VB Executable as Web Application

[AP]

I have good working knowledge of Excel VBA and am thinking of learning
to create Web Applications. Without much knowledge in ASP.NET or PHP,
and wanting to take the easiest path, I was wondering if it would be
easier to just develop VB.NET executable applications (using MS Visual
Basic 2008 Express Edition) as web applications.

This would of course necessitate users to download the executable file
and install it on their computers. Is this practice generally frowned
upon, and has anyone gone down this path and with what pros and cons ?
Thanks.

 

[Cor Ligthert[MVP]]

If you have full trust on the user computers, there is not any limit to
access the Internet using a Windows form or a WPF application.

If you don't have that trust (users have to allow you to do things) then you
cannot use that, and then a Web application with all its limitations comes
in the picture.

In past people thought that a Web application was easier to deploy. Now with
all security most of them know probably better.

Your alternative for in company applications is SharePoint, which is a Web
Application but uses the integrated security of the Active Directory, this
is usable when it is about users who want to share common information as
pictures, documents etc.

Cor

 

[Patrice]

Not sure to understand what you want to do.

A web application is not downloaded to the user computer. An ASPX page runs
server side (with its companion code) and creates HTML code rendered to the
browser. The rendered HTML cocde can contains some scripting code to provide
limited features inside the browser.

Or do you mean using a web site to install a client side application ?

 

[AP]

I have several things in mind, but the simplest is perhaps just to
sequentially display (in a nice-looking userform) pictures/graphics
and text comments stored in a web location, perhaps with sound as the
user sequentially clicks "Next" or "Back". It would also be nice to
have on the userform an input textbox where the user can leave a
comment or ask a question (and if I happen to be available, I would
reply in an adjacent textbox). I would also like to archive details
entered by the user in a web location for retrieval later. Hope this
doesn't sound too weird ! Thanks.

 

[Family Tree Mike]

It looks like a web app. No exe will run client side for that. The browser
just display the HTML pages the server send.

To familiarize yourself with ASP.?NET try perhaps :
http://www.asp.net/get-started/

The key point s to start by getting the basic picture :
- the browser ask a web server for the page
- this page (made of markup+code) runs on the server and creates an HTML
page that is then displayed by the browser
- the HTML page can include some scripting (most likely javascript) to allow
immediate interaction with the user
- at some point some user action will trigger another request to the web
server and you are back at step 1

There is no exectuable running on the user machine.

Patrice,

I believe your suggestion is a good way forward.

I would point out though that a client executable _could_ be written to
connect to various sites to scrape said images, or to a web service for
producing the content. It really depends on where the content is coming
from, and the control "AP" wants over it client side.

 

[mayayana]

Hope this
doesn't sound too weird !
How would you feel about it as the visitor?
Do you think it's reasonable for each website
you visit to require that you install their software
and allow it to call home? That's what you'd
be asking for. On top of that, if you do it in
..Net 2008 with the v. 3 framework you're asking
them to have or install some 300MB of support files,
depending on the .Net version. *And* you can only
have visitors who are using WinXP SP2+ or Vista/7.

Most web hosts have free add-ons that allow
you to easily add comment functionality. Most
support PHP on Unix/Linux or ASP on Windows,
for server-side functionality. And you can do a slideshow
with simple javascript, or even HTML links. (Note,
though, that about 10% of people do not enable
script. And nearly all online security issues are
related to script. It's best, if possible, not to require it.)

But strictly speaking you're actually not so far off
with your question. As I understand it, Microsoft is
planning to use installed software on client PCs for their
"web office" product. And Google's Chrome OS is planned
to have the same thing. While the "web app" idea is
currently all the rage, it's really mostly a marketing
scheme for subscription pricing (now that PCs and software
have become cheap to buy) rather than a rational idea for
using software.

 

[Scott M.]

I would give you the same answer here as we gave you with your other
similiar question.

If you are going to learn .NET, with only VBA experience, then you're going
to have to start pretty much from scratch. You'll find that even building
..EXE's in .NET requires a good knowledge of the .NET Framework, whatever
language you choose to write the app. in, and Visual Studio.

As was indicated in the other post, VBA is not related to .NET and your
knowledge of it would probably only hinder you as you try to learn VB.NET.

You're in for a learning curve here, there's no way around it. Changing
your application type isn't going to change the fact that you've got to
learn what .NET is and how to effectively use it.

Unfortunately, you really have to be prepared to forget VBA and what you
think you know about VB, as that will only serve to confuse your learing of
VB .NET.

That's why we suggested you may want to think about C#, so you don't get
bogged down in the baggage of VBA.

-Scott

 

[Cor Ligthert[MVP]]

Why will you store it in a web application?

I have several things in mind, but the simplest is perhaps just to
sequentially display (in a nice-looking userform) pictures/graphics
and text comments stored in a web location, perhaps with sound as the
user sequentially clicks "Next" or "Back". It would also be nice to
have on the userform an input textbox where the user can leave a
comment or ask a question (and if I happen to be available, I would
reply in an adjacent textbox). I would also like to archive details
entered by the user in a web location for retrieval later. Hope this
doesn't sound too weird ! Thanks.

 

[Cor Ligthert[MVP]]

That's why we suggested you may want to think about C#, so you don't get

bogged down in the baggage of VBA.

-Scott

Who? You and your buddy mayayana maybe, who is talking about all kind of
things beside this forum, but even in his text I did not see C#.

 

[mayayana]

Who? You and your buddy mayayana maybe, who is talking about all kind of
things beside this forum,

Good morning to you, too, Cor.

