user perspective vb.net = vb inside a browser?

[migue]

way below newbie level:

I know nothing about .Net. Have a VB6 client-server application (business
app, inventory, purchasing, invoicing, etc.) and am considering converting
it to VB.Net at a customer's request. The goal is to have access to the
application from remote locations without the need to install anything on
the client.

Question 1:
How will the user's desktop experience change using .Net vs. VB? i.e. will
the application now run inside a browser or will it run as a full-window of
it's own? Do controls (drop-downs, radio buttons, etc.) work essentially the
same way from a user's perspective?

Question 2:
Does the application still behave as it currently does, i.e. as a "true"
windows application vs. a web page. e.g. triggers such as leave field to
perform validation against db, etc.

Question 3:
Assuming the application is deployed for access over the Internet, what is
the minimum connection speed to achieve reasonable throughput. i.e. when a
user leaves a field, I currently validate the entered data against a
database table, I perform sqlread to lookup the value in a table. Is that
still a valid method of doing things or do we return to the old mainframe
(and html web page) methodology of page level validation only?

thanks

[migue]

Mark,

Thank you! that was the most straightforward answer I have found to my basic
query. I am quite familiar with ASP and wrote some applications in it (in
the long distant, ancient past....about 4 years ago). However, I found that
ASP does not provide the rich user interface that intranet users expect. I
thought that what .Net and the framework provided me was a way of runing VB
remotely accross the internet....I guess not, still ASP as the front end....

thanks
"Mark" <f1*****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:#5**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

Hi
I will try and answer some questions to get you in the right direstion but
you have a lot of reading to do :)

.NET is a framework not a development language. The framework is a huge
library (probably the wrong word) of classes that are available to you,
hiding most of the operating system stuff we used to have to do with API's. VB.NET is a language with its own syntax. By referencing the .NET framework you can use the classes. You DO NOT NEED Visual Studio.NET or VB.NET to
write the code - notepad will do (but trust me it is very slow and hard to
use it this way) but these IDE's do give you all the benefits of
intellisense and more.

To deploy a .NET application the client needs to have the .NET Framework
runtime (dotnetfx.exe) installed. This goes for a web server too for
ASP.NET apps.

Your VB6 app will (with a wee bit of manipulation) upgrade to VB.NET. ..NET give VB programmers full OO benefits such as Inheritence and polymorphism
etc. that they didnt have before. Once you have upgraded it to VB.NET you
can install the framework on each client (this is once per client not once
per .NET app installed on the client) and it will run as before (hopefully). i.e. a rich windows gui.

What your questions imply is a change of use (and architecture) of your
current app. No language change will do that for you as you are wanting to use it differently than you previously planned.

You can achieve your result in a number of ways. First, as .NET does not
require registration (i.e. no more dll hell) you can use a touchless deploy so all clients can get a rich (windows) gui application (even a thick
client) from a central point without them knowing. Secondly you could
install a small thin client UI on each client and get them to remote to the other assemblies using .NET remoting (sounds like your preferred option).

Alternatively you could write an ASP .NET application for the UI on the
client side and have the rest of the app in normal .NET someplace central.
The is a downside to this as not as rich functionality as with a rich
windows GUI. That decision depends on whether the access is by people on an intranet or internet etc.

In terms of speed of access etc, using .NET remoting is very light on
traffic and by the sound of your application an ADO.NET dataset would do for the data movement, which is just xml files so nice and light on bandwidth.

Read up on .NET, ADO.NET and .NET remoting.

as for your other posting about applications our web site is being rewritten in C#.NET and VB.NET now so go see an app in use at www.abc123it.com (bear
in mind that it isnt finished yet). We have been writing .NET apps in VB
and C# for 2 years in commercial environments and have not written a Visual Studio 6 app in all that time as we (and our customers) prefer .NET

Hope this helps
Mark

"migue" <mf*********@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uq****************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

way below newbie level:

I know nothing about .Net. Have a VB6 client-server application (business app, inventory, purchasing, invoicing, etc.) and am considering converting it to VB.Net at a customer's request. The goal is to have access to the
application from remote locations without the need to install anything on the client.

Question 1:
How will the user's desktop experience change using .Net vs. VB? i.e. will the application now run inside a browser or will it run as a full-window

of

it's own? Do controls (drop-downs, radio buttons, etc.) work essentially

the

same way from a user's perspective?

Question 2:
Does the application still behave as it currently does, i.e. as a "true"
windows application vs. a web page. e.g. triggers such as leave field to
perform validation against db, etc.

Question 3:
Assuming the application is deployed for access over the Internet, what is the minimum connection speed to achieve reasonable throughput. i.e. when a user leaves a field, I currently validate the entered data against a
database table, I perform sqlread to lookup the value in a table. Is that still a valid method of doing things or do we return to the old mainframe (and html web page) methodology of page level validation only?

thanks

[Mark]

You dont have to use ASP (by the way ASP .NET is wayyyyyyyy better than
ASP).

