>Thanks for the wonderful offer and I will probably take you up on it. I am doing my first web database project and thought that interdev just might be the quickest way. I'm also exploring west-wind and other options and I'm going to order Rick Strahl's book.
>
>The project is for a group of churches that want to share resources like music, equipment, videos, training materials, etc. The first phase will be for music. It will basically be an online library system. There will be about 60 churches. Lot's of design left to do, I'm just getting started. I'm sure you are going to be a valuable resource.
>
>I'm probably going to bite the bullit and get a msdn universal subscription in a month or two. That should solve my software needs.
>
>I'm also getting geared up for .net. Looking at some c# tutorials. Looks fun to me!
>
>Take care of yourself and thanks again for the fellowship and support.

Tom;

Sounds like a fun project. ASP should work fine. I will caution you that there are two routes to take.

1. Use the DTC’s (Design Time Controls)
2. Write all the code to create objects.

I use the second suggestion, as I like to have control over as much as possible. The DTC’s work to a degree but I have only met one developer in my area that was successful with them.

My forms are complex and have over one hundred objects on each of the major ones.

West Wind Connection is a fine product and I highly recommend it if you have the time and money to invest in the product and training. I took the training course from Rick and like the product very much. Depending upon time line and budgets my bet is that you would be able to learn WWC on your own from books and asking questions and have a finished product faster than you could do in ASP.

I am guessing you have to learn ASP. You will find it difficult to find good books on ASP 2.0 or 3.0. I have lots of “good books” on the subject but I learned most of what I know by solving a problem established by design needs. I have also integrated Dream Weaver and ASP, which works well, but you do not want to see the code!

You could be productive in ASP within a few minutes by looking at some code examples. By the way I have a strong background in music.

Here are some of the concepts I follow with my ASP projects.

1. I use Include files for many things such as:

A. Connection string.

B. Toolbar.

C. Any place where recurring code can be used.

2. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to give the appearance I want in a uniform way with the least amount of code.

3. SQL Server is our backend. VFP is alright for many projects.

4. Use a common user interface – that is design forms to appear and behave in a similar manner to reduce training issues.

5. The Toolbar brings up the “family of forms” it is related to. Use “Music” as an example. You might have the following forms:

A. A Table of all music with navigation buttons to access pages of data (limit your data presentation to say ten rows rather than scroll the entire database)

B. Click on a desired record and a detail form comes up with additional information and the ability to Add/Edit etc.

C. On the Toolbar there is also a “Find” to search for what ever is necessary and display it.

You might visit Rick’s web site to see what is available. Also e-mail me a screen shot of a basic form for your project and I will take a look and send you some code to try.

I am also tempted to suggest you try .NET if you can. I am trying the basic concepts from my present ASP project in .NET and I am amazed (so far) at how little code is required. The problem I am having learning .NET is one of time and having to teach myself. The terms and concepts of ASP.NET and ASP are very different.

My project at work took 13 months to complete and has about 80,000 lines of code and over 170 forms. I suggested WWC to management but they said no. I estimated it would have taken 3 months with WWC. Since my company pays the bills I do what they want but I do like to tell people what I think and why.


Tom