[AccessD] Zoho Access Migration Plugin

<<<
I've looked at a number of web-based reports
frameworks, and there is nothing that leaps 
out as a 'this is it' web reports alternative.
>>>
Hi Ken,

What about MS ReportViewer Control and it supporting .NET Framework
classlibs?
You know I have done quite a few MS advanced Access Reports with 10+ years
of MS Access development, as well as advanced Crystal Reports reports: yes,
MS ReportViewer control has some limitations because its reports are
rendered using HTML rules but that's it - I mean if we're talking about Web
Applications then MS ReportViewer Control should allow to do anything you
can do using MS Access Reports and more. You might need to do some things
manually, which you get from MS Access Reports using built-in features but I
think there shouldn't be that much of such features, and many other features
MS ReportViewer Control provides more than fully compensate some "missing
features"....

I can be wrong, I didn't try to compare MS Access reports vs. MS
ReportViewer Control reports - I'm talking just from my long term experience
in development of all kinds of MS Access reports, and not so long experience
of developing of MS ReportViewer control/MS SQL Reporting Services reports -
I do like the latter more now...

Of course just my development tools preference - BTW: .NET Framework, MS
ReportViewer Control, MS SQL Server Express, C#/VB.NET Express... - they all
are free....  

Thank you.

--
Shamil


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Kenneth Ismert
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 7:02 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Zoho Access Migration Plugin

John,

Microsoft just bought Office.com to further push its web-based Office
offerings. They are in no way abandoning their desktop offerings, but they
feel the need to try to counteract the movement of Google, Zoho, etc. in the
web-based office applications market. That's indicative of the trend.

There are a number of projects afoot which allow a web application to 'fail
over' to a local data store when the internet is down, and re-sync when it
is back up.

As for your list of downsides:
1) Dozens of technologies
On the browser, I can really think of three important ones: HTML, CSS and
JavaScript. Oh, and these are internationally-defined standards, which is
the critical advantage of this 'thin-client' technology over the older
versions. Add a JavaScript framework, and you have four things you need to
become familiar with to do a good web front-end. On the back end, your task
is really no more difficult than coding unbound forms. And you have a wide
choice of server-side application frameworks to help you there.

2) Server load
Yes -- it is a server technology, isn't it? But Access places severe demands
on the network, so we really can't claim an advantage there.

3) Integration issues
I guess I'll have to hear more to understand what you mean here.

4) UI clumsy to say the least
In the IE6 days, yes to a much greater extent. Now that we have IE8 as our
lowest-common-denominator browser, you would be surprised at the
sophistication of UI that can be achieved with standards-based HTML, CSS and
a little JavaScript. Certainly more than adequate for the average data
application user.

5) User UI preferences harder to deal with
With CSS you have far greater ability to change the look of a web interface
than anything you can get in Access. HTML forms can dynamically re-scale,
and the font size can be dynamically changed, which Access can't easily do
(but, I haven't used 2003 or 2007, so that may have changed). Plus there is
built-in support for people with different abilities.

To be fair, the one thing Access has that the web still lacks is a
compelling reports capability. I've looked at a number of web-based reports
frameworks, and there is nothing that leaps out as a 'this is it' web
reports alternative.

-Ken
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