or how they relate to each other etc?
Seeing as I knew the developer’s IRC nickname I decided to ask him if he had help files for those controls. He replied that they are so ridiculously easy to use that they don’t need any help; reminded me of “my code is so simple it doesn’t need tests”. I asked how I can find out what each control does and he told me “Don’t use them, they might format your hard drive”.
I think at this point I had seen enough. A demo app that isn’t focused, no content in the help files, and with an attitude like that before I part with any money what is the help going to be like once I’ve handed my cash over?
Time to look elsewhere…