FrontPage 2003 and Office 2003

[Dennis D.]

I have been developing Intranet Access applications using Office 97
Professional OEM, and using FrontPage 2002 for my websites.

I'm building a PC using XP Professional OEM with Office 2003 Professional
OEM.

I am going to upgrade to FrontPage 2003.

Website coding will transition to some combinations of XHTML and XML
versions.

I'm looking at Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office at a cost of $500. I
have neither Visual Studio nor an MSDN subscription, and I don't want to
shell out another $500 for VSTO if I can do without it.

So, is VSTO primarily for enterprise applications?

What software do I really need to develop MS Access Intranet applications
with and without XML and SQL? What software do I need to connect MS Access
applications, forms, reports, and SQL queries to websites? As an individual
not affiliated with a large corporation, it's important to me to keep
development costs in check.

((DenniSys.com))

 

[Jim Buyens]

-----Original Message-----

I have been developing Intranet Access applications
using Office 97 Professional OEM, and using FrontPage
2002 for my websites.

I'm building a PC using XP Professional OEM with Office
2003 Professional OEM.

I am going to upgrade to FrontPage 2003.

Website coding will transition to some combinations of
XHTML and XML versions.

I'm looking at Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office

at a cost of $500. I have neither Visual Studio nor an

MSDN subscription, and I don't want to shell out another
$500 for VSTO if I can do without it.

So, is VSTO primarily for enterprise applications?

You need VSTO if you want to use Visual Basic .NET or C#
(rather than Visual Basic for Applications) to automate
Word or Excel. It has no relevance to FrontPage.

What software do I really need to develop MS Access
Intranet applications with and without XML and SQL?

You can do this using only FrontPage. My personal
recommendation, however, is to buy Visual Basic .NET
Standard or C# Standard and use that product for
programming.

What software do I need to connect MS Access
applications, forms, reports, and SQL queries to
websites?

You can't migrate existing Access applications, forms,and
reports to the Web except by recoding them from scratch.

However, you can access tables and queries from ASP or
ASP.NET. ASP is (slowly) on the way out, so you may as
well start with ASP.NET. That's my reason for
recommending VB .NET Standard, which costs about $100.

Jim Buyens
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
*----------------------------------------------------
|\---------------------------------------------------
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition
|| Troubleshooting Microsoft FrontPage 2002
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming
|| (All from Microsoft Press)
|/---------------------------------------------------
*----------------------------------------------------



Jim Buyens
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
*----------------------------------------------------
|\---------------------------------------------------
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition
|| Troubleshooting Microsoft FrontPage 2002
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming
|| (All from Microsoft Press)
|/---------------------------------------------------
*----------------------------------------------------

 

[Dennis D.]

Jim, the obfuscation/Dennis factor is getting really high here.

However, you can access tables and queries from ASP or
ASP.NET. ASP is (slowly) on the way out, so you may as
well start with ASP.NET. That's my reason for
recommending VB .NET Standard, which costs about $100.

-----Is there a relationship between ASP.net and VB.net?-----

You need VSTO if you want to use Visual Basic .NET or C#
(rather than Visual Basic for Applications) to automate
Word or Excel.

I developed Office 97 Professional Access and Excel applications using VBA
and ODBC for use over an Intranet where (This is key?) all the machines have
Office Pro 97 installed. Those features are still part of Office 2003, and
I'm guessing the code will be converted by wizards when the company upgrades
it's MSOffice software.

The words 'rather than' are offering a choice.

I guess that if I wanted to develop (and sell) browser consumable networked
solutions, then some higher level of software (developer or enterprise
editions) would be required depending on some combination of:
1. whether the customer had MS Office installed or not
2. the level of security that was required
3. the operating system where the solution would live

So I think you are saying, and it took awhile for me to figure this out,
that I can use a combination of VB.net Standard with FrontPage 2003 to
create web based components or applications. The combination of MS Office
Professional 2003 and FrontPage 2003 have some interoperability, but to get
the full functionality of VB.net with MSOffice and FP I would use VSTO.
Correct?

Anyways, for $100 the VB.net learning experience is worth the investment.

Your devotion to helping us is exemplary.
Thanks Jim.

---------------------------- Cut Here -----------------------------

 

[Jim Buyens]

Jim, the obfuscation/Dennis factor is getting really high here.

All hail polysylabification!

-----Is there a relationship between ASP.net and VB.net?-----

When you develop an ASP.NET app, you have to use a .NET programming
language. VB.NET and C# .NET are by far the most popular of these. And
if you
already know VB, VB.NET will be easier to learn than transitioning to
C#.

You can add VB.NET code to an ASP.NET Web page using FrontPage or even
Notepad, but it's much easier using Visual Studio (of which VB.NET
Standard is a subset).

I developed Office 97 Professional Access and Excel applications using VBA
and ODBC for use over an Intranet where (This is key?) all the machines have
Office Pro 97 installed. Those features are still part of Office 2003, and
I'm guessing the code will be converted by wizards when the company upgrades
it's MSOffice software.

One would hope, but this is outside my area of expertise.

The words 'rather than' are offering a choice.

I guess that if I wanted to develop (and sell) browser consumable networked
solutions, then some higher level of software (developer or enterprise
editions) would be required depending on some combination of:
1. whether the customer had MS Office installed or not
2. the level of security that was required
3. the operating system where the solution would live

So I think you are saying, and it took awhile for me to figure this out,
that I can use a combination of VB.net Standard with FrontPage 2003 to
create web based components or applications.

Yes, that's one way to do it, and the way I use myself.

The combination of MS Office Professional 2003 and FrontPage 2003 have some
interoperability, but to get the full functionality of VB.net with MSOffice
and FP I would use VSTO. Correct?

No. VSTO has no relevance to any Office product other than Word and
Excel.

You can still program Word and Excel in VBA, but with VSTO you can
also control Word and Excel from a stand-alone Windows app written in
VB.NET or C#.

Anyways, for $100 the VB.net learning experience is worth the investment.

Your devotion to helping us is exemplary.
Thanks Jim.

No problem.

Jim Buyens
Microsoft FrontPage MVP
http://www.interlacken.com
Author of:
*----------------------------------------------------
|\---------------------------------------------------
|| Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Inside Out
|| Microsoft FrontPage Version 2002 Inside Out
|| Web Database Development Step by Step .NET Edition
|| Troubleshooting Microsoft FrontPage 2002
|| Faster Smarter Beginning Programming
|| (All from Microsoft Press)
|/---------------------------------------------------
*----------------------------------------------------