Hi, Everybody!

Let me begin by saying I am a junior programer, but not a VB one. That said,
let me explain to you what I saw and what I'd like to do.

When you go to the start menu in vista, you find a label HELP & SUPPORT.
When you click on it a window appears.  The window is just like a windows
regular windosw, but its contents are html.

I have a program that works fine as a web program, but I would like to
encapsulate it in a window, as a desktop application. Just like the HELP &
SUPPORT one. My question is: Can I recreate something like that with VB 6.0.
I know it works with forms, but can it create a window which you can brand
how ever you want, and that still communicate via php with MySQL. What
happens is that I don't want to have to recreate the whole program in a
language that I bearly know. I just like to encapsulate the pages.

Another thing. Can I set my own commands to the shortcut menu (right click).
Can I also communicate with the web pages using VB Controls?

Would you suggest that I use VB 6 or VB.NET in my project? I am equally
unfamiliar with both.

Where can I find info/code to help me implement all the above, to speed up
the learning curb and help me finish my project quickly and effectively.

As you can see, I am in the dark here, lol. Hope anyone can help me here.
In advance thanks a million for any info.

Bert

You can sort of have a "webpage program" on the
Desktop,. Is that what you're asking? When you say,
"still communicate via php with MySQL" it sounds like
you want to load your webpage into a custom client-side
window. That wouldn't be a "desktop application". It's just
a webpage in a custom browser window.

   You could do something like that by using a WebBrowser
control on a form. A WB control is just an IE browser window
without the "chrome". (The window frame.) You can cause the
WB to navigate to your website. And you can have your
own window frame around it. You can also use DHTML by
accessing the WB.Document.

    If you actually do want something that will be loading and
running on the Desktop, then you can still use a VB form
with a WB control. Or you could use an HTA, which is basically
a webpage that runs in IE with no security restrictions and
without the IE menu, logo, etc. The HTA window frame looks
almost like a Windows window frame. It was designed for
that purpose -- to create DHTML webpages that run locally
and function like software programs.

Show quoteHide quote

To display HTML using Windows technology you are pretty much locked
to IE, or some other third party web broswer control (I'm not aware of any
at the moment, but if there are a few...)

That is because you don't want to have to re-invent the wheel when it comes
to displaying HTML with all the trimmings. (Images, CSS, Scripts, etc)

From VB you have two basic ways to get your HTML displayed,

1.  You host a WebBrowser control on a form.
2.  You call up an IE object to display your HTML (externally).

Both of those methods give you somewhat limited control of what is being
displayed as the both make use of IE's HTML engine (for lack of a better
word).  That means you get constrained by security and access to only
what the DOM (Document Object Model) supports, and IIRC, that won't
easily allow for additions to their context menus.  You would find it easier
to replace their menus with your own.

You said you have your HTML pages all up and working, so if that is all you
need, you can use either method to display the pages.  Hosting a control on a
form gives you more control of the window (title bar and borders) plus a place
to store your context menu if you want to add one of your own.  Otherwise
they are very similar to eachother in displaying your pages....

A third method would be a re-write to make it a HyperText Application (HTA),
but I would expect you'd want to re-use existing assets (web pages) rather than
re-write your web-app.

HTH
LFS

  An HTA is all in the name. Rename an HTML file
to HTA and Presto! It's an HTA. It then gets run
by mshta.exe and allows for setting a handful of
properties by using the <HTA:APPLICATION> tag,
but all it really is is an IE browser window with no
security.

There is SOME truth in that, but it isn't the whole story.

That's a bit like saying; "Hey, rename that TXT file to RTF
and presto, its a rich text document!"

Sure, it works, but...

Web pages aren't usually written to handle most events on
the client like an HTA file would.  To get the full advantage,
the page would have to be designed to run as an HTA and
stored on the local computer and not some web server
somewhere.

Just for laughs I've attached an HTA file the OP can 'play'
with to see an example....

LFS


[attached file: LightsOut.hta]

Hi, guys!

Thanks for  all the great comments and advice. I am going to need some time
to digest it, but I'd like a little clearer about what I would like to do.

My boss, saw how the webprogram worked and he liked it, so he asked me if
could recreate it as a stand alone for the desktop.

What I want to do is, for the time being, use the apache webserver as the
desktop DB for the application, so I can reuse all the code PHP, JavaScript,
SQL I've used. Nothing will be hosted outside the computer that holds the
program, but he doesn't want it to look like a web application, but like a
desktop application. I am not sure want he wants to do with it after it has
the look of a desktop application.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of what I need, and you don't
have to guess it.

Thanks a million guys.

=?Utf-8?B?QmVydCBU?= <Be***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
Show quoteHide quoteSo you'll need to install Apache and some SQL server for apache to
talk to, on each client PC.  Once you've done that, and installed your
web pages, scripts, and DB, you can navigate to the local web page in
a browser, or a custom browser-app.

