smart client application

  • Thread starter Thread starter .NET Developer
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.NET Developer

Can anyone point me to some documentation on how to build a real life smart
client application. I also would like to read about typical way of creating
a offline smart client application, components involved etc. I also would
like to hear from people on how successful is this concept. Is this widely
used or this is in its early stages. Your personal experience and opinion on
this is really appreciated.

Thanks
 
Thank you. This is a very good information.

If anyone can share their personal experience with developing the smart
client apps that would be great.



Rob Windsor said:
Here's a great place to get started.

MSDN Smart Client Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/

--
Rob Windsor [MVP-VB]
G6 Consulting
Toronto, Canada



.NET Developer said:
Can anyone point me to some documentation on how to build a real life smart
client application. I also would like to read about typical way of creating
a offline smart client application, components involved etc. I also would
like to hear from people on how successful is this concept. Is this widely
used or this is in its early stages. Your personal experience and
Click to expand...
opinion
on
this is really appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
.NET Developer said:
Can anyone point me to some documentation on how to build a real life smart
client application. I also would like to read about typical way of creating
a offline smart client application, components involved etc. I also would
like to hear from people on how successful is this concept. Is this widely
used or this is in its early stages. Your personal experience and opinion on
this is really appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I've been using smart client technology in a real-life project for a while
now. I've got a pretty basic web application, and for certain tasks I've
also created small smart client apps that I'm deploying through no-touch
deployment. These are tasks that would be difficult to implement as part of
a web app, e.g., printing and generating Excel reports. No offline
functionality, at least for now.

I love the ease of deploying new versions of the smart client apps. I've
experienced essentially no problems. What helps here is the fact that my
user base is not huge and I control the end-user software/hardware base
(latest Windows XP).

One nice fact is that using smart clients results in smaller load on the web
server. One request from the browser to the web application results in a few
hits to the database (e.g., in order to render the UI). One request from a
smart client to a web service results in just one hit to the database so
this is a considerable save on the load.

There are some minor flaws too. The initial delay when the smart client
application starts is not nice but it is something I (and the end users) can
live with. Also the browser pops up for a moment when the application is
launched which is not pretty. But these are a small price to pay for the
ease of deployment. All in all I have to say that smart client technology
works very well for me.

Regards,
Sami
 
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