NOTE: the following has been posted in
microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion and they have recommended I
also post here.
Let me apologize up front about the length of this post, but I want to
get opinions and I need to provide some background...
In the 90's, I worked as an independent contractor and designed a set
of customized quote generation programs (4 total, one for each product
line) for a client in VB4.0 16 bit using Access databases. Basically
the user enters customer information, application information and
specifies model parameters if desired and the program goes through a
bunch of engineering calculations to select the best model for the
application. At that point the user can select options/accessories
and a quote is generated in either Crystal Report format or MS Word
format.
I can't claim to be a great coder, but I managed to teach myself
enough to get the job done - probably not very efficiently :) These
programs are distributed world-wide to their reps and therefore used
on new/old computers and a range of operating systems. Over the years
we worked out any bugs/issues as they popped up and the programs were
quite reliable.
Around 2001, I pursued a lifelong dream of becoming a teacher and cut
back my programming hours considerably (8-12 week). After spending a
year or two maintaining the programs, working on other projects
(website, etc) and dabbling with the thought of converting them to
VB6.0, we decided to wait for VB.net 2003. Once that came out we
started the process of converting them. Much to my frustration, it
wasn't nearly as simple as Microsoft made it sound and the learning
curve was STEEP. It didn't help that every time I started to make
substantial headway, I would be sidetracked by other projects for the
client. Not a very efficient way to learn a language. In the
meantime, every year I would update the pricing in the databases and
send out the VB4.0 programs via CD. I've basically updated only one
of the four programs to VB.net at this point because everytime I take
two steps forward, I get sidetracked for a long period of time and
then have to figure things out again.
Here's where I need your thoughts/input. Over the last year or two
I've spoken openly with my client about the inefficiencies of this
arrangement and about my concerns with the potential of the programs
not to work properly anymore. With Windows Vista, I think we may have
run into this issue head-on.
Two weeks ago, a rep bought a machine with Vista Ultimate. He
installed my application programs and we have discovered that any
labels that were placed on either the SSPanel or SSFrame controls
don't show up at all - they are basically invisible. Labels on the
standard panel or frame controls work perfectly. Even more
interesting is that I asked the rep to walk through the entire quote
generation process and his initial report is that it seems to work
fine except the missing labels (I was very surprised to hear that)
1) Does anyone have any idea what might cause this issue and how I
can fix it? The easy answer is to convert to standard controls but
before I go about that (there are a lot of forms using SS controls), I
thought maybe there was an easier way. Especially because I use the
SSTab control and that won't be easy to replace in my layout.
Any help would be appreciated. Of even greater interest is your
opinions on the next topic. While trying to find out a bit about Vista
compatibility, I came across an article which indicates the VB.net
2003 and even VB.net 2005 may not be fully supported by Vista (http://
http://www.theserverside.net/news/th...read_id=42426). This really
surprised me and led to a discussion that I need your opinions on.
2) My client initially wants to just get the programs so they can be
installed on a Vista machine. Can I do this with VB4.0 16 bit
programs or am I going to be looking at a ton of other issues?
3) After we get them at least functioning on Vista, we want to
obviously upgrade them. What's the best route to go? We have to
decide what programming environment to invest our time/energy in. The
link above makes me question continuing on the VB.net journey (which I
haven't even looked at in 4 months because of other projects). There
has long been a thought of making them web-based to greatly simplify
distribution/updgrades,etc. One of the potential negatives would be
the requirement for internet access (often the reps are traveling
pretty remotely) and/or speed of internet access. What helps you
decide to go web-based vs stand-alone application? What positives/
negatives should I be aware of?
If we send them out as a stand-alone application, what language should
we consider developing them in? Obviously we don't want to go down a
road that ends up being a dead end in the near future.
Unfortunately with my limited hours, I haven't been able to keep up on
the trends in programming. I'm trying to get a feel of what avenues I
should explore. In advance, let me thank anyone who provides a bit of
insight into this murky situation.
Sincerely,
Jmar
P.S. Please don't go into a discussion about how the client should
spend more money or hire someone full-time, etc. Budget constraints
have dictated many of their decisions and will continue to do so. The
programs have been sufficient to get by with and many of their reps
are behind when it comes to technology and the latest hardware/
software.
