Advice needed: Converting a dialog based app to a web based app

[DeepT]

I have been asked to take a dialog based app (with many dialog boxes, wizard style) and make a web based application out of it such that anyone with a web browser can use our application and have a very similar experience to the dialog based one.

Unfortunately, I know next to zero about this kind of thing. I assume Ill need a web server. I also hope that most of this can be written in C# and HTLM.

I guess my questions are:

1. What do I need to know?

2. What technologies should I be looking at?

3. Can I really make a web page act like a dialog box (with all the gadgets like tree-views and the like) ?

4. Can anyone recommend some good sources / books to get me started? Id prefer web based resources so I can get started on this right away.

[toraj58]

somewhat its' possible to convert a win app to web app with almost all the features by using ASP.NET AJAX ToolKit for .net 2.0 or 3.5.

you need to know how to work with AJAX toolkit. basicly it is very simple and if you have knowlege of JavaScript and C# you will learn it in a short peroid of time but also you shoud not be worry mush about java script beacuse AJAX ToolKit will do the most work for you behind the hood.

in summary tools and knowledge you need:

1- asp.net
2- html (xhtml recommended) : VS 2005+ help you to write code in XHTML easily base on your html knowledge
3- C# as you know (you can reuse most of the code with some changes in web version)
4- java script
5- sql server 2000+ or sql server express (very easy)
6- knoledge of writng SQL queries
7- AJAX : will help your end user to have the look and feel of working with a win app in web environment

books that i have red and i recommand strongly to you:

1- C# - Wrox - Professional ASP.NET 2.0 2006
2- Apress - ASP.NEt from novice to professional (in this one one chapter teach you working with AJAX toolkit)

and as a web recourse base on my indivisual experiment i dont recommand you any special site just for each problem you encountered search google and almost always first result page is your answer

[nelo]

Hi DeepT.

Toraj58 has made a good suggestion. I would like to suggest an alternative approach. The alternative I would recommend is developing a Silverlight 3 application. If you users are willing to download the Silverlight plug in and happy to use Internet Explorer or Firefox that would be a feasible solution. Apart from WPF and Xaml you would have a similar programming experience as you are used. Using ASP.NET and AJAX presents a considerable steeper learning curve. You seem to be an experienced developer and probably been there and done that...but web development is different from windows development. With Silverlight you are basically writing a WPF application that can run on the browser. And with Silverlight 3 the users can actually install the application locally should they wish to. The only resources I could recommend at the moment are the MSDN videos. They are too many to list here. Just search for silverlight on msdn, or google or channel9 (msdn). All the best.

Nelo

[eclipsed4utoo]

Hi DeepT.

Toraj58 has made a good suggestion. I would like to suggest an alternative approach. The alternative I would recommend is developing a Silverlight 3 application. If you users are willing to download the Silverlight plug in and happy to use Internet Explorer or Firefox that would be a feasible solution. Apart from WPF and Xaml you would have a similar programming experience as you are used. Using ASP.NET and AJAX presents a considerable steeper learning curve. You seem to be an experienced developer and probably been there and done that...but web development is different from windows development. With Silverlight you are basically writing a WPF application that can run on the browser. And with Silverlight 3 the users can actually install the application locally should they wish to. The only resources I could recommend at the moment are the MSDN videos. They are too many to list here. Just search for silverlight on msdn, or google or channel9 (msdn). All the best.

Nelo

Silverlight 4 is now released and it now supports Chrome also.

I would also suggest looking into using Silverlight.