Robin,

You can certainly build just about any kind of Web application with VFP and there are a number of tools that you can do it with. I'm obviously somewhat partial to Web Connection since it's my baby, but there are other solutions as well. Basically the logic on the backend is really only limited with what you can think up and you can use standard FoxPro code for it regardless of tool you use.

The difference in tools is mainly in the development style that is used and how the connector software allows access to the Web functionality.

There are no easy answers to your questions unfortunately though and you need to take a look at a few of the solutions that are available to see which will fit back with the way you like to work.

The 'Microsoft' out of box options are:

* ASP + COM
* ASP.NET + COM

which involve using COM servers and access to your FoxPro business logic through COM. Personally I think this is very difficult to work with for anything but smallish applications because it's difficult to test and debug applications and because there's often no real clean way to pass data between VFP and ASP/ASP.NET other than XML conversion which is terribly inefficient. ASP classic is actually easier and more efficient with VFP code while using ASP.NET and VFP is more work due to the strongly typed nature of .NET and because there's a big penalty to be paid for ASP.NET calling non-multithreaded servers like VFP from .NET's true multi-threaded environment.

Other options go into the realm of third party products like Web Connection, Active FoxPro Pages and ActiveFoxPro which are all based on connectors that let you do most of the work in the Visual FoxPro environment. I have an obvious preference here, but you should check the relative product pages to find what's right for you...

I don't think there are a lot of shortcuts to checking this out but to sit down and experiment with the solution(s) that look best to you and see if you are comfortable with the approach...

+++ Rick ---

>I was asked to write a program to build a complicated selection screen to extract data from a massive table of postal addresses.
>
>This went well, the customer is now asking the following questions for future work: (I have no internet programming experience with VFP except extracting text from a web page)
>
>Can vfp be used on a web application with multi enquires
>
>Can the vfp work using the SQL engine although this project could clear be done by VFP,
>I know this can be done, and I have bought Client Server Applications with VFP & SQL Server - Rob
>
>Can we create login screens for
>
>1/ Initial Login to create a new account for a new customer
>
>2/ Be able to send emails to new customer confirming their new account
>
>3/ Place accounting controls example : orders can be placed and released if account is in credit
>
>4/ Be able to place counts and email results
>
>5/ From the email be able to download the data.
>
>We already have the user login and auto email system written for us for the DMO web site.
>
>Java and postgres have been used so if vfp could not do this can we interface it.?
>_________________________________________________________________________________
>
>I have a copy of Internet Applications with VFP6, I've never done anything with it though. From this book I gleamed this as a form of reply to my customer:
>
>VFP can be used as a foundation to build large, mission critical internet database applications. Server side web applications including Active Server Pages, ODBC and activex automation servers, Activex Data Objects, FoxISAP, Internet Information Server, Microsoft Transaction Server, and advanced web features like cookies, authentication, secuirity, XML, browser functionality encapsulation, and remote data services.
>
>Also ive added this:
>
>VFP can be both a COM client and server.
>
>VFP can run with an SQL server, instead of its own database engine.
>
>VFP can send emails using MSOutlook (Automation), or a pop3 email account directly or MAPI all in straight text or HTML format.
>
>Can anyone giude me as to how I should be advising the customer to proceed, is it even feasible for me to learn all this in a matter of months?
>
>What about a product like Web Connection by Rick Strahl?
>
>Any help extremley appreciated.
>
> Rob