getting started with .net (VBA.net)

[kemorr]

I have a database made in access. I am wondering weather or not it is possible to build a front end using .net. I am completely new to .net but understand that you use your web browser to access data in a database. My questions are.

What package should I use to create a .net front end?
How do I get started (some kind of simpel example)?
Where do the queries and reports go? (I used to access and they are in the front end)

Many thanks.
Kevin

[jscher2000]

.Net is an umbrella term that refers to many different technologies. On the web, typically you would use ASP.Net. On the web browser side, an ASP.Net page (often denominated with a .aspx extension rather than a .html extension) looks like any other page, but on the server you can use Visual Basic.Net or other programming languages to process database requests.

I don't recall whether ASP.Net works with MS Access files or whether you need to convert them to SQL Server format and run SQL Server. Either way, you can use your queries mostly unchanged, but will have to recode all the reports for the web. Note that you need to take care in accepting user data and feeding it to your database. Consider this thread: Prevent SQL Injection attacks (Any/All).

I can't tell you the best tool to use for writing or learning ASP.Net, but Microsoft offers a free, reduced-function version of Visual Studio 2008 that you could check out. See: Visual Studio > Express Editions > Web Development. And you probably will need some books...

[charlotte]

Reports go in the .Net project ( or in *A* .Net project, since a solution can contain more than one project.). Queries don't work the same in .Net. The SQL language isn't very different (except you're using ADO-flavored SQL), but you don't save queries that way you do in Access. You can save the SQL to an XML file, which is what we generally do, and then read it out of the xml file and execute the SQL using ADO.Net.

VB.Net would be the closest to VBA, if that's what you're used to, but if you want to build a browser front end, you'll no doubt wind up using ASP.Net or C# instead. In any case, there's a fairly steep learning curve switching from Access to .Net, but it has ample payoff for the effort required.

[kemorr]

HI Charlotte,

Many thanks for your reply and sorry for the delay. I have only just revisted this thread!

Once again, thanks