From what i have read of your situation i would deploy a very thin client of
just the windows forms on each client (and there are ways of doing that
without them knowing too - you can do a touchless deploy from a central
server each time they click a link on their desktop just like a web page).
However they will have full Windows GUI and controls etc but the rest of the
application is on remote servers within the intranet (extranet, internet or
whatever). The rest works on the same principle as ASP (ie some form of
service delivers the information needed to the client) but you have a number
of options (and in your case for speed etc. .NET remoting through a windows
service would be the way i would probably go).

ASP is used for web pages when you dont know the client. If you know and
have some control over the client then deliver Windows forms to them for a
rich GUI but use remoting so you have control and security over your system

Hope that helps
"migue" <mf*********@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%2****************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

Mark,

Thank you! that was the most straightforward answer I have found to my basic query. I am quite familiar with ASP and wrote some applications in it (in
the long distant, ancient past....about 4 years ago). However, I found that ASP does not provide the rich user interface that intranet users expect. I thought that what .Net and the framework provided me was a way of runing VB remotely accross the internet....I guess not, still ASP as the front end....
thanks
"Mark" <f1*****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:#5**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

Hi
I will try and answer some questions to get you in the right direstion but

you have a lot of reading to do :)

.NET is a framework not a development language. The framework is a huge
library (probably the wrong word) of classes that are available to you,
hiding most of the operating system stuff we used to have to do with API's.

VB.NET is a language with its own syntax. By referencing the .NET

framework

you can use the classes. You DO NOT NEED Visual Studio.NET or VB.NET to
write the code - notepad will do (but trust me it is very slow and hard to use it this way) but these IDE's do give you all the benefits of
intellisense and more.

To deploy a .NET application the client needs to have the .NET Framework
runtime (dotnetfx.exe) installed. This goes for a web server too for
ASP.NET apps.

Your VB6 app will (with a wee bit of manipulation) upgrade to VB.NET.

.NET

give VB programmers full OO benefits such as Inheritence and polymorphism etc. that they didnt have before. Once you have upgraded it to VB.NET you can install the framework on each client (this is once per client not once per .NET app installed on the client) and it will run as before

(hopefully).

i.e. a rich windows gui.

What your questions imply is a change of use (and architecture) of your
current app. No language change will do that for you as you are wanting

to

use it differently than you previously planned.

You can achieve your result in a number of ways. First, as .NET does not require registration (i.e. no more dll hell) you can use a touchless

deploy

so all clients can get a rich (windows) gui application (even a thick
client) from a central point without them knowing. Secondly you could
install a small thin client UI on each client and get them to remote to

the

other assemblies using .NET remoting (sounds like your preferred option).
Alternatively you could write an ASP .NET application for the UI on the
client side and have the rest of the app in normal .NET someplace central. The is a downside to this as not as rich functionality as with a rich
windows GUI. That decision depends on whether the access is by people on an

intranet or internet etc.

In terms of speed of access etc, using .NET remoting is very light on
traffic and by the sound of your application an ADO.NET dataset would do for

the data movement, which is just xml files so nice and light on

bandwidth.
Read up on .NET, ADO.NET and .NET remoting.

as for your other posting about applications our web site is being

rewritten

in C#.NET and VB.NET now so go see an app in use at www.abc123it.com (bear in mind that it isnt finished yet). We have been writing .NET apps in VB and C# for 2 years in commercial environments and have not written a

Visual

Studio 6 app in all that time as we (and our customers) prefer .NET

Hope this helps
Mark

"migue" <mf*********@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:uq****************@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

way below newbie level:

I know nothing about .Net. Have a VB6 client-server application (business app, inventory, purchasing, invoicing, etc.) and am considering converting it to VB.Net at a customer's request. The goal is to have access to the application from remote locations without the need to install anything on the client.

Question 1:
How will the user's desktop experience change using .Net vs. VB? i.e. will the application now run inside a browser or will it run as a full-window of

it's own? Do controls (drop-downs, radio buttons, etc.) work

essentially

the

same way from a user's perspective?

Question 2:
Does the application still behave as it currently does, i.e. as a

"true" windows application vs. a web page. e.g. triggers such as leave field to perform validation against db, etc.

Question 3:
Assuming the application is deployed for access over the Internet,

what is the minimum connection speed to achieve reasonable throughput. i.e.

when

a user leaves a field, I currently validate the entered data against a
database table, I perform sqlread to lookup the value in a table. Is that still a valid method of doing things or do we return to the old mainframe (and html web page) methodology of page level validation only?

thanks