Simplify app deployment in .NET

HTML5 lets you deploy your applications everywhere

Embedding Windows Forms Applications in a WebBrowser using XBAP

In this post I will add references to other pages which do a great work on explaining how to use this approach to host a Windows Forms App inside a WebBrowser. 

The technique described here is a deployment solution to ease distribution of applications modernized from legacy technologies to Windows Forms, maybe using the Artinsoft\Mobilize.NET tools ;) 

NOTE: "This workaround of .NET Winforms to WPF and then hosting it in a browser isn't truly moving a Windows based application to a web based application. e.g. database calls will be made from inside the browser on the users PC to the database, not via the IIS server. Therefore this functionality is most useful if you have connected your Winforms UI to you back-end code using web services, then you can have a somewhat web based application."  

Adam Berent gives step by step instrutions:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/31429/Embedding-a-NET-WinForms-Application-in-an-Interne 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: Example of Windows Forms applications running inside FireFox browser using an XBAP wrapper.

 

Some details that are missing in this article are related to how to publish the application on IIS, and these can described as: 

1. Create a test Certificate within Visual Studio and sign it against the project.  

The following links provides information on how to sing the xbap with your own certificate. 

http://ahmadreza.com/2011/05/20/how-to-sign-the-xbap-with-your-own-certificate/ 
 

2. Within VS publish the application. 

3. Setup the MIME encoding on the IIS server. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752346.aspx 
 

4. Install the certificate on the Client PCs 

The certificate must be added in the trusted publisher and in the trusted root authority. If this is not done correctly you get the error 'Trust not granted' 

Embedding Windows Forms Applications in a WebBrowser using XBAP

In this post I will add references to other pages which do a great work on explaining how to use this approach to host a Windows Forms App inside a WebBrowser. 

The technique described here is a deployment solution to ease distribution of applications modernized from legacy technologies to Windows Forms, maybe using the Artinsoft\Mobilize.NET tools ;) 

NOTE: "This workaround of .NET Winforms to WPF and then hosting it in a browser isn't truly moving a Windows based application to a web based application. e.g. database calls will be made from inside the browser on the users PC to the database, not via the IIS server. Therefore this functionality is most useful if you have connected your Winforms UI to you back-end code using web services, then you can have a somewhat web based application."  

Adam Berent gives step by step instrutions:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/31429/Embedding-a-NET-WinForms-Application-in-an-Interne 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: Example of Windows Forms applications running inside FireFox browser using an XBAP wrapper.

 

Some details that are missing in this article are related to how to publish the application on IIS, and these can described as: 

1. Create a test Certificate within Visual Studio and sign it against the project.  

The following links provides information on how to sing the xbap with your own certificate. 

http://ahmadreza.com/2011/05/20/how-to-sign-the-xbap-with-your-own-certificate/ 
 

2. Within VS publish the application. 

3. Setup the MIME encoding on the IIS server. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms752346.aspx 
 

4. Install the certificate on the Client PCs 

The certificate must be added in the trusted publisher and in the trusted root authority. If this is not done correctly you get the error 'Trust not granted' 

Silverlight as a mechanism for simplification of application deployment

Embedding Windows Forms Applications directly in a WebBrowser

Figure 1: Example of simple Hello Word Windows Forms App embedded in Browser

Figure 2: Example of a more complex Windows Forms App consuming data from a Web Service

" However before using Windows Forms controls in IE, you need to be aware of the benefits and limitations. The main benefits include: 

•          The ability to deliver dynamic rich user experience through the Web 

•          Automatic caching of compiled code on the client 

•          Seamless integration with .NET Code Access Security that allows you to leverage the .NET security model from within the client side 

•          Improved performance over Java applets 

•           It requires Windows operating system on the client side 

•           Internet Explorer 6.0-9.0 is the only browser that provides support for this type of hosting 

•           It requires .NET runtime to be installed on the client machine. 

•           It also requires Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0 or above on the server side" 

  
  

Migration of ActiveX UserDocuments to C# or .NET

This post describes an an interesting workaround that you can use to support the migration of ActiveX Documents with the Artinsoft Visual Basic Upgrade Companion which is one of the Artinsoft \ Mobilize.NET tools you can use to modernize your Visual Basic, Windows Forms and PowerBuilder applications.

