> Ok, let me try and get this straight so there isn't any miscommunication, and so you don't misintepret my messages or what I have been doing.
You forgot to redirect the message to me. I got it but may have missed it as it was sent to All.
>I have been writing an application to get the UT WebService for new messages, even though I'm not a PUTM member and I won't be able to use it. I thought it would be really kewl just to write the application. I just got the schema from PUTM member, (who you have been informed of) and wrote the application based upon that. I haven't even been able to use it, except by setting up a clone of the WebService locally, and sending fictional datasets so I can test the application.
Ok
>I'm not trying to make an offline archive, or bypass the UT membership or get search features etc. It was never my intention for doing that ever. I saw that you had added WebServices for UT, and had spent the time writing and converting them over to .NET, so I assumed they weren't meant to be used (I thought a logical assumption). I'm not trying to cut into your profits, or get access that I haven't paid for. I wanted to write an application, that would sit in my taskbar, and poll for new messages so I then could jump up on the site and read them. I thought it would be kewl, to write the application just for the sake of writing it. I'm a geek, and interesting projects intrigue me and I go off spending hours writing code, w/ no promise or hope of monetary reward, but just for the sake of learning and for the knowledge of how to write it and because I truly enjoy it.
Our WS doesn't have any specific sample to one development platform or another. We do however provide a basic approach to show how to login in VFP or VB.NET and to call a method. But, once that done, the rest is pretty much the same no matter in which development environment the developer is using.
So, I'm not sure what you mean by "converting them over to .NET".
>And I know, or well I hope some of the UT ppl are those type of geeks or at least were at one time. I mean the whole point of you writing a webservice was meant for people to write applications that will consume the service, correct? Or am I wrong?
No, it's not its prime use. Presently, all of our users, or close to 100% of them are making use from it from the VFP Task Pane. I have discovered that not that much people will use a WS on a regular basis. WS are good for those who really need to benefit of it from their application. For example, you have a shipping application and you need to connect to Fedex to get its status. That is a good example of a good use for it. But, to query for specific data, where all of them is already available in a prime interface online is not that much used. However, since VFP 8 was introduced, as it includes a builtin interface to query for news, for example, many people are making use of it. For VS.NET, our WS also serve for the Federated Community for its search engine. But, that again, is invisible to the user. The VS.NET interface will query our WS for specific .NET data and the user will simply benefit of it in its search result.
Basically, our WS provides several sets of methods categorized in messages, VFP Zone, .NET Zone and User groups. As we dropped the offline reader a few years ago, it was not our assumption that someone would built an offline interface from it to avoid using the online interface. Its main reason is that it is focused on a really small market and its maintenance is extremely expensive as per the evolution of the online interface.
>I'm not trying to take away from you at all. I was actually planning after I got it to some level of stablity to make it available to all the PUTM members, and I was planning to give out the source code as well.
Yes, I understand you have good intentions. However, the conditions of use of this site says that a member who benefit of the WS, for example, can't forward the collected data to someone else. The collected data is to be used by the same individual and that's it. I'd have preferred you'd have asked me instead to receive that schema. I recall some of such requests recently. Not sure if it was from you but I'd have given the schema for your own tests.
>That way you could offer a whole another application to your PUTM members, FREE without any work. I was even going to send you the source code, so you could modify it or just throw it away or give it to other members so they could add to it. So I was actually trying to add to the community. Because in the end, unless I purchase a membership, I won't even be able to use the application that I'm writing.
Our offline reader already have 95% of all that ready. It's just that we dropped its support and maintenance since a while now. Basically, we'd just have to change the data engine to query a WS instead of using a socket and such. Like I said, we don't want to have to support something else. We also don't want to tell someone to adjust such an interface everytime we will enhance the Web interface. This is why we only designed the WS to respond to specific content and that's it.
