Antonio
Just thought I would stur up your imagination and see if you have thought about creating some sort of Web class library ??
Seriously thinking about creating some web apps .. not too crazy about static HTML editors or limited database connectivity solutions like Dreamweaver.
Any thoughts ??
Rick Lipkin
Antonio
Not quite sure what I am looking at yet .. looks like an IIS server setup .. that will run a CGI app ??
Haven't really got into the code yet .. But basically what I was looking for was a library that will give you the flexability to CREATE the CGI application with controls .. ie dialogs, listboxes, buttons in a web browser.
I will look at the code more in detail.
Rick
Rick Lipkin wrote:Antonio
Just thought I would stur up your imagination and see if you have thought about creating some sort of Web class library ??
Seriously thinking about creating some web apps .. not too crazy about static HTML editors or limited database connectivity solutions like Dreamweaver.
Any thoughts ??
Rick Lipkin
Rick,
You might want to consider a thick client instead--meaning an application written in FWH that runs on the local PC but accesses data on a server. ADS supports this. The advantage is that the user can have a much more sophisticated program with a better response than a browser based application. Also, you (the developer) can write the application in a language you already know.
James
James
I use ADS .. very successfully. However, in my environment ( over 5000 pc's ) with over 500+ servers ... Health and Environmental missions ... it has become obvious that traditional client\server has some limitations.
For example .. we have our MAJOR Patient Health system that is a Delphi client\server application that runs on a DB2 back end. We have found that in order to get the proper responce with this application we have had to deploy the program with Citrix and thin\client.
We have a 50 server ( central office ) Citrix farm .. just to handle the client requests. The farm sits just behind our main router next to our firewall to get maximum thruput to our database.
What makes this such an expensive proposition is that we are in the process of rolling out a new module that will be run from local Doctors offices ( outside our firewall ) prompting us to purchase several more servers to handle the additional thin client sessions.
With all of that said .... it makes sense to look at client\server in a little different lite in that you can have a ( single ) web server dishing an application making all the connectivity to our DB2 back end. Can you imagine the dollars we could possiblely save in hardware and in dealing with the Citrix licenses and not to mention the Domain headaches.
We also have the Oracle Financial package that runs in a Web ( java ) environment. When I look at that deployment, desktop requirements, infrastructure requirements .. web technology is an obvious winner.
Granted .. not everyone will have this kind of infrastructure nor near the scope of the deployment.
I am on the Agency's technical committee and my personal development within the Agency is no where near the scale of the above mentioned enterprise endevours.
When you look at the two above mentioned deployments from purely a business decision .. just in the hardware requirements alone .. it begs of a Web solution.
Choices .. asp, asp.net, c#, cold fusion, dreamweaver, java, Oracle web forms .. but what about the mid-range applications ??
My personal question .. is how can I leverage xHarbour, FiveWin and the web to create 'robust' data driven applications. When you look at the lowest common denominator .. every desktop has a browser and an IP connection ( windows and mac ) ... How can I leverage that with Web development.
I don't plan on ditching ADS nor client\server .. just want to see what it is going to take to get into Web development and how it may possibly fit in my portfolio.
Rick Lipkin
Rick,
Well, I don't deal with anything on the scale that you do, so I am not real clear what you are saying. But I'm am not sure you understood what I was mentioning either. What I was talking about was not client/server on a network or even running an app under Citrix over the web, but running the application on a local PC and connecting to ADS across the Internet. So, instead of being limited to the capabilites of a browser based application, you have the capabilities (and speed) of a FWH app. Both are getting the data across the Internet.
RF is the expert on this so perhaps he will jump in. Renaldo Crespo-Bazan is also doing this and he is working in the medical industry too. I believe he is deploying apps in doctor's offices also.
However, if you have to deploy application upgrades to 5000 PCs I can see that a browser based web app is attractive in that sense.
James
James
Thanks .. I would like to hear what Rene has to say .. I have seen posts where he has successfully created ADS web apps .. FiveTitles if I recall.
Just at a crossroads here .. I need to expand and the Web is very much an emerging technology .. no right or wrong answers here.
Rick Lipkin
Personally I have successfully developed some CGI apps using xHarbour and DBFs without problems. As an alternative to CGI you can try XbScript.dll.
EMG
I already have my own TCGI class library, including some stuff like direct HTML export, reading of enviroment variables, TWebBrowse and other stuff.
I use it every day in my WebBased projects, WebTilus, the FW knowledge base is written with my classes.
Rene
As I look at the various web options .. I increasingly dis-like what I have seen ... hense the start of this thread.
I like to be able to have listboxs, dialogs without having to spawn off new browsers.
I would like the opportunity to use database controls, data validation, business rules with 'valids' for triggers. Be able to take a table and use arrays or varibles and work with those values instead of directly writing to a database .. I control the locks .. I control the table update logic.
I would very much like to see your web-browse listbox class .. James and I have been talking privately about what you have acomplished.
I hope I would not be imposing by asking for some of your samples..
Thanks
Rick Lipkin
Rick,
I have created a pure xharbour / FWH application on the web.
You may view it at
login as "dutto" or "sunri" with a password of "x"
This is a combination of HTML / Java Script which was developed by artists and a back end MS-Sql server database, an xHarbour/FWH application, and a very simple .net request / response handler which handles the web requests and deliveries.
Originally I build the application as a pure cgi program (very easy to do - I'm using the same code that I build into libraries which I used in 1995 with CA-Clipper ). But, the process was too slow by having the cgi application constantly load, connect to the database, then unload.
Now, the application runs as an NT service and is constantly connected to the database - 1 connection. Each web request takes a second to service. If too many connections are hitting this single threaded application, then I simply invoke a 2nd instance of my harbour application, thus, doubling the throughput.
Finally, security is impeckable, because there is no connection from the DMZ .net application to the sql server database, or anywhere else ( this is a banking application ). The harbour application looks for a request - then goes to sleep for 100 milliseconds, over and over.
Hope this invokes some ideas for you.
Groovy!
I noticed that you use pdfFactory - is this Enterprise version?
Are PDF files indeed generated in real-time?
I also like your idea of running another instance of same app in
case of high-load.
If not secret, what kind of HW is your server?
Roman
The server is a Pentium II - about 600 mhz, NT Windows 2000 Server, IIS 5.0.
The pdf-factory is a demo version which I use in my demo site. The actual clients must purchase a 1 user version.
The service is running under a user account with proper NT security, and the user's default printer is pdf-factory. That seemed like the only way I could figure out how to print from a service.
The "normal" service loads as "LOCAL SYSTEM" user and I could not figure out how to set a default printer for the loca system account.
I have messed around with Web Services utilizing the Microsoft Web Services Toolkit and they seem to work very well. This allows you to comunicate with a web app from a FiveWin app. There are several public web services available, and you can write them with .net easily. I would like to see a native FiveWin class to handle web services on the client and server. This seems to be the best of both worlds, you have all the speed and control of a winforms application, communicating just as you were a web app.
Thanks,
Byron...
