Application development guide/ inspiration

[dclawson]

Hi all,

I have been asked to develop a small application for a friend. The current app is in Excel format but he would like it converting to a downloadable piece of software.

I have been looking for well designed applications and found:

http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix

Are there any good resources about learning to design/ develop a similar interface? Or good software design inspiration sites?

I am typically a PHP web developer with VB experience but thought i'd give it a go.

Thanks for help with this.

[mbutler755]

If it needs to be downloadable as you mentioned in your post, a web application isn't going to work too well for that. You may want to try a VB/C# app instead that can actually be downloaded and installed. I would start here: http://www.microsoft.com/express

[dclawson]

Thanks for your reply. Yes I was aware that a web application would not work but Visual Studio Light Switch looks interesting

[jeffman2]

You could embed the excel file in powerpoint presentation manually and then i believe their is a way to convert that to an exe but try telling us more details and the microsoft guys do advanced things on the microsoft forum and would be able to help you.

Excel is in a certain format and so macros would not work in another program and its impossible to convert the macros in a way for them to execute in an exe.

If your friend needs it to automatically startup excel on a persons computer i can do that.
But if their is an excel viewer active x then you can load it with your vb or c# program into installer and it would work. I know theirs a visio viewer but does anyone know of a excel viewer active x.