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67

answers:

3

I have a large .NET based system running within the company intranet, which allows winforms users to see some live calculated numbers and a custom winforms control drawn live (but not real-time). The Forms users can also affect the operation of the system.

I would like to just show the live numbers on a website, along with the custom control. Nothing needs to come back from the web user, as the web app is meant to be just for monitoring. All the numbers can be calculated at the server.

It's been a long time since I touched ASP.NET, and I need to know how to proceed. What are the steps in building and deploying such a website? Any caveats I need to look out for?

+1  A: 

I'm not completely sure from your description what you're after here.

I assume what you are looking for is a webpage which will display the calculated numbers, and update as they update without the page having to be refreshed.

in which case, it's not really an ASP.NET issue. You will need to write some JavaScript (I recommend jQuery) to poll the server at intervals and write any changed values to the page.

Is that what you meant?

David
Yes, that's the functionality I'm looking for. Why can't this be done in .NET? And how do I get my custom control on the web page?
Carlos
It can be done in .NET. I'm just saying that the technology you'll be using, AJAx, isn't specific to .NET. It's a cross-platform technology.I can't detail the whole solution here, but I can provide steps as to how I would do this.1) Get some JavaScript running on the page which runs a function every minute. (or whatever you want). Look at the setTimeOut() function here.2) Have this function use jQuery's $ajax.get() function to call the URL of a generic handler (.ashx) file in your web project.3) Have the ashx file to work out the calculated numbers and return them as text...
David
4) Have the $ajax.get() functions callback function write the numbers to the page.That's the basic steps to do this, but sounds like you might need to do some serious gooogling, or email me on david dot cleave at trustcorporation.com and I'll give you some pointers.As for the WinForms custom control, that will need to be written to work in a web environment I'm afraid.
David
Thanks. This is a bit of a sideshow, so it will be a while before I actually get to writing it.
Carlos
A: 

As mentioned, ASP.NET AJAX or JQuery.

ASP.NET AJAX will probably be a bit more familiar if you're coming from winforms.

Doobi