Developing a selection program

[adrianmepham]

Hi group,

I have been given the task at work of producing a selection frogram
for a range of our air handling units. I have a little experience of
programing in VB 6 from many years ago, but would like to try and
attempt this in VB.net and make as good a job as possible of it. The
application will be required to output schedules and reports in both
Excel and Word documents . What I am asking is, has anyone done
anything like this and could give me some advice on how to go about
it. I have bought a few well reviewed books but have not come across
any mention of Word or Excel documents being prduced in VB.net. Any
advice, tips or alternative coding language to use will be gratefully
received.

Thank you.

Adrian.

 

[Cor Ligthert[MVP]]

Adrian ,

You don't know something more difficult to start with, as I was you, I would
first start with a simple windowforms program.

However just my idea,

Cor

 

[eBob.com]

Below are some links to some documentation (exported from my Favorites).
None, as I recall, is very complete. But each has been helpful to me to
some extent.

I have a VB.Net program which produces an Excel spreadsheet. But finding
decent documentation has been a real problem. Finding help has been
difficult too. There evidently must be few people doing this. But I have
looked for help mostly in newsgroups. Maybe more help would be available in
the many VB.Net fora. (Although in general I have found this newsgroup to
be an EXCELLENT source of help!)

I'll share any of my code with you,but note that it only does the basics and
is probably not industrial strength.

If I am recalling correctly I came across a book a while back which looked
like it would be helpful. But I just now looked on Amazon and did not find
anything which looked useful.

Good Luck, Bob

<!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
<!-- This is an automatically generated file.
It will be read and overwritten.
Do Not Edit! -->
<TITLE>Bookmarks</TITLE>
<H1>Bookmarks</H1>
<DL><p>
<DT><A
HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;306022"
ADD_DATE="1132431077" LAST_VISIT="1210084243" LAST_MODIFIED="1132431077">HOW
TO Transfer Data to an Excel Workbook by Using Visual Basic .NET</A>
<DT><A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307216/en-us"
ADD_DATE="1150766024" LAST_VISIT="1210084243" LAST_MODIFIED="1150766024">How
to use Automation with Word 2002</A>
<DT><A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;EN-US;317109"
ADD_DATE="1192670692" LAST_VISIT="1210084243"
LAST_MODIFIED="1192670692">Office application does not quit after automation
from Visual Studio .NET client</A>
<DT><A
HREF="http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/de...3_bk/html/officeinteroperabilitych2_part1.asp"
ADD_DATE="1132431077" LAST_VISIT="1210084243"
LAST_MODIFIED="1132431077">Office Developer Center Chapter 2 (Part 1 of
3)</A>
</DL><p>

 

[sloan]

if you have to have excel, then look at
http://www.fpoint.com/
or
www.aspose.com

I would lean toward farpoint.

........

I googled this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ProgrammingVBDotNet&btnG=Google+Search

and found this:

http://www.esnips.com/doc/64a0af22-e734-4087-b429-bfd3e64d136d/programmingvbdotnet

I think that was a free ebook at some point.

...

You can take a look here at a layered project/solution as well:
http://sholliday.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!A68482B9628A842A!140.entry
Although the code is in csharp, fyi. But the concepts are solid. There's a
1.1 version of that same blog entry there as well.
You can find it here:
http://sholliday.spaces.live.com/Blog/feed.rss


...

 

[Lauren]

I have worked on a similar project for the last several years. We used
Vecad as the cad engine and did some output to Word and Excel. We have not
yet ported the program to .Net however. If your product is very custom this
could become a very complex project very quickly. Get the real long term
scope defined and spend the time to think though a good design for the app
up front.
Lauren

 

[mario]

Hi,

You can use Office Automation to export data to Excel or Word. Other
option is to use some third party component. I recommend
GemBox.Spreadsheet for exporting/importing data from Excel files
(Automation has some problems - http://www.gemboxsoftware.com/GBSpreadsheet.htm#Automation).

--
Mario
GemBox.Spreadsheet for .NET - Easily read and write Excel (XLS, XLSX
or CSV)
or export to HTML files from your .NET apps. See
http://www.gemboxsoftware.com/GBSpreadsheet.htm