I'm mainly experienced in VB6, haven't really got to grips
with .NET very much. I'd like to create, more as a
practice project than anything, a simple ASP.NET web
application that will just do some fairly simple tasks,
such as displaying a crystal report as a chart, changing
its dataset based on a button clicked, etc. I want to make
it work in C# as it seems to me to be the best .NET
language. However I don't really have any idea where to
start. My PC at home is running XP pro with IIS installed
on it, it has also got MSDE installed which is where the
data will be coming from. I'll mainly be accessing it from
the local machine for my own use but possibly also test it
from my housemate's (networked) PC just to prove to myself
that it is 'serving' the page.
I managed to get a crystal report added to the project,
and set its data, and I managed to put a crystal report
viewer on the main aspx page of the project, but I
couldn't get them to bind together, despite following the
instructions in help. I tried to click on 'simple
bindings', but it didn't list my report as an option to
bind to, as I was expecting. I tried typing in its full
filename into the 'custom bindings' text box but it showed
an error when I pressed F5.
Also, where can you view the underlying SQL statement for
the crystal report? Is it possible? And do you need to
register crystal reports? I tried doing that but there was
a box saying 'enter the 10-digit product key', but all
I've got is the standard CD-key that came with VS.NET 2002.
Can anyone possibly give me a lead on what I should be
doing?
And also, what are the advantages of creating an ASP.NET
page in C#, compared to creating a standard web
application in VB6 - what can you do with ASP.NET and C#
that you can't with VB6? Is it genuinely better?
If anyone can give me any guidance or share the opinions
they've formed based on experience I'd be very grateful.
