I have a problem I am trying to solve in an elegant manner. I have a .net application that I have created. I am trying to get one of the forms to be shown from a webpage. This sounds strange I'll admit, so here is the backstory
We have some large monitors at work, that show information on them. I have no control over how the information is displayed. Currently they are just using a browser and tabbing in the browser to show each different piece of information on the screen. Most of the info they show is just standard html stuff, text and images.
Now along comes my winforms application. The part of the application I need to show is a graphical display. Everything on this display is drawn using GDI+, if that matters. I need to get this form into a format that I can show. Below is my own solution, but I am pretty sure this is not the best method, but it may be the only method I can use
Create a console application. The application would do the following
1. Run as a service on a server
2. Create the display in memory, and save it to a bitmap every so ofter
3. Save the bitmap to a location on the network.
4. have an HTML file that links the image that can be shown in the browser
I though about doing something with the clients, however the clients are not always up, so I could have periods where the image wouldnt be updated.
I also was thinking about an ASP.net solution, but that would require me to learn ASP.net, and I am not quite ready to take that challenge
In IE you can host a winforms app/control as an ActiveX control, like so:
<object id="DateTimePicker" height="31" width="177"
classid="bin/Web.Controls.DateTime.dll#Web.Controls.DateTime.DateTimePicker" VIEWASTEXT>
</object>
See this article for more information: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/htmlwincontrol.aspx
Now, I'm not claiming that this is any more elegant than your solution, but it is an alternative.
I think using Asp.Net to serve a dynamic image using a HttpHandler would be the best approach, but depending on your skills and time this may not be an option. Here is a nice tutorial: http://www.codeguru.com/columns/dotnet/article.php/c11013
IMHO The best way to build this would be as a browser plug-in, like how Flash works. Microsoft has created a plug-in framework called SpicIE, that allows you develop managed plug-ins for IE. This is probably your best bet.
The old unmanaged way is to build out your WinForms dll app and then package it in a signed cab file, and then reference that cab file with an HTML object tag (codebase arg is the one you need).
i.e.,
document.write("<object CLASSID='clsid:DC187740-46A9-11D5-A815-00B0D0428C0C' CODEBASE='/MyFormsApp/MyFormsApp.cab#Version=1,00,0000' />");
The first time the user hits the page they will be asked to allow for the installer to load its payload (dll's). Once they do, they will have a fully fledged WinForms desktop APP running through a browser window.
I took the easy route on this one. I created a small winform app, that coverts the GDI objects to a bitmap, and then I save the bitmap to a network share. This file is refenced in a simple HTML file that is displayed on the monitor.
I chose the winform app, because it makes it really easy for me to set this up in task manager, and run it every 10 minutes to update.
Related
I'm not asking for detailed code for this question, but rather solid direction to learn how to do it myself. There appears to be many methods and directions so just looking for a headstart from someone experienced.
I have a simple file upload control. I want it to operate as an ajax upload, no page-refresh, and if I'm understanding correctly I need http handler that grabs the image and deals with it behind the scenes.
So I need to create a custom control, a new file upload that allows me to set some properties, such as... Path for the image, prefix for three different types (I.e. thm_uniqueimagename.jpg, med_uniqueimagename.jpg, lg_uniqueimagename.jpg) and an option to either KeepOriginal="True/False".
I'd like to see a progress bar while the image is uploading as well. A fantastic example would be a post on Facebook and how you can upload an image.
Right now I'm stuck with a standard upload control that has full post-back/refresh and it's just not nearly as attractive.
I'm just now learning VB... So basically if you can say... Read this tutorial, then do this, then do this... that would be greatly helpful. Just overwhelmed with what to do first, and how to put it all together.
Platform: Windows, .net, etc.
Thank you for any advice.
If you want a better user experience, then I suggest you investigate some solutions like the following:
ASP.NET AJAX file upload
AjaxFileUpload.
Note: If you read the documentation for the ASP.NET AJAX AjaxFileUploader, it says that it requires HTML5 for the progress feedback; otherwise it shows a spinner. So if progress feedback is a necessity and you cannot fully support HTML5 in your target browsers (i.e. older versions of IE; IE6, IE7, IE8, etc.), then you should look into the options below.
Custom HTTP module
NeatUpload is a free option.
Silverlight/Flash option
SWFUpload is a free option.
Asynchronous chunking option
RadAsyncUpload - Telerik's ASP.NET AsyncUpload is a pay option, check website for pricing.
Today we have a classic asp application to manipulate the word files in the company. By using ActiveX, we can download, edit, print and finally upload the modifications without much interation.
Explaining: If I need to update anything in the "Processes.doc" file, I click on it, the ActiveX download the file to my desktop, I use it whenever I want but, when I close the file, the ActiveX uploads the new version, if this need applies with the rules.
This feature only works under IE and the users have this desire to do the same in other browsers. And the boss wants this system updated in asp.net.
My question is only "how is this possible?" How can I make it cross-plataform with the same usability that I have now? I spent the day reading about custom controls in asp.net (using object tag, but it don't work in FF), third-party components (expensive and I don't know if it will work), ActiveX written in .NET.
