>>Can an application which is installed on a users PC as an EXE, access and interact with data that is made available on a web server? I know I can access internet data with asp pages and a COM server built as a dll, but can I get to the data using a traditional EXE, and if so how?
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>To access data from the Web you need nothing special on the client. On the server however you need a Web backend such as ASP/ASP.NET/COM/Web Connection/ACtiveFoxPro pages etc. to actually provide data processing.
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>Retrieving data can be done with XMLHttp, WinHTTP which are native Windows components (or wwHTTP which is part of our tools and a bit easier and more flexible to use). You can search the libraries here there are examples of functions that for the former.
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>Web Services work as well, but for VFP that's often a more complex solution than directly accessing HTTP data from a server. It all depends on what you actually need to accomplish.
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>+++ Rick ---
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Rick - I have used your white papers to develop a couple of COM servers that use ASP pages to retrieve and edit data. I found your instructions to be extremely helpful and my understandings were greatly expanded. Thank you much for your efforts there.

My current project could be done in similar fashion. However I find it unsatisfying and tedious to develop my client interfaces as web pages, so I thought I would explore the idea of building the client in the native VFP environment. I've concluded that this is possible and have used the VFP help examples to build a web services trial that seems to work although I haven't yet tested it outside my own LAN.

Your post suggests there may be easier ways to accomplish my goals other than web services although I know nothing about these other services and my UT membership does not allow me to search as you suggested. Perhaps you can guide me a little more.

My project will only have about a dozen users and the liklihood of concurrent use is small although possible. It will involve a half dozen tables most of which will not exceed a couple thousand records. One of the tables however will grow to a couple hundred thousand records. Users will enter, edit, and search the data. The sql selects will likely return no more than a couple hundred records at a time and the number of fields will be fairly small. (a dozen or so)

Which of the services would you recommend and is there a white paper with examples that you can point me to?

Thanks

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>>Thanks