Using WinForm Controls in WebForms (Grid Control)

[Sunil Menon]

Dear All,
We are developing applications in ASP.Net...in one of our
applications we would like to use a GridControl...we have tried to use
a Server-Side Grid control but found the speed to be an issue...also
our clients would like to use a lot of client side events like
sorting, searching text, save each row on tab out of a row, use the
auto correct feature...
after intial r&d we feel that using a Grid Control in WinForms would
be a better option...we have seen samples of how to use a WinForm
control in aspx pages...we would like to know the following:
1. Is this the right option?
2. What are the draw-backs in using this logic?
3. Will MS enhance their support in this technology (read an
article that says you can pass command line parameters to a winform
control)
4. Other than .Net run-time that needs to be installed on the
client, is there some other dlls too that need to be installed?
5. Can I use more than one WinForm Control in a single WinForm?

We are looking into this option because the control will use the
client machine's power to drive itself.

Please let us know...

TALIA
Many Regards
Sunil

 

[Dmitriy Lapshin [C# / .NET MVP]]

Hi,

1. Is this the right option?

If the client is happy to have the Framework installed on the client
machines, than probably yes. At least Microsoft introduced such an option
for a good reason.

2. What are the draw-backs in using this logic?

a) The WinForms DataGrid is not so simple you seem to think of it.
b) Such a control will be run under tight security restrictions
c) This will limit your solution to IE6+ on the client side

3. Will MS enhance their support in this technology

Let somebody from Microsoft answer this

4. Other than .Net run-time that needs to be installed on the
client, is there some other dlls too that need to be installed?

Depends on what will actually be used in the control developed. If you
employ P/Invoke, watch out. If you employ 3rd party libraries, watch out
too. If not, the Framework itself should be enough.

5. Can I use more than one WinForm Control in a single WinForm?

Absolutely yes. More than that, you can combine granular user controls to
build composite user controls.

 

[Rajesh.V]

Sunil,
This is a great method. As i see u have listed down most of the concerns
down.

1.Also note the framework keeps getting updated. IE and mdac also need to be
there.

2.Other than that if u are accessing system.net or opening db connections u
would have to adjust the .net security to grant max trust for that assy or
all assy's signed with a key.

3. The technology has got great support from MS. In framwork 1.1 they are
openly talking about it. I have used it and its stable.

4. Easy to debug unlike activex.

5. You can use as many winform control in a webcorm.

Last but not least if you are planning to use these controls why not have
look at Autodeployment and SmartClients. These are winform apps deployed off
the web and offers much more user experience than a web will ever have.

 

[Sunil Menon]

Dear Rajesh, Dmitriy,
Thanks for taking time to reply to my mail...

a) The WinForms DataGrid is not so simple you seem to think of it.
b) Such a control will be run under tight security restrictions
c) This will limit your solution to IE6+ on the client side

Depends on what will actually be used in the control developed. If you
employ P/Invoke, watch out. If you employ 3rd party libraries, watch
out
too. If not, the Framework itself should be enough.

I am planning to use a Third party control "Infragistics WebGrid"...
which is a .net component....Then do I have to create a cab file for
this control to be downloaded on the client machine?? I realise that
there will be licensin issues involved...
This means that I will have to use the Grid provided by MS. Is this
good enough?
Also I feel I will not be able to call Win32 functions from WinForms
that are run in the browser...

Rajesh: Could you please post the URL regarding "Autodeployment and
SmartClients"? It will be really nice if you could do that.

Thanks to everyone for replying to my mail...

Many Regards
Sunil

 

[Rajesh.V]

1.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/code/defa...=/MSDN-FILES/028/001/151/topic.xml&frame=true

2.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnadvnet/html/vbnet10142001.asp

3.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetsec/html/openhack.asp

You could find more about notouch searching for .net smartclient and no
touch deployment.

Also dbnetgrid.com is better than infragistics, i mean much much better. To
get it up and running it hardly takes time. Infragistics takes a lot of code
and has a lot of bugs in sorting and paging. For such a component, u wud
have to buy, min $500 and no cab files are required. It will have to be
installed in the webserver and ofcourse referred in your project.