PPT viewer in a asp.net web application

[Guest]

Hello,
I need to develop a web site for a learning centre in asp.net 2.0.
They want to deliver part of their courses on-line. The customer will have a
username and password to access a reserved area.
In this area, they need to show some powerpoint files resuming the lessons.
The end users can or cannot have powerpoint installed on their computer,
so I though that a ppt viewer is needed.

There are a couple of check in "Folder Option" -> "File Types" that
can change the behaviour of our web application:

"Browse in same window": if it's not checked, the ppt is loaded outside a
web page
"Confirm open after download": if it's checked, the system ask if you want
to open the file or download it into your system.

Is there a way to bypass the user configuration on the machine, in order to
be sure that he will always open the file in the browser window as we expect?

Do I need to develop a custom control for that?

Any hints will be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Ben Schwehn]

"Browse in same window": if it's not checked, the ppt is loaded outside

a web page
"Confirm open after download": if it's checked, the system ask if you
want to open the file or download it into your system.

Is there a way to bypass the user configuration on the machine, in order
to be sure that he will always open the file in the browser window as we
expect?

No, I don't think so. Not at least in different browsers and for users
that do not have PPT installed.

Did you really succeed in having the ppt *viewer* display inside the
webbrowser? I once did something similar (hosting IE in a windows app and
loading a ppt file into ie, thus loading ppt into my Windows app and
convering PPT to a flash film), but I'm pretty sure this only works when
PPT is installed, the ppt viewer cannot be embedded and/or OLE-automated
(not the later versions at least, some older versions allowed it)

Do I need to develop a custom control for that?

good luck with that (seriously), if you find a good solution, let me
know.

Could you just convert the PPT to images, or do you need the animations
to work with user interaction and all?

Ben

 

[Guest]

Did you really succeed in having the ppt *viewer* display inside the

webbrowser? I once did something similar (hosting IE in a windows app and
loading a ppt file into ie, thus loading ppt into my Windows app and
convering PPT to a flash film), but I'm pretty sure this only works when
PPT is installed, the ppt viewer cannot be embedded and/or OLE-automated
(not the later versions at least, some older versions allowed it)

I though so I tried the thing few minutes ago on a clean machine, and no,
you're right: the viewer is opening outside the browser.

Could you just convert the PPT to images, or do you need the animations
to work with user interaction and all?

Yes, the customer wants the user interaction & animations..

If I found something interisting I'll let you know.
Thanks a lot!

 

[clintonG]

There are applications that convert PPT to Flash. Go find them.

 

[Ben Schwehn]

There are applications that convert PPT to Flash. Go find them.

I've yet to find one that doesn't utterly suck.

I've written a simple ppt->flash (or really flash->avi) converter not so
long ago for some project and I evaluated a couple of commercial products
beforehand. The products either tried to parse the ppt objects and
recreate them in flash. Those converters worked fine for simple static
slides, but all failed more or less horribly on any non-trivial
animation.

Others just loaded the PPT and created a film from it (which is what my
solution did as well). Therefore all interactive animations are gone
after the conversion. Also the resulting movie files get huge and not
really suitable for putting them on the web.

Ben