How do I make a HTTP (POST) call to DLL to make HTML?

[Peter Kaptein]

In some applications you see a HTML page in the Web-browser call a DLL
instead of a .asp page.
The result is HTML presented in the browser.

I have seen this working for stand-alone apps as well (Internet Explorer
does the same)

== Questions
1) How does this work?
2) How do I set up the VB code inside the DLL to recieve and handle the
HTTP-call?
3) Is there any sample code available showing me the basics? (A VB project,
or "whitepapers")
4) Dou you recommend .NET or VB 6.0?

== Why?
I want create a small desktop application using HTML-pages to present data
and to present forms.
Via POST, data should be stored via the DLL into a database

== What for?
Applications to be distributed to desktops using Win 98, WinXP and Win2000

Thanks in advance.

Peter

 

[Cor]

Hi Peter,

Peter,

This is not easy to answer, because you are asking so much and so different,
while reading it I get more and more the idea that you are mixing up things.

However, just new, this week is this link; maybe it is something for you?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/asprk/default.aspx

Cor

 

[Peter Kaptein]

However, just new, this week is this link; maybe it is something for you?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/asprk/default.aspx

I have to buy books anyway.

while reading it I get more and more the idea that you are mixing up

things.

Reviewing things I think my question is confusing and unclear.

== VB6
4 years ago I have worked on a VB application built by someone else: saved
as EXE of DLL (i do not recall)

Instead of calling "<website>/thePage.asp?<parameters>"
the webpages called for "<website>/theDLL?<parameters>"

Then the DLL returned a HTML-page generated on the fly
IE does the same when a URL can not be resolved.

Inside the DLL there was some kind of "service" catching off the
"?<parameters>" bit.

I do not know how they did it.

== .NET
Searching the web for .NET solution I found an example using VB.NET to
present a browserwindow and catching off the "beforeNavigate2" event,
sending a "cancel=true" back and redirecting things somehow to a file
published by the VB.NET code using the ASPX "engine"

That is close, but not entirely what I have in mind.

 

[Peter Kaptein]

== What I want to do:
1) Use HTML instead of the VB forms to present my User Interfaces inside
applications that can run on "any" desktop running Win98 and higher.
2) Run the User Interface inside a WebBrowser

== What is the best approach?
Does anyone have any experience on how to do this?
(Even parse .ASP or .ASPX scripts on clients?)

== Have I built apps with HTML frontends before?
Yes. .
I build Web-applications running on IIS to:
1) Maintain the content of databases
2) Zip and unzip large files on remote machines
3) Maintain files on remote machines
4) Publish database-content to static files.

Business logic is stored in DLLs and called via
server.CreateObject("theDLLreferrerName.ClassName")

== Why on desktops?
HTML and DHTML offer me much more flexibility in building self-adapting user
interfaces.

A new version of a desktop app. to be developed for one of my clients will
run based on 3-tier architecture using HTML for the presentation layer, VB
for the Business Layer and MS Access for the Database Layer.

 

[Cor]

Hi Peter,

There are two possibilities; one is that they made a Com project (they did
it themselves).

However according to the date you give, I think it is not impossible the
made a VB6 IIS project (I thought the name was) it worked nice, however it
had a lot of bugs and when you did look to it, it seems to me that it could
only become buggier. Microsoft has stopped that, as far as I know had it
never updates.

Nevertheless, they came back with dotNet. In my opinion is the whole ASPNet
a much more and better implementation from that IIS solution.

It makes also DLL's (when you use visual.studio.net) but it is much more
complete, have a look at that resource kit I from which I have given you
that link


I hope this helps?

Cor

 

[Azeus]

What you mean is this?

res://mshtml.dll/repost.htm

This is a resource dll. Microsoft dustributes these so that they can have
localized versions of their products
without making separate builds for each language.

In a DLL or executable you can include resources such as bitmaps, icons,
toolbars, string resources, html pages and xml forms.
This way you don't have to store the file separately with the risk of them
being deleted while there's such a high
dependency on them.

I don't know how to create one in VB since I cannot find anything that
resembles the resource in C++.

 

[Azeus]

Ok, I located the VB Resource Editor Add-in. I added an html file as
resource
but I couldn't load it using the res:// prefix.

 

[Peter Kaptein]

It makes also DLL's (when you use visual.studio.net) but it is much more

complete, have a look at that resource kit I from which I have given you
that link

I will.

== Another way found
An intermediate solution I found presents the browser component of MS
Internet Explorer and intercepts the Navigate2 event: I did not test it on a
Desktop-machine yet.
http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/usingaspruntime.asp?print=true

I do believe this is one way to go, also since it is possible to use the
functionalities of ASP.NET (in-page processing) with the speed of optimized
pardser-code.

You do not need to run it via IIS / "http:/ /<webserver>/page.aspx", which
is one target reached.

It apparently places a result-file on the Harddrive to return the result to
the browser.

== Parsing the result directly to the browser
Another way I am investigating is to somehow return parsed XML / XSL code
directly to the browser. (Another post: to some Internet Explorer
newsgroups.)
Saving it as a file seems a little bit strange to me. (But then again: if it
works, it works!)

 

[gel987]

Hi Peter,

There are two possibilities; one is that they made a Com project (they did
it themselves).

However according to the date you give, I think it is not impossible the
made a VB6 IIS project (I thought the name was) it worked nice, however it
had a lot of bugs and when you did look to it, it seems to me that it could
only become buggier. Microsoft has stopped that, as far as I know had it
never updates.

Nevertheless, they came back with dotNet. In my opinion is the whole ASPNet
a much more and better implementation from that IIS solution.

It makes also DLL's (when you use visual.studio.net) but it is much more
complete, have a look at that resource kit I from which I have given you
that link


I hope this helps?

Cor

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