Any other suggestions? There is another way to this?
ActiveX is being phased out as is Flash and being replaced by JS/HTML5. These two client side technologies are more than capable of editing word documents but in the end I think you'll find that getting away from a proprietary format like MS word is the way to go. HTML is powerful enough to provide most of the same features of MS word so once the files have been converted it's simply a matter of finding a javascript HTML document editor. From there you simply need to rework the mechanism which downloads and uploads the HTML to the server to use AJAX and you'll be good to go.
Here are some examples of HTML editors:
http://www.tinymce.com/
http://speckedit.com/demo
http://nicedit.com/demos.php
http://ckeditor.com/demo
I'm working on a project where user's submit data and then it is put onto a state form that they can print and submit. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, the form looks similar to an IRS 1040 form (https://www.healthykids.org/_img/document_1040.gif).
We've recently discovered that the form generated by our software isn't close enough to be accepted by some state's OCR process.
We're looking for some way to quickly create stylesheets or something similar so that the data can be overlayed on a scan of the original form and then printed. We've tested to ensure this works, however the lost time of trying to get the positioning right for every version of the form for each state has become a huge problem.
I'm looking for a tool or technique that would help me roll out each form faster.
The web application is based on Code Igniter. Our company prefers open source solutions but if a proven proprietary product exists we would certainly use it due to the critical nature of the issue.
Thank you very much for any help.
First, the obvious. Most web IDE's do this with ease (I know both Microsoft Visual Studio and Adobe Dreamweaver would allow you to visually position the elements above the image without problems).
I take it you are looking for a tool that lets you design the forms as part of the web application itself. One of the related links points to Suggestions for a JavaScript form builder?.
Other than that, if you know your Javascript and jQuery/extjs etc, it should be pretty quick to write a simple "put the textfields above the image" (absolute-positioning + drag and drop) type of web interface.
My application uses MVVM architecture and needs to occaisonally call some outside asp pages to interact with a few other systems. The problem is I that I really don't want the user to see these pages because they don't have a UI, they really just need to open in the background, perform their function, then close, all without ever being seen. I can not use windowless mode. The URL that I need the frame pointing to is generated in the viewmodel so I also need to know how to get that info to the frame. I'm really lost on this issue as there isn't much online related to doing this without windowless mode. Any help would be much appreicated.
See these two for references in how I pieced the code together for this.
Silverlight, can I access DOM elements in Webbrowser control?
http://www.davidezordan.net/blog/?p=700
Note that the only thing you can do is set the value of the url for that frame if it is in a different domain because of security reasons. That may be fine for you. So try something like:
var element = HtmlPage.Document.GetElementById("yourIframe");
element.SetAttribute("src", yourUrl);
Is there any way where i can create a thumbnail image from a flash movie file(flv /swf) [NOT FROM A VIDEO File ] in ASP.NET ? Any samples of implementation ?
you can use ffmpeg to create thumbnails of the flash video
For .flv you can use ffmpeg to convert parts of the video (e.g. one frame) into an image (sequence)
I've used it as command-line application by calling Process.Start(), but there is at least one wrapper for .NET (I haven't tested it myself):
http://www.codeplex.com/ffmpegdotnet
For .swf I don't know any way to achieve this without some Adobe tool.
for flv it can be done easily, as others mentioned ...
for swf, it depends HIGHLY on the swf ... if the swfs visual appearence is determined by code, there is no other way than to embed a flash player in you app and either let the flash player make the snapshots, encode them as JPEG/PNG, and send them somewhere using TCP or LocalConnection (a flash<->flash communication connection, which can be used with C# as well) or try to somehow grab its output buffer yourself ... the first possibility should be no more than 10-20 lines of actionscript code ... don't know about the latter ...
other than that, you might use an external command line converter ... there are a few floating around the web ...
greetz
back2dos
Take a look at this article, it should point you in the right direction. It uses SharpFFmpeg to extract thumbnail images from movie clips from a variety of formats.
the only way to get an image, is to use a full flash client that starts playing and allows you to capture the first frame.
I would take a close look at flirt (they actually have an example that renders pngs)
Maybe some of the other flash libraries may be of help ( swfdec gnash swift tools gplflash)
Gnash is probably the best choice since its the most mature project out there, but i do not know how easy it is to integrate into command line tools or into your own projects.
We have been working on this in my company, and we got a proof of concept working pretty fast (but the project we made it for is on hold right now). I am not able to share the code, but I can give you some pointers.
It is not pure ASP.NET, but maybe you can still use it. We made a windows service that can be called from ASP.NET.
Basicly you install the flash plugin on the server, the windows services can then simply open the swf through the swf ActiveX component and then you can grap a picture of the whole thing. It works pretty well, notice that you do not have to actually render the ActiveX component on screen to capture the picture.
Check out this post. It does not tell you everything but I guess it provides the ground work required for it. You probably have to figure out how to get the object tag out of the flash-html you are trying to download from a web page. After that you'd have to figure out when to capture the frames. Its a long ride however. You don't need the asp.net part. Just concentrate on the windows project part. Hope this helps. :)