Switching from Windows Form to Web Form

Question

I created a Windows Form executable in .NET 3.5 that uses a dll to communicate with a machine that scans checks. I'm eventually going to need to move from an executable to a Web Form that can do the same thing. This will be months from now, but I wanted to start doing the research now as I have not done this before. I'm going to need to use ActiveX in order to communicate with the device via a Web Form. I've also not done this before.

I'd like to keep the functionality of my existing executable without having to rewrite most of it, although I do understand that some of it will need to be rewritten. I've done research on ActiveX and how to use it, but I wanted to know if someone has had a similar situation as this. What did you do to convert an exe to a web program? Are there good, specific sources out there that I'm overlooking that can point me in the right direction for this situation? Is there any advice that you can give from your experiences that can help me to reduce mistakes? The company that I work for does not have anyone else here that has done this before, so I've got to teach myself everything needed to do this.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This is where separation of concerns and n-tier design shine through. Hopefully your UI layer is loosely coupled from your domain model. If this is the case, you can code a second IU layer for the web. And not have to change your domain model at all. Then you can compile for each scenario.

*note - In practical use I have always had to extend my business domain to account for some issues with the second UI, but those modifications have usually been minor, and have pointed out places where I had coupled too tightly anyway.

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Another option you may consider is creating a web services layer over your business domain code. And then coding a web application that communicates with your domain model via those web services calls. This may have performance implications, and would not be my preferred method of accomplishing this. Though you may find it more manageable if you don't have a well designed application to start with.

Answer 2

Normally, converting winforms to webforms is quite possible, although typically a slow development process. Even if you've got the cleanest domain layer in the world, the fact that objects in your web page are thrown away every time means that a web domain layer is normally written very differently to a desktop domain layer.

However, in your case the device - server communication is going to be extra difficult.

Have you looked at xbap? It's basically a way to deploy WPF applications into a web page. It requires your clients to have the right version of .NET installed, but it's going to be the easiest path for you, especially considering that you can host winforms in WPF...

Answer 3

"I'd like to keep the functionality of my existing executable without having to rewrite most of it"

In general if you extract as much logic as possible into its own assembly/dll, you can reuse that from whatever UI framework you want. Just make sure you're not doing anything UI specific in there (throwing up dialog boxes, etc).

Answer 4

You may take a look at Silverlight 4,

http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/

It contains many features that ASP.NET Web Forms hasn't.

If your team can accept something like ActiveX, why not Silverlight 4? The only disadvantage is that SL4 is still in Beta.