Conversion of Access FE to ASP

[Trauton]

Hi,

I have a small Access application consisting of an Access FE connected to a
SQL server BE. They work great thanks to the help I received from this forum.

I now have the need to convert my Access FE to a web Front End and I am
thinking of using ASP. What is the best way to do this conversion? My
Access FE has some special Event Procedures and modules that I don't know if
ASP will have the flexibility to duplicate. I've seen some software offering
to do the conversion but I wonder if anyone has had experience with that type
of solution.

I appreciate your suggestions,

Trauton

 

[Norman Yuan]

In your case, "Conversion" means re-write it entirely with the web
technology of your choice.

 

[Trauton]

Norman,

Thanks, I guess you are saying that there is no way to use the work I've
already done in developing the Access FE (forms, queries, procedures, modules
etc) to create the website, except only as a blue print or a general concept
when I am designing the website. Correct?

Trauton

 

[Tony Toews]

I now have the need to convert my Access FE to a web Front End and I am
thinking of using ASP.

Why? What is your overall objective?

How many people will be using your app via the web? If only a
relatively few then Terminal Server may be a solution. If many then
maybe only some of the functionality needs to be moved to the web and
most of it stays in Access.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Brendan Reynolds]

Even as a blueprint, you may not be able to follow it very closely. You're
now working in a stateless, disconnected environment, and many things that
made sense on the desktop or on a LAN no longer make sense in that new
environment.

 

[aaron_kempf]

you CAN use Data Access Pages.

these are the best things since sliced bread.
But they still require an office license on the clients for usage.

I really reccomend at least considering these; they are quite
beautiful.

But it would probably be harder to use DAP than plain old ASP

PS - if you're going to use DAP you might as well get all the data into
SQL first; i reccomend ADP/DAP in your case.

-Aaron

 

[Trauton]

Brendan,

I am getting that impression, although I kept asking because it surprises me
that there is a fairly smooth transition from access FE and BE to Access FE
and SQL BE, however there is nothing to bridge the gap between Access FE and
a Web FE. I thought I was perhaps not asking the right questions.

Thanks,

Lalo

 

[Trauton]

Aaron,

You bring up an interesting point that perhaps I need to explore more. My
impression of Data Access Pages (though this happened when I had a lot less
experience with Access so I could have misunderstood it completely) was that
Data Access pages were very limited in the things they could do and therefore
could never do the same things the Access forms could do. I'm thinking about
forms with special event procedures that regulate how the forms behaves. If
that is not the case and I could replicate the same functionality, then
perhaps I am looking at the wrong approach.

Was I mistaken?

Trauton

 

[Trauton]

Tony,

Good question, I am perfectly happy with the way my Access FE and SQL BE
arrangement works. However, I need to add a new group of users (about 50)
that belong to networks that are not in the same domain as my SQL server.
This prevents us from giving them access through the Access FE since they
can't ping the server. Converting this diverse group to the same domain is
impractical. It seems the only solution is to move the FE to the web where
they tell me the domain is no longer a issue.

As a side benefit, I thougth this would also resolve the auto-update issue,
where the share drive that houses the auto-update version is too slow and
makes opening the application using your Auto-FE program take too long. This
has prevented me from using it (though I think it's a great solution if I can
get it to work in my environment).

What would your proposed solution entail?

Trauton

 

[Homer J Simpson]

You bring up an interesting point that perhaps I need to explore more. My
impression of Data Access Pages (though this happened when I had a lot
less
experience with Access so I could have misunderstood it completely) was
that
Data Access pages were very limited in the things they could do and
therefore
could never do the same things the Access forms could do.

My impression is that it's a change from a custom Windows interface to a web
browser interface. For lookup only the latter would seem to suffice.

 

[Brendan Reynolds]

Check out the post at the URL below before you invest too much time or
effort in Data Access Pages ...

http://www.utteraccess.com/forums/showflat.php?Number=1057772