VB.net: deploy application to website server - vb.net

I have written a vb.net application that I want to put on a webpage (like a Java applet). My application connects to an external website to scrape data (using the WebBrowser control). How do I put my application online?

You can't run a Windows Form application inside a browser like a plugin (unless you do a lot of work to get it to run as an ActiveX control and that would only be IE).
Perhaps you could make an installer using ClickOnce or something else?

Related

Dim NewBarcode As New Barcode()

In a class that I have in my web site I'm Importing
Imports IDAutomation.Windows.Forms.LinearBarCode
Imports IDAutomation.Windows.Forms
Also in the code I'm using
Dim NewBarcode As New Barcode()
That Line works fine when I'm running the site in debug mode in my PC localhost:3552
Finaly I'm uploading the code (the all site code) in my ISP Server, when program comes to this line
Dim NewBarcode As New Barcode()
It throws me an error with the following text.
Showing a modal dialogbox or form when the application is not
running in UserInterface mode is not valid. Specify The
ServiceNotification or DefaultDeskTopOnly style to Display a
notification from a service application.
I searcher the Internet about that; but the issue I found was mention only for a messagebox. A control which I don't have it; and I'm not using it.
I suspect that the issue is coming from the
IDAutomation.Windows.Forms
But I don't have any solution for this...
Is there anybody to know how to solve this issue?
The BarCode component you are using is made for winforms, rather than webforms, and will try to show the barcode dialog on the web server, not in the user's browser. It works while testing on your computer because the web server and the web browser are the same machine. When you try to move that code to a real web server, especially one using Windows Server Core (which has no gui), this is the result.

How to code vb.net for website? I want the UI embedded within the web page of my browser

I have made an exe program using vb.net but I want to make a webpage on which that exe is embedded.
Like the way this site has done.
You already have the source code for your VB.NET application, the path of least resistance is to factor out the desired functionality into a library DLL. Your web server presumably runs Windows and so will probably have ASP.NET capability. Just reference the DLL in your ASP.NET project and call into that instead.
My advice is don't make a rod for your own back by creating your own CGI binaries:
With a CGI application you'll have to generate all of the response headers and markup by yourself, you'll also have to parse any inbound headers, cookies etc yourself. It's a lot of work to replicate functionality already present in ASP.NET
Enabling CGI executables on your web server increases the risk of a security compromise, either through a mistake in your VB.NET executable, or because via some other vector an attacker has been able to upload a malicious executable and run that.

How do I include a forms application in my service application?

I have an application that is a Windows Service application. It currently reads an XML file for it's configuration and the code works off those settings.
I have created a separate project that is a Windows Forms application (typical windows app). This app is a GUI interface into the configuration settings (changed from XML to database, but that is relatively unimportant).
What I need to do is:
Integrate the 2 projects
Add a system tray icon to pop up the form
I'm unsure exactly how to proceed on this and wanted to get some advice before messing things up.
You can't integrate these two things (entirely). A service is designed to run without a GUI of any kind (there is a work around to allow desktop interaction but this is messy and clunky and will cause you more problems than it solves)
It sounds like you just need to use the code from the service in the forms application. This should be a simple copy and paste operation.
To show an icon in the system tray is pretty easy:
Create a program to run from the system tray
how to put an .net application in system tray when minimized?

Web browser independent of IE

I would like to make a web browser for my own use with various customizations. However, in VB6 the various web related control like winsock, inet fetch only html. Using webbrowser control is not the answer because it uses the same settings as windows IE. What I'd like to know is a control somewhat like the webbrowser but independent of windows IE setting. So that the changes made in IE wont effect my web browser. And also the webbrowser control does not have features such as blocking a specific image/CSS according to URL etc.
What I want to know is that if it’s not possible to do with VB6, is it possible with Visual Basic 2010 Express?
winsock is a general purpose socket library and can communicate over the Internet to get all sort of data, not just HTML. And that's the answer to your question. If for some reason you want to create your own browser, you need to start from winsock.
Also, Visual Basic 2010 Express is the name of a particular version of IDE which is used to build programs in VB.NET which is the replacement for VB6. In conclusion, you can build your browser in either VB6 or VB.NET, however, I would recommend VB.NET as Microsoft has retired VB6 as a product and a technology.

vb.net - keeping program updated?

I'm looking for suggestions on keeping a program that is running on a network updated. Installation consists of 15 users, each have the program on their local pc, but they all access same date from sql server.
I am looking for a clean method that would allow me to update one folder on the network and for each computer to get updated when they run the program and the programs sees a later ver on that folder on the network. (Obviously I can do this inside the program itself since it won't allow being overwritten while opened.)
You should have a look at
ClickOnce is a deployment technology
that enables self-updating
Windows-based applications that can be
installed and run with minimal user
interaction.
Using ClickOnce Deployment in
VB.NET
ClickOnce - A new VB.NET 2005 Deployment Tool
ClickOnce Deployment for Windows Forms Applications
ClickOnce Deployment in .NET Framework 2.0
Another option is to create a second program that will check the network for an updated version of your application. Let's call this program "updater.exe".
You can run updater.exe on system startup like Adobe Reader or Sun Java do.
Or, when your application is started it can load updater.exe. If updater.exe finds an update, it can close/unload your application, download the newer version, restart your application and close itself.
astander's answer above is correct, you can use ClickOnce for this. Another option is creating this application as a web application.
Web applications basically work the way you described, the application's files reside in a web server, all the users connect to it using a browser, and to update the application you only need to update the files in the server.