Honestly, I think the hardest part won't be the application, but
rather the installation process.

Thank, Scott!

All the software pertaining to Apache(php, sql, perl) are already installed
as well as apache. Like I said before, I am brand new at VB so I don't know
if framing the pages with VB window could interfere in anyway with the
communication that already exists between the pages and the DB.

=?Utf-8?B?QmVydCBU?= <Be***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
Nope. As was mentioned elsewhere on the thread, the web browser control
is just IE without it's normal window adornments. It can be used to view
any website.

Unless your site does something odd with multiple browser windows or
tabs, it should just be a matter of creating a form with the web browser
control and calling Navigate on the control to navigate to the local
URL.

I concur with Scott.  Add a WB control to a form with resize code to
make it fill the whole form and use its Navigate2 method to pass it the
file to load....

As long as links to other pages do not specify a new window, the whole
application will run in the WB.  If your links do specify a new window,
they will come up in new instance of the local default browser....

LFS

It sounds like you want to move the whole thing
into a desktop window without any changes. I
would think it would make far more sense to just
rewrite it as an HTA or as a real program. But
I guess that also raises the question of why you'd
move it. Better security? A prettier window? It
doesn't seem to make much sense to go to all that
work if you're just going to end up with exactly the
same thing.


Show quoteHide quote

Hi, Mayayana

I went and checked the HTA documentation.
I like it. It's pretty simply to apply, but I notices that the history
property of IE doesn't work. There's info I want to be there when I use the
backj() method. Is there a way to get something like that when using HTA

Another thing I noticed, is that although you get tags for changing the look
of the window, when I use them I don't see any changes. I tried all to see
what looks the had to offer but they were all the same. What can I do to
change the look.

Is there a way to create menus

Thanks a lot

Show quoteHide quote

  I don't know about that. An HTA is not usually something
one uses to navigate pages. It's usually used as a GUI.
If you can use Navigate I'm guessing that you'd end up
getting switched over to IE for the new page, but I've
never tried it. Perhaps you could automate an IE instance
from the HTA. I guess it depends on what you need to
accomplish.

   There's not a heck of a lot of option. The idea is that
it gives you a basic frame and title bar (which you
can remove if you like) and it's up to you to create the
interface you want via HTML/CSS.
  In case you don't have a full listing of the HTA tag options,
I'm pasting that at the end of this post. (The Commandline
property doesn't seem to work for me. HTAs started with
IE5, but that particular property may have come in later.)

  Yes. You can do anything you can do with HTML, CSS and
script. (Windows-type menus are doable in straight CSS
using the :hover pseudo-class, but IE didn't get that functionality
until at least v. 7, so it's best to use script.)

   The basic idea is that you create a table with display: none;
You make the table look like a menu. And you show it by
using script to resond to mouseovers. There's a fairly
involved sample here:
www.jsware.net/jsware/msicode.php3

   See the MSI Editor download.
   They're nice, VBScript-based, Windows-esque menus, with
menu items that respond to mouse hovering. (They also have
quite a bit of disabling functionality built in for clarity. You have
to load an MSI file to see the full operation.) But the HTA
they're in is fairly complex, so it might be some trouble to pick
apart the code. If you're comfortable with javascript you could
probably find concise sample code for "flyout" menus online.
A lot of websites actually use some kind of flyout or dropdown
menu these days.

   This gets back to the earlier discussion: An HTA is basically
a webpage. So as with webpages, there's not much limit to
what you can do graphically, but it can be very time-consuming
to perfect the details. And of course you can add your own
stuff with VB, too. I'm actually working on an HTA right now for a
friend who wants to be able to view her photos as thumbnails,
be able to select any thumbnail to view in a larger version, and
then be able to drag one or two into Paint Shop Pro for editing.
Most of that functionality is not too hard (I was delighted to discover
that any picture in an IMG tag can be dragged into PSP and
be recoginzed as a file drop!), but I also wanted it to be easy to just
drop a folder full of JPGs onto the HTA, rather than being forced
to use a BrowseForFolder window. The methods that I've found
for file/folder drag-drop to an IE window are funky and undependable,
at best. So I wrote a quick drag-drop OCX to embed on the page.
If you have access to the places where the HTA will be used then
extra OCXs might be a good option. You could even build a
registration test/procedure into the HTA startup. And I suppose
there's no reason that you couldn't create a VB menu OCX control
if you wanted to.

