>I am evaluating West-Winds Web Connection right now. You seem to have pretty good experience with it. I have looked at it real briefly. Getting ready to dive in. Looks like cool stuff. You can actually run a FoxPro form as DHTML!?!?!? Wow! 3 Questions:

Well... slow down. While most of this is possible, I don't necessarily think its advisable. WWC's ability to convert and run forms from scx to HTML truly amazing, I don't know if you want to use this as your web development strategy- you might learn that there are some hurdles that you can't cross.

The documentation that comes with WWC is great. I suggest that you carefully read through it and run some of the samples that come with it and then try one of your own (simple) forms. Even better than the docs, though is the West-Wind message board. Rick is very good about making himself available for questions from users and prospective users alike, and there are several others that frequent the board who are willing to give advice as well.


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>1) Can you take FoxPro forms that have the business logic encoded in the form (I know! I know! I did this before I knew what I was doing) and that are binded directly to FoxPro tables (without views, I know, I know... I was naive) and run them through Web Connection?

Not unless Rick has added some seriously revolutionary new features. While WWC is great almost to the point of being magical, you shouldn't get the impression that your VFP apps can run through a "converter" and become web apps. There is LOTS more logic to be taken care of. The switch from "stateful" to "stateless" programming takes awhile to get used to. That is- every process that you write for a web app has to know how to start from scratch using only URLs, Form variables and Cookies to figure out who is submitting a request and what they are submitting. This will all become clear once you start to put your app together.

>In general, how bad is it to convert it, not including >extracting the business logic?

I am wincing when I hear you say "convert". Like I stated above WWC is good, but it doesn't do everything for you. You can use your existing VFP business logic as is only if it was carefully created to be begin with, with multiple front ends in mind. Otherwise, you'll be rewriting it into new classes

>2) What about printing? How is this is handled?

Well you can't print a Visual Foxpro report from the web. You can carefully construct an HTML page so that it is printer friendly that is, so the user can just hit print in her browser- but this is not always possible. A more realistic solution IMHO is allowing the user to download and print pdf files. The full version of Adobe Acrobat comes with a virtual printer that creates a pdf file when printed to. Using this, it is possible to emulate a print button on your form by having your server program print the needed report to a file, and either providing the user with a link to that file (advisable) or returning the file contents embedded in HTTP. WWC also comes with a class that simplifies this.

>3) Any other suggestions, tidbits, etc. for a newbie to West-Winds Web Connection?

Yeah- DO the samples. READ the docs (they are about the best in the business). ASK questions (WWC message board is the best place for this, but I'm sure most of your questions would get answered here too).

Good Luck-