Hi John

>It isn't easy to win a beauty contest against a web-based front end that >uses css to create corporate livery and skins for visually impaired users >etc etc. As well as showing how easily the customer can include their logo >and select fonts etc

You are right. It looks like an issue for the ones currently building win32 applications... Possibly Vista is our friend as long as VFP can (or will) support its visual tricks.

>the salespeople will also advertise the zero client-side >installation/maintenance and high flexibility of such an approach.

>It used to be possible to rebut this by showing the advantages of a fat >client application such as lower bandwidth use [...] demonstrating your >optional "rock-solid interactive Windows forms" for reliability and other >benefits, at no additional cost.

This development model intended in this case - the fat client - is strong businesswise. It's even the only one acceptable in view of the very serious data-protection constraints of our users. We have no problem at this level. Since the application architecture - local app + xml resources consumption - is clearly what the customer is after.

But the user now requires some kind of "visual experience" that is on par with what they have now have on the Web and on their Intranet. My 2 cents opinion is that this is a more of a "eye candy" issue than a usability one. But I may be wrong.

Any pointer to "up to the mark" visually successfull win32 applications would be welcome.

Frank