Launching Web site for help

  • Thread starter Thread starter Simon Verona
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Simon Verona

I've decided to store my help pages on a web site rather than deliver with
my application (trying to reduce the size of the install files).

The web site is sort of all ready to rock and roll.

How from VB.net do I launch an internet explorer window, but making the
window menuless, button and address bar less etc) and open the url for the
help pages?

I can see from the command line how to run internet explorer in "kiosk"
mode, but I don't want to go that far!

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance
 
Simon,

A simple advice, store you pages in a database and use for the key a GUID.

We have forever done it that way, we see it now done by Microsoft as well
(not that we intend that they got this from us)

It preserves that if you reorganise your website the reference (url) stays
forever the same.

Cor
 
Simon said:
I've decided to store my help pages on a web site rather than deliver with
my application (trying to reduce the size of the install files).

The web site is sort of all ready to rock and roll.

How from VB.net do I launch an internet explorer window, but making the
window menuless, button and address bar less etc) and open the url for the
help pages?

I can see from the command line how to run internet explorer in "kiosk"
mode, but I don't want to go that far!
Click to expand...
<snip>

If you'd accept a suggestion from a user perspective, here it goes:
please, don't do that. Don't mess with the browser window.

Put yourself in your users place and you'll see that launching IE
windows without the usual interface elements is annoying,
unprofessional, even rude. Besides, the angry user (I'm speaking from
myself) would just Ctrl+N the menuless/address bar-less/whatever-less
window and completely defeat your original purposes -- which were...?

If you want to show a web page/site to the user and don't want to
relinquish control of the browser window, roll your own window by
hosting the WebBrowser control (you'd need VB 2005 to do that).

If you really want to open a browser window pointing to your home page,
you may launch the *address* and let the system pick up the correct
browser (IE, Firefox, Opera, or whatever browser the user has set up as
default):

<aircode>
Imports SysDiag = System.Diagnostics
'...
'...
Dim P As SysDiag.Process
Try
P = SysDiag.Process.Start("http://www.yoursiteaddr.com")
Catch Ex As Exception
'...
End Try
'...
</aircode>

HTH.

Regards,

Branco.
 
Branco,
If you want to show a web page/site to the user and don't want to
relinquish control of the browser window, roll your own window by
hosting the WebBrowser control (you'd need VB 2005 to do that).
Click to expand...
With the AxWebbrowser it is even easier, however that does not deploy so
nice as the WebBrowser.

Just as addition the rest I agree with you.

Cor
 
Cor Ligthert said:
A simple advice, store you pages in a database and use for the key a GUID.

We have forever done it that way, we see it now done by Microsoft as well
(not that we intend that they got this from us)

It preserves that if you reorganise your website the reference (url) stays
forever the same.
Click to expand...

I don't see how reorganizing a website would break existing URIs if no
database and GUIDs were used. Personally I prefer meaningful URIs over URIs
containing unmeaningful numbers such as GUIDs.
 
Herfried,

I can only say, try it

Cor

Herfried K. Wagner said:
I don't see how reorganizing a website would break existing URIs if no
database and GUIDs were used. Personally I prefer meaningful URIs over
URIs containing unmeaningful numbers such as GUIDs.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the thoughts...

Cor - your's were slightly off my topic, but are useful none-the-less.

Regards
Simon
 
Cor,

Cor Ligthert said:
I can only say, try it
Click to expand...

The main problem is changing identifiers, but I do not see many valid
reasons to change an URI after the resource has been published. And if
there was a valid reason to change an URI, it's a simple task to add a
redirection from the old address to the new address.

For those understanding German, I have written an article on choosing "good"
URIs (<URL:http://dotnet.mvps.org/web/articles/uri/>).
 
Herfried,

I did not read everything, however I have the idea that the URI has only one
goal.

To find back what is written. Therefore most websites can do it as it is
standard in ASP withouth an URL per page. Only when you have to reference
direct a page a complete URL is needed. In fact a key as any other key.

The discussion if a key should be meaningful is already decenia ago won by
"don't make it meaningful".

Except on the place were you (not really convincing) Guid you tell that you
would not use it. For the rest it seemed for me a kind of documentation why
you should use the GUID.

Moreover because that the Guid can be used direct in a SQL server has that
even an extra point.

However time will learn.

Cor
 
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