General .net question

[Hardy]

Hi guys, wonder if I could trouble you with the daft queston of the day!

I've been programming in VB6 for quite some time (and 5 before that) but I havn't used .net at all. Most of the stuff I'm doing at present involves using VB6 to act as a front end to an Access database. The database being held centrally & the .exe being accessed by multiple users. The front end is basically displaying data & does some calculations as well (pension projections and the like).

I have a situation where by I need to convert one of these applications to enable it to be accessed via a clients intranet, rather than as a desktop application.

My question is, is VB.Net the appropriate application for the job?
Is there much differences in the construction of applications in .net to v6?
Are there any online guides that I can refer to so as to get going in the right direction.

Thanks in anticipation.

[BenFinkel]

Hardy,

If by 'intranet' you mean accessible via a web browser with no installation on the end-user's pc, then I think the answer is Yes, it is the right environment.

However, I've only done windows app development in .NET, I haven't done any webforms yet..

Good Luck!

--Ben

[taxes]

Hi,

"Is there much differences in the construction of applications in .net to v6?
Are there any online guides that I can refer to so as to get going in the right direction."


The most important differences to understand are Inheritance, Classes, and Collections. These are totally foreign to VB6 educated programmers. In VB6 you use the actual form you create at design time, by loading and showing it.

In VB.NET you make a copy (called an "Instance") of the form you designed by declaring it as you do a variable in VB6 and then show it. The form you design is actually a sub class of the Forms class so you normally preface it's name with fcls whereas you normally preface name of the Instance you create with frm

You really need a beginner's level book, such as Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 2003 in 24 Hours by James Foxall, ISBN 0-672-32537-3. You will then be more able to take advantage of this forum and other sites like

http://www.devcity.net/net/index.aspx

or fee charging sites like

http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/

I have found it is well worth the effort.

[siobi]

the case is like this,

I have a application program,
I need the user to used it while they online...

so...
user will browse my website...
inside my website, I should have something to check the user side have my application program or not... if not, then they need to download it.

my problem is, how can i detect users side whether they had install my program?

my friend had told me to create an active X to do that... but I'm no idea at all...

any help?
tutorial?

[taxes]

Hi,

You should post this question as a new Thread or it might be missed.

Sorry I can't help with this problem.

[Hardy]

Thanks for the information guys. Ben your description is exactly what I'm hoping to acheive.

Looks like its going to be back to basics for me for a little while. I'm sure I'll be trawling through this forum for handy hints & the like so.

A pop down to the bookshop is going to be in order too I guess, I've had the '24 hours' books before & not been that impressed though. For VB6 my personal favourite has always been "Mastering VB6" by Evangelos Petroutsos (Sybex), although I do have quite a library of others I refer too a lot as well.

I'll keep you posted as to how I get on!

[taxes]

Hi Hardy,

" I've had the '24 hours' books before & not been that impressed though."

So have I and entirely agree with your conclusion, right up to VB6.

But James Foxall's is in a different category. However, you do need to visit his web site and download the errata before using. You then get excellent backup through that site.