Embedding windows forms in IE

[Pini]

Hi all,
I have a massive windows application that refernces a lot of assemblies
and doing a lot of DAL anf IO operations.

I want to expose this application to the interner so that a user can
access it using a web browser.

How can i do it?
Do i have to use smart client?
Can i do it using activex controls?

All the example i have seen in the group talk about embeddign specific
controls and not a massive form and exe to the web.

Any ideas?

[Pritcham]

Hi Pini

Firstly, a Smart Client (to my understanding) is a windows forms based
application that gets its data/services from a network/internet based
server (i.e. a bit like Outlook in that the application runs on your PC
but it downloads the messages from either your internal Exchange/Mail
server, or from a mail server hosted on a web site). In order for that
to be able to work then the client (winforms) application needs to know
how to communicate with the server (whether over your LAN or via the
internet using webservices for example), and likewise from the server
side of things (as well as taking care of authentication etc) so I
imagine this would probably result in a large rewrite of your app (but
that obviously depends on how it's already structured) and on top of
that, from your post it looks like you want people to run your app
inside a browser so I don't think this is what you're trying to
achieve.

As far as I know, you can't 'host' a windows form inside of a web
browser (could be wrong there though as I don't tend to do a lot of web
development).

If you want your users to be able to run your app via a web browser
then I imagine you're going to have to re-code your UI as web
forms/pages that consume your backend application code.

I think both options may involve quite a lot of work on your side to
get it running but again, it really depends on how your current app is
structured as to how complex this is.

Hope that helps
Martin

Pini wrote:

Hi all,
I have a massive windows application that refernces a lot of assemblies
and doing a lot of DAL anf IO operations.

I want to expose this application to the interner so that a user can
access it using a web browser.

How can i do it?
Do i have to use smart client?
Can i do it using activex controls?

All the example i have seen in the group talk about embeddign specific
controls and not a massive form and exe to the web.

Any ideas?

[gerry]

..net windows forms have always been 'embedable' in aspx pages : note the
limits & constraints

http://www.15seconds.com/Issue/030610.htm
"Pritcham" <do******************@hotmail.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@i3g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

Hi Pini

Firstly, a Smart Client (to my understanding) is a windows forms based
application that gets its data/services from a network/internet based
server (i.e. a bit like Outlook in that the application runs on your PC
but it downloads the messages from either your internal Exchange/Mail
server, or from a mail server hosted on a web site). In order for that
to be able to work then the client (winforms) application needs to know
how to communicate with the server (whether over your LAN or via the
internet using webservices for example), and likewise from the server
side of things (as well as taking care of authentication etc) so I
imagine this would probably result in a large rewrite of your app (but
that obviously depends on how it's already structured) and on top of
that, from your post it looks like you want people to run your app
inside a browser so I don't think this is what you're trying to
achieve.

As far as I know, you can't 'host' a windows form inside of a web
browser (could be wrong there though as I don't tend to do a lot of web
development).

If you want your users to be able to run your app via a web browser
then I imagine you're going to have to re-code your UI as web
forms/pages that consume your backend application code.

I think both options may involve quite a lot of work on your side to
get it running but again, it really depends on how your current app is
structured as to how complex this is.

Hope that helps
Martin

Pini wrote:

Hi all,
I have a massive windows application that refernces a lot of assemblies
and doing a lot of DAL anf IO operations.

I want to expose this application to the interner so that a user can
access it using a web browser.

How can i do it?
Do i have to use smart client?
Can i do it using activex controls?

All the example i have seen in the group talk about embeddign specific
controls and not a massive form and exe to the web.

Any ideas?

[Pritcham]

Hi

As I posted, I don't do a great deal of web development so my knowledge
there is more limited but from what I understand the OP wanted to host
his windows forms application in a browser - quote:

All the example i have seen in the group talk about embeddign specific
controls and not a massive form and exe to the web.

(app, not individual controls - quote: ) and that was what I was
answering.

Martin
gerry wrote:

.net windows forms have always been 'embedable' in aspx pages : note the
limits & constraints

http://www.15seconds.com/Issue/030610.htm
"Pritcham" <do******************@hotmail.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@i3g2000cwc.googlegro ups.com...

Hi Pini

Firstly, a Smart Client (to my understanding) is a windows forms based
application that gets its data/services from a network/internet based
server (i.e. a bit like Outlook in that the application runs on your PC
but it downloads the messages from either your internal Exchange/Mail
server, or from a mail server hosted on a web site). In order for that
to be able to work then the client (winforms) application needs to know
how to communicate with the server (whether over your LAN or via the
internet using webservices for example), and likewise from the server
side of things (as well as taking care of authentication etc) so I
imagine this would probably result in a large rewrite of your app (but
that obviously depends on how it's already structured) and on top of
that, from your post it looks like you want people to run your app
inside a browser so I don't think this is what you're trying to
achieve.

As far as I know, you can't 'host' a windows form inside of a web
browser (could be wrong there though as I don't tend to do a lot of web
development).

If you want your users to be able to run your app via a web browser
then I imagine you're going to have to re-code your UI as web
forms/pages that consume your backend application code.

I think both options may involve quite a lot of work on your side to
get it running but again, it really depends on how your current app is
structured as to how complex this is.

Hope that helps
Martin

Pini wrote:

Hi all,
I have a massive windows application that refernces a lot of assemblies
and doing a lot of DAL anf IO operations.
>
I want to expose this application to the interner so that a user can
access it using a web browser.
>
How can i do it?
Do i have to use smart client?
Can i do it using activex controls?
>
All the example i have seen in the group talk about embeddign specific
controls and not a massive form and exe to the web.
>
Any ideas?

[Pini]

Hi there,Thank you all for your answers, I did the following and
manages to get a good soultion to my problem without to built a smart
client application
Here what i did
I create a usercontrol and expose himslef as a com objetc.(this is very
easy)
then i added 2 functions that resister this class as an activex.
I created a setup project.
The created files are msi file and an setup.exe file.
I creates a cab file that contains all the exe and refernces.
I created an html file with the <objecttag.

Ho and dont forget. My usercontrol exposes a public function that
creates a new process wich runs my exe.

This means that who ever is trying to get to the html file is dowloding
the cab file wich extracts the exe and other files and then register
the com.

Now everything works great.

Read more at
http://blog.joycode.com/felix/articles/32905.aspx