VB6 front & VB .NET behind??

I am making the transition from VB6 to VB .NET, finally. I actually bought VS .NET about a year or two ago, and didn't feel comfortable switching because I had just gotten comfortable with VB6.

Anyway, I want to make the switch now, but one of my hesitations is that I have a skinning component that works great in 6, but is not supported in .NET (and doesn't work right in .NET anyway), and I don't want to buy a new one just for .NET. So I thought about creating the UI in VB6, and creating a driver to run the program in .NET.

Is that a crazy idea, or is it a good idea? Any ideas?

Thanks for the feedback.

You may want to read about COM Interoperability With .NET Applications first before deciding if it's even worth doing.

When I read that article it sounded complicated. I googled some one of the terms in the article to get clarification, and I found this article by microsoft. This article makes it look pretty easy.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817248

Has anyone done this? If so, did you wish you hadn't done it, or did it work out pretty well?

What kind of skinning component? Why can't you just go completely in .Net?

I just make my Own Skins in Adobe Photoshop and use the OnPaint to apply Alpha type Borders Etc...

like

VB Code:

Color c1 = Color.FromArgb(70, Color.CadetBlue);

Than apply that c1 Color to a Drawn on Object...Adds Transparency type Effects stuff.. ;)

I use codejock skinning, if you want to know more their site is www.codejock.com. I am not very knowledgable in that stuff and cj allows me to add skins to a form in about three lines.

I am guessing that not many people have made com objects in .net.

Not as few as you think. Every once in a while, we have to work with a bit of Interop, say, to use a C++ API or a COM control for which an equivalent doesn't exist in .NET (such as the Web Browser control used from the 1.1 framework).

The reverse is true too, sometimes, someone may want to use a .NET class library in an ASP 3.0 page, and for that, they use regasm.exe.

Mendhak,
I made that statement because, until you posted, no one seemed to be indicating that they had done this. So, is it more effort to make a .net "com" to work with a VB6 front end, than it is to just do it all in .net? From what I read, it doesn't look a great deal difficult, just have to make sure to set it up right, but I know that experience can sometimes turn out different that what was initially thought, that is why I am asking. To use an analogy, I don't want to think I am jumping in the shallow end of the pool, and have it turn out to be the deep end.

Thank you for filling me in on this stuff.

It is slightly more effort. You have to add a few attributes to your classes and stick to basic programming concepts which are common to both VB6 and .NET, else you'll have a lot of difficulty using it in your VB6 applications, in that it'd involve tweaking to accommodate the various types that aren't available.

Personally, I'd go with all .NET so that I can leverage all of the framework's features rather than having to accommodate my code to work with my new approach.

To use an analogy, it'd be like jumping in the shallow end of the pool, but not noticing the bratty kid you landed on who then goes crying to his parents, who happen to be 6'9" tall each and biceps the size of your oversized tub-o-lard posterior. And the kid has snot running from his nose.

that is an interesting analogy, especially since I am very thin, lol.

Ok, thank you for the information.