----------------------------------------------------------
HTA tag attribute options:
(These are mostly self-explanatory. But note that
the Caption attribute is just boolean. The caption itself
is the TITLE tag.)
----------------------------------------------------------

HTML Attribute APPLICATIONNAME
Description Sets (retrieves in JavaScript) the application name.
Possible Values A String
Examples APPLICATIONNAME= "docjavascript"
Remarks Must be set and unique for the SINGLEINSTANCE to work.
JavaScript Property applicationName
Permission Read Only
Default No

HTML Attribute BORDER
Description Sets or retrieves the HTA border.
Possible Values "thick", "dialog window", "thin", "none"
Examples BORDER= "thin"
Remarks Only valid for HTA windows that contain a title bar, or caption. The
value "none" eliminates the program icon and Minimize/Maximize buttons. Can
be used with the borderStyle property, which controls the content border
within the window. Differences may not be detected.
JavaScript Property border
Permission Read Only
Default "thick"

HTML Attribute BORDERSTYLE
Description Sets or retrieves the HTA content border.
Possible Values "normal", "complex", "raised", "static", "sunken"
Examples BORDERSTYLE= "normal"
Remarks Affects only the content border. Use BORDER to affect the outer
border of the window.
JavaScript Property borderStyle
Permission Read Only
Default "normal"

HTML Attribute CAPTION
Description Sets or determines whether the HTA window has a title bar.
Possible Values "yes", "no"
Examples CAPTION = "yes"
Remarks Turning off the caption will remove the application icon, and the
Minimize and Maximize buttons. Provide a button to exit the application!
JavaScript Property caption
Permission Read Only
Default "yes"

HTML Attribute commandLine
Description Retrieves the command line and arguments that invoked the HTA.
Possible Values Read Only
Examples command = htaObj.commandLine
Remarks Returns an empty string when HTA invoked via HTTP.
JavaScript Property commandLine
Permission Read Only
Default No Default

HTML Attribute ICON
Description Sets or retrieves the icon file name.
Possible Values A String
Examples ICON = "3DSmiley.ico"
Remarks Need to use a 32x32 icon.
JavaScript Property icon
Permission Read Only
Default System Application Icon

HTML Attribute MAXIMIZEBUTTON
Description Sets or determines whether the HTA window has a Maximize button.
Possible Values "yes", "no"
Examples MAXIMIZEBUTTON = "yes"
Remarks Must turn on CAPTION to have the Maximize button.
JavaScript Property maximizeButton
Permission Read Only
Default "yes"

HTML Attribute MINIMIZEBUTTON
Description Sets or determines whether the HTA window has a Minimize button.
Possible Values "yes", "no"
Examples MINIMIZEBUTTON = "yes"
Remarks Must turn on CAPTION to have the Maximize button.
JavaScript Property minimizeButton
Permission Read Only
Default "yes"

HTML Attribute SHOWINTASKBAR
Description Sets or determines whether the HTA appear in the task bar.
Possible Values "yes", "no"
Examples SHOWINTASKBAR = "yes"
Remarks Does not affect the applications shown by ALT+TAB
JavaScript Property showInTaskBar
Permission Read Only
Default "yes"
HTML Attribute SINGLEINSTANCE
Description Sets or determines whether only one instance of the application
is allowed.
Possible Values "yes", "no"
Examples SINGLEINSTANCE = "no"
Remarks Application is determined by APPLICATONNAME and not by the URL.
Click twice on the links to the left.
JavaScript Property singleInstance
Permission Read Only
Default "no"

HTML Attribute SYSMENU
Description Sets or determines whether the HTA has system menus (icon and
Maximize and Minimize buttons).
Possible Values "yes", "no"
Examples sysMenu = "yes"
Remarks Can drastically affect the look and feel of the application.
JavaScript Property sysMenu
Permission Read Only
Default "yes"
HTML Attribute VERSION
Description Sets or determines the HTA version.
Possible Values A String
Examples version = "5.3"
Remarks The entered version will appear in the application's properties, if
you save to disk.
JavaScript Property version
Permission Read Only
Default ""

HTML Attribute WINDOWSTATE
Description Sets or determines the HTA window size.
Possible Values "normal", "maximize", "minimize"
Examples WINDOWSTATE = "minimize"
Remarks "normal" means window will inherit the Internet Explorer default
window. "maximize" will expand the window to a full screen. "minimize" will
put the application icon on the task bar.
JavaScript Property windowState
Permission Read Only
Default "normal"

  No, it's not like saying that. An RTF file has a specific
structure/format while a TXT file is just bytes that
represent characters.

   HTAs, on the other hand, work in just
the way I described. The page is HTML, no
more and no less. And it runs in an IE browser
window. If you look at the window hierarchy
you'll see that the Internet Explorer_Server
class window is just wrapped in a window
generated by mshta.


  Webpages are webpages. An HTA is a webpage.
Obviously an HTA will typically have more script
subs handling events, but so what?

   Maybe you're thinking of "webpage" as a page on
the Web? I never said that. (See below.) I write
a lot of utilities as HTAs because they're handy.

