Converting Access apps and forms to ASP.NET

Converting Access apps and forms to ASP.NET

I want to convert my existing application to ASP.NET. Here are the details: I developed an application in Access 97, which uses forms and reports. We mostly work on Forms. There are two types of forms for our application. One is for direct inserting data for creating client's new documents and the other is for printing those forms for Pre-formatted hard copy of forms.

We have a hard copy of a Form from a company XYZ and that says to fill it. Now we only input data in our application and we choose that company's form from application. When we open that formatted form from the application, it shows that form with data we inserted. We put the form of XYZ company inside the printer and from the application we print that form. Hence the Hard copy looks like a computer generated form. The text boxes on that form are borderless. There is another functionality; for cases where the text matter is larger than the text box size, we have buttons (hide when printing) on those forms to adjust the text box font size. The application saves that font size against that record in the database so that next time, if we open or print that form against a particular record, it will get the font size and apply immediately at the form open/current event.

There are more than 800 different forms with different company formats. We also save that company format for a particular client in database. Now, I want to use same application with just this kind of functionality in ASP.NET, so that this can be done from anywhere there is access to our web application. Let me know step by step how it can be possible. I need only one example, rest I will handle myself.

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Step by step: you will have to do everything again from scratch in ASP.NET. Except for the database, none of your existing forms are usable outside Access. Designing an ASP.NET app from scratch to do what you want could take dozens of pages. There're a lot of tutorials on the web on building data-bound forms, and you can also read Beginning Visual Web Programming in C# (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590593618/clarius-20, there's also an upcoming VB version, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590593596/clarius-20), which is a great by-example book that helps you understand how to build a web app using databinding and all the power of Visual Studio.

This was first published in October 2004

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