access forms as asp.net's listview

Question

I made an access vba application where all my architecting was simply creating a one-to-many relationship between a "status" table and a "data" table that contained all the other details of my record. Created a form with the single click of a button with my "status" table open, and wallah,,, I got a form for my open or closed records that had dropdowns for each field where theres a related table. For activity tracking, I had to make a many-to-many table , and made a one-to-many for the status of those activities and again, clicked the create form and I was in business. To finish things off all I did was integrate a checkbox in my data fields and put buttons on my status forms that act on the record that got checked, and I was done, fast & painlessly, kinda.

Is there any ASP.net code generation of a data control in where I can just structure my MYSQL database, make the relationship and generate code of the RELATED "status" table and get my form w its related subform with text fields & DDL's automatically generated, fast? If not, what would you consider is the next best approach (i.e. using excel for replicating repetitive code)?

Answer 1

Take a look at http://www.asp.net/dynamicdata

As far as I know (having not used it myself) it will do what you need, ie quickly generating data entry pages from an existing sql schema.

Answer 2

Access can actually create .net forms when you use access 2010. (the forms are real xaml or so called zammel forms). The beauty of this system is you get to keep the same point and click approach that allows you to build master forms with child sub-forms. You not have to write one line of code and you not ever see one connection string. Only downside of this great new system called "Access Web Services" is it requires SharePoint (enterprise).

So, this is a true access development for the web, but you continue to use the Access client to build those forms. Those forms scale out to many users since you using xaml forms and SharePoint. Here is a video of this in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU4mH0jPntI

At the half way in above, note how I switch to running the access application 100% in the browser.