Re: What is best way to develope application
From: Chris Barber (chris_at_blue-canoe.co.uk.NOSPAM)
Date: 05/05/04
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Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 22:35:16 +0100
MSAccess is OK but requires regular maintenance for the DB size to stay low (it doesn't
automatically reclaim wasted space). It is also good at doing reports but can be limited by the
'tied-in' nature of how they are generated. Data upload to MSAccess (from within MSAccess) is
relatively good but can be difficult to achieve in any scheduled manner since the DB is only active
whilst you have it open as an application. It is often better to create scripts or specific VB apps
to read from the remote DB and upload to the Access DB.
However, can I suggest that you consider the following:
1. VB Application or service to manage the data upload and data download using ADO to connect to
remote DB systems and flat files etc.
2. SQL Server (or MSDE) as the database since it is robust, supports transactions, and will
automatically reclaim space on regular basis. BY all means use Access for this but make sure you do
a schedule compact and repair process whilst the database is not being used (you can just attempt it
and it'll error out if it can't be achieved).
3. Generate the data for the reports as XML (either dynamically or generated on a scheduled
basis) - this can come from either the VB application or generated on the fly from the SQL Server
(or MSDE) database using either ASP code or VB DLLs.
4. ASP website using XSLT to process the XML into HTML for the reports. You can use things such
as ChartDirector and ASPImage to generate fancy graphs and images dynamically.
It probably sounds like a lot more work but it should be a lot more robust and extendable as your
requirements grow. Particularly, you can extend the reporting website easily by just creating new
XSLT from existing reports.
Here's an example of a system I developed for the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (UK Government
Department) that uses the above scenario (XML is generated on a regular'ish basis by a VB
application - eg. when they remember to update the data), XML data through XSLT to generate HTML
reports with graphs and maps.
http://www.fti.neighbourhood.gov.uk/maps_interactive/main.asp?page=Home
There is one single ASP page that takes querystring parameters, passes them to a selected XSLT as
parameters, does the transform to get the main content, adds the XSLT based header and footer onto
the output HTML and then streams it to the client browser. It also pre-generates the PDF documents.
The output is also cached in SQL Server reducing the web server CPU load for high traffic sites
(which this one is expected to be given time).
ChartDirector does the graphs, a commercial GIS system pre-generates the map images, ASPImage
generates the arrows, and ABCPDF3 generates the PDF pages and master document.
OK, the above site is fairly intensive on the graphics front but once the framework is in place the
system is highly extendable with the few changes required being the addition of a new XSLT option
and (if required) a new XML file generation process.
Now, this is obviously only *my* opinion but the site shown took only 6 months (1 developer - me) to
prototype, test, modify and roll-out (including customer acceptance testing). Once the framework was
in place, the XSLT route proved itself beyond a doubt to be extremely flexible, easy to learn, easy
to manage and very fast. A test was run between an XSLT and a plain 'vanilla' ASP method for
generating one of the report pages. The XSLT took < 250ms to generate the resultant HTML whilst the
ASP took over 3.5 seconds.
Even if you use the MSAccess for the data management I can't stress enough the power and ease of
development of XSLT to HTML based reporting.
Cheers,
Chris.
"Guest" <nbatanara@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:46708227-4F79-4A4E-A05D-68FBE493ECBF@microsoft.com...
I am new to MS access and I have to create and application which will take master data and some
historical data from existing ERP. and then using this data reports needs to be generated (volume is
less) and what we need is good graphical output, so i thought of MS access and VB. Another thig we
need is to capture some data in MS access database for example complains and orders.
can you suggest me if it is wriite to use MS access and VB. Is MS access good in loading and
unloading data to other applications? will I able to create good fancy reports out of it without
much trouble?
Loking for some guidlines.
Joy
- Next message: Chris Barber: "Re: Exactly How to Use Disconnected Recordsets in VB / SQL Server Application"
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