   I used to use an HTML file, set local security low,
and remove mshta from my system because I figured
it was an unnecessary security risk. But Microsoft has
put up so many security roadblocks for webpages
running locally that very few people running XP would
even be able to figure out how to use my .html webpage
utilities. So I switched to HTAs. (Presto, with a file
extension change, like I said. :)

   Not only to get the "full advantage". The single
restriction on an HTA is that it *must* be running
locally. But in the final analysis it's identical
to an HTML file except for the optional <HTA> tag.
It's all about security, not file format.

   You often have very informative answers to things,
but in this case I'm afraid you've adopted a common
misconception. And it's an unfortunate misconception,
since it generates an unnecessary sense of mystery
around HTAs and may thereby discourage people from
using them.

Almost but not quite.  But for the most part this is true.  To some extent
it becomes a game of semantics.

In an HTA you can create frames and iframes that have APPLICATION="yes"
which confers a kind of power you won't get from IE-hosted HTML no matter
how low you have security set.  An HTA also doesn't get HTML Form
autocomplete, and it has no access to the *external* object that a
WebBrowser control has.  An HTA can have an icon, along with the other items
specified through the HTA:APPLICATION tag.

It's hardly anything to argue about though.


BTW: We're all aware of this little gem, right?

<META HTTP-EQUIV="MSThemeCompatible" CONTENT="Yes">

  And another very odd one I discovered: If you
provide an APPLICATIONNAME then the class name
of the parent window gets changed from "HTML
Application Host Window Class" to that application
name! I discovered that when writing code to return
the document object from a running HTA. With an
APPLICATIONNAME property -- if one doesn't know the
name -- there's no direct way to ID the parent window.


   No. Does it skin an HTA with an XP theme?

Exactly.  Of course it isn't specific to HTAs, just another thing I
remembered being useful in making HTAs look like regular applications.

Hi Bob,

It's been many years since I use HTA's, but the biggest draw back we found
with them back then was the lack of back and forward navigation, even when
called via script.


Show quoteHide quote

Try it and see. You get the same text, but no formatting.  Instead
of Notepad you'get some other viewer, etc...

HTAs have the HTA tag and attributes, I'd definately say thats more.

Obviously an RTF file will have more formatting but so what?

That's the whole point.  An HTA file designed as an HTA
will contain script a web page would not normally have.  It
doesn't get there automatically, the page has to be re-written.


Back atchya, an HTA file does NOT need to be local,
you've adopted a misconception....

The Hello World example for HTA
http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/hta/hta_simple.hta

In that case, the file is a simple TEXT file containing the text "Hello, World".
It is not HTML, it is a text file given an .hta extension.

Enough said, the OP is probably not going to be using HTA
this time around....

LFS

http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/samples/author/hta/hta_simple.hta
  I don't understand what that one's about. The
file needs to be local. That's part of HTA security.
If you try to open an hta online you should get a
download window. If you don't then it's some kind
of bug in IE security, and if you normally use IE
then that's something worth looking into.

  Oddly, when I put your link into K-Meleon I
get a download window, which I expect since
K-Meleon doesn't recognize .hta. But when I put
the link into IE I got "page not found".

Bert,

I call this thing always from the time of Windows 3.11, it is version 1.0 it
gives those well known HTML help pages from Microsoft.

I had the idea that I saw in VS'10 beta 1 package something passing, while
installing, named Help version 4.0, but I am not sure of that.

This is 1.0 version is so old, that it does not matter in what version of VB
you use it.

Success

Cor

Show quoteHide quote

And then I forget the subject in the message

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=00535334-c8a6-452f-9aa0-d597d16580cc&DisplayLang=en

Cor


Show quoteHide quote

Whao

A lot has been said since the last time I was here. Thanks everybody for
your input.
Since I am currently working on several projects at this moment, I am going
to try the HTA idea and see where it takes me. If it's not what I need I will
use all the tips mentioned here. The reson for that is that I barely know VB,
and I would rather not have to study it, while doing other projects.

By the way Cor, I am not quite sure what you were telling me. Could you
explain. Sorry. I checked the like you sent me. I had to do with an html
tutorial, right.

Thanks again to everybody
Show quoteHide quote

Did you look in the link and what OS's are supported, I assume that you then
understand my message

The Link is not for a tutorial for HTML but for the current standard help
system using HTML from Microsoft

(Did you only look to the header or something?)

Cor

Show quoteHide quote

   He's not looking to produce a help package. He was
just using the example of Windows Help to describe
a webpage-based program GUI. What he wants is to
move a current webpage utility from online into something
that he can run locally like an installed program. So he
was looking for some kind of webpage option, like an
HTA or WebBrowser control, to avoid a massive rewrite.

Hi, Cor!

Maybe, I just skimmed over. I had a very long day. I will go back I check
tomorrow with fresh eyes.

Thanks

Show quoteHide quote

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