Running application on website

InsideInsurance

If you are moving about etc it is worth checking what trust level the servers are running at.

Microsoft recommend to hosts to run in Medium trust which means that some .Net functions are disabled.

In my old days of developing had more than one client that had a site built and it worked perfectly but they switched host for one reason or another and after buying a years hosting they found the new host had a lower trust level set and the blocked functions meant their site failed.

Chomeur

OK, I've found quite a good article http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1346/Beginning-ASP-NET-using-VB-NET here which I've read. It leads me to conclude that ASP.net would be the wrong choice, at least in part. My application relies a lot on mouse events. Those take place on the client side. ASP.net is a server side technology. It won't know about the mouse events. Zoho say that they use (at least for their invoicing programme) Java, JSP and JavaScript, so a mix of server side and client side technology. Also none of the ASP.net applications listed here http://www.asp.net/get-started are what I would call computer programmes; they're just websites, which further makes me feel that ASP.net is not right for me.

I'm not sure whether I should be thinking of using ASP.net on the server side along with JavaScript on the client side or should be using JSP and JavaScript for better compatibility between the two, but either way I think this is going to be a lot more work (and learning!) than it looked like being a few days ago.

paddyrg

Do bear in mind that any server-side executable is a massive security risk on the server, if I had a hosting company there is no way I'd let a VB app come near. Proper client-server programming is a real art, and very easy to get wrong. A single modal dialogue box will need someone to visit the box in the datacentre (or remote in in the same user context as the executable) to press 'ok' before anything else can happen.

If you want to write for web, ASP.NET really is the best option so much of your code can transfer not seamlessly, but be less of a curve than a curly-bracket language.

If you don't want to do that, you're really looking at running in Citrix, or something similar - we're out of enthusiast territory here though.

InsideInsurance

JSP and JavaScript are no more or less compatible with each other than .Net and JavaScript

If you use any of the built in controls or events within ASP.Net it does frequently generate JavaScript in the generated output that the users browser will then run. With some controls (eg form validation) you get the choice of if you want to run it client or server side - choose client and you get JavaScript in the output, choose server and you don't

Obviously if you are writing custom controls or events etc then you will need to write the javascript you require

Chomeur

paddyrg wrote: »

Do bear in mind that any server-side executable is a massive security risk on the server, if I had a hosting company there is no way I'd let a VB app come near. Proper client-server programming is a real art, and very easy to get wrong. A single modal dialogue box will need someone to visit the box in the datacentre (or remote in in the same user context as the executable) to press 'ok' before anything else can happen.

If you want to write for web, ASP.NET really is the best option so much of your code can transfer not seamlessly, but be less of a curve than a curly-bracket language.

If you don't want to do that, you're really looking at running in Citrix, or something similar - we're out of enthusiast territory here though.

So who's easier to persuade to take my vb code - end users or the hosting company?

As I say I can't just use ASP.net because I need to handle mouse events and the like. And what's wrong with Javascript - why won't that do instead of Citrix?

InsideInsurance

I would argue in most cases end users will be unless you willing to rent a dedicated server at which point hosts allow you to do what you want but they arent cheap.

What sort of "mouse clicks" are you needing to capture?

Chomeur

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I would argue in most cases end users will be unless you willing to rent a dedicated server at which point hosts allow you to do what you want but they arent cheap.

So maybe I should stick with my original plan of having a vb application for users to download. It seems it would save a lot of work.

InsideInsurance wrote: »

What sort of "mouse clicks" are you needing to capture?

The application is a little bit like PowerPoint with shapes on the screen that the user can move. So the full range of mouse events are relevant - move, up, down, click, dragdrop etc.

InsideInsurance

Its been a while since I did web dev properly. Whilst ASP.Net had WebParts for certain things your taking about they werent that good. In my day you'd be talking about a front end done using Flash and depending on the backend complexity that could hook onto a .Net engine or Flash's own ActionScript

Since my day HTML 5 has come along and certainly some things are now achievable (eg dragable elements) which werent previously but the exact details and how easy to hook into .Net they are I havent looked into as I only do bits and pieces these days

paddyrg

Chomeur wrote: »

So maybe I should stick with my original plan of having a vb application for users to download. It seems it would save a lot of work.

The application is a little bit like PowerPoint with shapes on the screen that the user can move. So the full range of mouse events are relevant - move, up, down, click, dragdrop etc.

...a LOT of work! Getting web apps to behave like a rich fully rich native apps is a constant battle for the big boys - it is Google's dream, they are as good as you'll get, and they come close...but look at what they're spending. An installable exe will be massively easier

Chomeur

OK, that's decided then. Is there anything I can do to reassure people that my application is not going to steal their data or mess with their files if they download it? I suppose they should have a firewall that handles the former at least.