Currently the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion does not allow you to process ActiveX Document directly, but there is a workaround: in general ActiveX Document are something really close to an User Control which is a element that is migrated automatically by the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion.

This post provides a link to a tool (DOWNLOAD TOOL) that can fix your VB6 projects, so the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion processes them. To run the tool:

1) Open the command prompt

2) Go to the Folder where the .vbp file is located

3) Execute a command line command like:

 FixUserDocuments Project1.vbp

This will generate a new project called Project1_modified.vbp. Migrate this new project and now UserDocuments will be supported.

VB6 allows you to create UserDocuments, which can be embedded inside an ActiveX container. The most common one is Internet Explorer. After compilation, the document is contained in a Visual Basic Document file (.VBD) and the server is contained in either an .EXE or .DLL file. During development, the project is in a .DOB file, which is a plain text file containing the definitions of the project’s controls, source code, and so on.

If an ActiveX document project contains graphical elements that cannot be stored in text format, they will be kept in a .DOX file. The .DOB and .DOX files in an ActiveX document project are parallel to the .FRM and .FRX files of a regular Visual Basic executable project. 

The trick to support ActiveX documents is that in general they are very similar to UserControls, and .NET UserControls can also be hosted in a WebBrowser. The following command line tool can be used to update your VB6 projects. It will generate a new solution where UserDocuments will be defined as UserControls.

If you have an ActiveX document like the following: 

Then after running the tool you will have an Project like the following:

So after you have upgraded the projet with the Fixing tool, open the Visual Basic Upgrade Companion  and migrate your project.

After migration you will get something like this:

To use your migrated code embedded in a Web Browser copy the generated assemblies and .pdb to the directory you will publish:

Next create an .HTM page. For example UserDocument1.htm

The contents of that page should be something like the following:

 Now all that is left is to publish the output directory.
To publish your WinForms user control follow these steps.

2. A Wizard to create a Virtual Directory will appear.

 Click Next

 Name the directory as you want. For example Project1. Click Next

 Select the location of your files. Click the Browse button to open a dialog box where you can select your files location. Click Next

 Check the read and run scripts checks and click next

 Now Click Finish

3. Properties for the Virtual Directory will look like this:

NOTE: to see this dialog right click over the virtual directory

4. Now just browse to the address lets say http:\\localhost\Project1\UserDocument1.htm

 And that should be all! :)

The colors are different because of the Host configuration however a simple CSS like:

<style>

 body {background-color: gray;}

</style>

Can make the desired change:

Notice that there will be security limitations, for example for thinks like MessageBoxes.

You can allow restricted operations by setting your site as a restricted site:

For example:

Restrictions

The constraints for this solution include:

* This solutions requires Windows operating system on the client side

* Internet Explorer 6.0 is the only browser that provides support for this type of hosting

* It requires .NET runtime to be installed on the client machine.

* It also requires Windows 2000 and IIS 5.0 or above on the server side

Due to all of the above constraints, it might be beneficial to detect the capabilities of the client machine and then deliver content that is appropriate to them. For example, since forms controls hosted in IE require the presence of the .NET runtime on the client machine, we can write code to check if the client machine has the .NET runtime installed. You can do this by checking the value of the Request.Browser.ClrVersion property. If the client machine has .NET installed, this property will return the version number; otherwise it will return 0.0.

Adding a script like:

<script>

 if ((navigator.userAgent.indexOf(".NET CLR")>-1))

 {

      //alert ("CLR available " +navigator.userAgent);

 }

  else

      alert(".NET SDK/Runtime is not available for us from within " +            "your web browser or your web browser is not supported." +            " Please check with http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/ for " +            "appropriate .NET runtime for your machine.");

</script>

Will help with that.

 References:

ActiveX Documents Definitions:

http://www.aivosto.com/visdev/vdmbvis58.html

Hosting .NET Controls in IE

http://www.15seconds.com/issue/030610.htm