If you read the OP it's clear that AP does not
understand the general landscape and is probably
thinking about a "web app" only because the
current fashion greatly overvalues the role of
web apps.

With that in mind, I was trying to provide some brief
outline of what the difference is between software
and a website -- what the implications are for security,
dependencies, etc. -- and how a misunderstanding of
all that is not surprising due to companies like Microsoft
and Google deliberately blurring the line in order
to further their own ambitions to rent software.

Also, I was trying to provide some quick pointers
in terms of how AP could achieve an online image
viewer using normal techniques like javascript, which
would be far more appropriate than asking each visitor
to install software.

So which part do you consider to be off-topic?

 

[Scott M.]

Who? You and your buddy mayayana maybe, who is talking about all kind of
things beside this forum, but even in his text I did not see C#.

The OP has posted a very similar quesiton in the ASP .NET group that myself
and others have already answered very clearly (and C# was brought up in that
post).

It has nothing to do with mayayana.

-Scott

 

[AP]

  Good morning to you, too, Cor.

  If you read the OP it's clear that AP does not
understand the general landscape and is probably
thinking about a "web app" only because the
current fashion greatly overvalues the role of
web apps.

I truly appreciate the advice I'm getting from all of you. Your
collective willingness to share your expert knowlegde is what makes
these newsgroups worth visiting. I hope my ignorance hasn't bred any
misunderstanding - I think everyone has good intentions.

I'm slowly digesting the advice and will probably get there
eventually. With neither the necessary background nor the paper
qualification, I'm not looking for an IT job but am just seeking to
get something up and running (reliably), taking the path of least
resistance where possible. The method I'm leaning towards you may not
consider sound, but then again, as I said, I'm not seeking to further
an IT career, but am simply wanting to get a layman's task done with
the least pain.

Somebody suggested server-side JavaScript (perhaps not in this forum)
and I've taken a look at classic ASP as a result. Amidst screams of
terror amongst experts like yourselves, I'm going to delve further in
this obsolete platform as the VBScript version of it I can comprehend
reasonably well and I can begin to see how the whole thing comes
together with the HTML/client-side JavaScript side of things. I can
find free ASP web hosts and the script does not need compiling (just
like VBA) ! ;-) It's going to be exciting venturing outside the
realm of VBA though it's a pity ASP VBScript does not lend itself to
API calls.

I might also take a look at MS Visual Developer 2010 Express Edition
when it's released in March. I've got the 2008 version but I'll wait
for the latest before investing any time in it. Cheers, AP.

 

[mayayana]

Somebody suggested server-side JavaScript (perhaps not in this forum)
and I've taken a look at classic ASP as a result. Amidst screams of
terror amongst experts like yourselves,
I'm wary of client-side script and don't enable
it myself. Neither do I install Flash or Adobe Reader.
Adobe products or script (especially script) are required
for the vast majority of online risks. But I also realize t
here's no easy solution there. Web designers want to
be "creative" and often don't even know how they're
achieving a result. And online commerce increasingly
depends on script -- as does online tracking and advertising.
So it's hard to get *anyone* to give it up. But you do
limit your audience somewhat if your site won't
"degrade gracefully" in a script-disabled browser.

Script on server-side is different. I manage a small
number of sites, which I always put on Unix/Linux, and
I find it's not hard to locate PHP samples whenever
I need to do something I haven't tried before. I expect
the same is probably true with a Windows server and ASP.

You didn't explain much about exactly what you
want to do (why you'd need API calls, for instance), and
for web questions you should probably stick to the web
design/asp groups. It's moving off-topic for this group.

But there is one thing I know
of that might be useful for the image viewer part of your
project: With client-side javascript
you can do "slideshows". That and related functionality
is easy to find, and much of it is encapsulated such that
you can just add a script link and don't need to understand
the script code itself. One example is here:

http://cssglobe.com/post/3783/jquery-plugin-easy-image-or-content-slider

 

[Cor Ligthert[MVP]]

Mayayana,

This is not a VB6 newsgroup, however your reply is a little bit according to
an answer given in that.

For instance, why should a project type which is full Visual Basic for Net
be of topic here?

For ASPNet are more possibilities, one of those is without code behind, that
is hard to answer for those who are used to do strongly typed programming,
however using code behind, Webservice, WCF is almost the same as doing a
form with Visual Basic (there are differences)

Cor

 

[mayayana]

This is not a VB6 newsgroup, however your reply is a little bit according to
an answer given in that.

For instance, why should a project type which is full Visual Basic for Net
be of topic here?

Sorry, but I don't understand what you're
saying. I was just trying not to get into an
extensive web scripting discussion in the wrong
group.

AP was *thinking of* using VB.Net.
All we know at this point is that AP wants to
set up some kind of image viewer and comment
board. That sounds to me like a job for
client-side script (and a web-server plugin for
the comment section). So I gave AP a link for
scripted slideshows and suggested the discussion
might need to move to a web design group.

I don't see what any of that has to do with VB6
*or* VB.Net. An online slideshow that requires
installing software of any kind wouldn't make sense.

But I may be wrong in my assessment. AP never
really detailed exactly what the project is.

 

[Cor Ligthert[MVP]]

Mayayana,

Not so difficult to do in VB for Net as long as you remember that an image
should always point to a virtual path on a server.

http://www.vb-tips.com/ServerClock.aspx



In fact you see here the use of by you most probably known (IIS) webclass,
but now working

Cor