background
I need to be able to display charts that can capture what the user has clicked on. So for a pie chart, if a user clicks on a pie piece, I should be able to capture which piece he selected. Scatter plot should capture what plot, etc. Access-UI can't capture these things, only that a user clicked on the graph. So I need a different solution.
problem
We do not have access to a web server. The front end needs to connect directly with the access database. So what front end solutions can I use that will give me the UI flexibility I need to solve my problem?
possible solutions?
Use silverlight in access (http://desktopweb.blogspot.com/2010/12/using-silverlight-with-access-part-ii.html)
Winforms that connects to Access database via ADO
Is there anything that allows me to use HTML/JS or flash? HTML/JS would be the best solution, followed by flash just due to its wide support. I was researching Web Browser Control but I am not completely clear on whether it is opening local HTML files or browsing through http. I also wasn't clear if it supports JS or can load Flash.
When you first said about the click though capability my first thought was the reporting that is possible using SSRS. The easiest way is to have a reporting server and have the reports available through a browser. However you say you can’t have a web server so I’m guessing that a reporting server is also out.
You could however still use BIDS or report builder to make your reports and then the report viewer control in a flavour of .net to display the reports. Note that you have to convert them to RDLC files and feed the data to them.
That’s my 2p worth, I won’t comment on flash or silverlight as I don’t know enough about them to make an informed recommendation
The web browser control that's usable in Access can use any resource that can be reached via a URL, or you can assign a string of HTML (valid, of course) to it. I forget the exact property you use for the latter, but it's doable (I didn't know this the last time I implemented a web browser control to display HTML from an Access app, so created a temp file, and never went back to replace that with just assigning the HTML directly once I learned how -- so I forgot how, of course!).
Related
I am a complete newbie when it comes to web page design, and what I am trying to achieve is a web page that I can display on a wall mounted screen as an office dashboard. I have data in excel that is constantly being updated (on the server) and I want to be able summarise this and display it (e.g. total orders etc.) for staff to see. Therefore the web page needs to be able to connect to the data source, and update itself every few minutes. I am hoping to then use Ubuntu or even Raspberry Pi to drive the dashboards.
Can anybody point me towards either some clear instruction on how to achieve this, or better still some sample files that will help me see how its done?
Really appreciate any help!!
If you want to use PHP, you can use PHPExcel, to read your Excel files, and if you want to only display the information as is, you may output it to HTML directly, there is an API to manipulate the Excel file, so you may use that to summarize your data, however, if you need something cleaner, you may want to use Windows instead of Linux, given that in Windows, you can use an Excel file as a data source, and there are third party products that can use them as if it were a database (using SQL queries to retrieve data).
I need to create some automated method for checking certain security settings within a given Salesforce org(s). The four big ones are:
IP Restrictions within each profile
Mobile User setting disabled
Mobile Lite disabled
Chatter Disabled
I think the first two can be accomplished through the API (SOQL to get all profiles and check loginIpRanges[] length >0 and SOQL to get all users and check isMobileUser property for each one), but I can't find anything in the API for the other two and wonder if I would have to screen scrape it.
Any suggestions on the best approach to accomplish this? A local Python or other script that connects remotely via the API and a screen scraper or Selenium script for the non-API items? An Apex or VisualForce page that is installed within each org?
I am new to Salesforce and Apex, so before I start down one road and doing it within Salesforce vs via the API I would really appreciate any guidance.
Thank you!
I think you'll have to take a mixed approach to solving this, perhaps wrapped up in some larger python script.
Use the metadata API to get all of the Profile objects and parse for loginIPRanges. You can use Apache ANT and the Force.com migration tool commands to do this. You can also get the SecuritySettings from the same API and method and get a lot of the things in the Security Health Check, if you need them. The results will be returned in XML, which you can easily parse in your python script.
Use the API and a SOQL query to check for the isMobileUser permission, use python to parse/output results. Beatbox is a good library for connecting to the standard API.
For the last two, I think you'll need to go with some screen scraping/browser automation and parsing. Hopefully someone has a better answer for this, as I'm not familiar enough to help with how to accomplish this aspect. The screens are in standard locations so it should be repeatable as long as future updates don't move things.
Ideally you'll be able to combine these into one large script that fires off beatbox, then fires off ant/migration tool, and some browser automation script.
We are getting ready for a trade show early next month where we will not have Internet access on the show floor. We've put together machines with local installations of apache, mysql, etc. and are using host files to mimic the various domains we access.
But, one feature of our software is using Google maps to get directions from one address in the system to another. In order to show this, I need to be able to spoof a map or two.
I don't need to zoom in or do anything with the map image for the show. Just need to show the rendered map page with the directions list, etc.
I'm not having any luck with browser extensions to capture the entire page to an image. They either crash, or don't get the part of the map below the scroll.
Does anybody have any thoughts on how to get this rigged up for the show - either programatically or using tools that you've tried and found to work?
Amy
just do a screen capture of the whole page
edit: saw the part about not having luck with browser extensions. On a PC, you can try SnagIt, which has a scroll-and-capture functionality. Or, just do it manually and stitch together in photoshop. It can't be that long of a page....
I have a very critial business application presently running using Winforms.
The application is a very core UI shell. It accepts input data, calls a webservice on my server to do the computation, displays the results on the winforms app and finally send a print stream to the printer.
Presently the application is deployed using Click-once.
Moving forward, I am trying to contemplate wheather I should move the application into a Silverlight application. Couple of reasons I am thinking silverlight.
Gives clients the feel that it is a cloud based solution.
Can be accessed from any PC. While the clickonce app is able to do this as well, they have to install an app, and when updates are available they have to click "Yes" to update.
The application presently has a drop down list of customers, this list has expanded to over 3000 records. Scrolling through the list is very painful. With Silverlight I am thinking of the auto complete ability.
Out of the browser - this will be handy for those users who use the app daily.
I haven't used Silverlight previous hence looking for some expert advice on a few things:
Printing - does silverlight allow sending raw print data to the printer. The application prints to a Zebra Thermal label printer. I have to send raw bytes to the printer with the commands. Can this be done with SL, or will it always prompt the "Print" dialog?
Out of browser - when SL apps are installed as out of browser, how to updates come through, does the app update automatically or is the user prompted to opt for update?
Printing -- using the PrintDocument API your user will be prompted for a print dialog. Currently using that API there is no way to suppress this. It isn't ideal for high-volume thermal situations (like pharmacies, shipping warehouses, etc.). You could use the trusted application mode and peek out into COM and do whatever you want with the printer.
The update happens when the application asks for it. There is an API to use and, once called, if an update exists it is downloaded -- no prompt to the user as an option. If an update is found you can alert the user to restart or that on the next restart they will have the updated application.
Autocomplete is not something that can only be done in Silverlight. Your ClickOnce app is already out-of-browser. And printing via raw bytes to a thermal printer is something that would not be easily engineered in Silverlight.
Not trying to sound negative, but in sum it sounds like you're better off simply working on enhancing the app that you already have.
What are my options for printing in Silverlight 3? Assume I have this awesome Silverlight application/control that creates a graphical display of some data. Now the user wants to print it.
I have considered a few options but I have yet to test any of these. Before I do that I would like to get some feedback on how it can be done.
Use the browser printing capabilites. In my experience this is does not provide a useful print, but perhaps with some interaction between the Silverlight host and the browser it can be done?
Use WriteableBitmap. The image can either be written locally, but this requires interaction from the user, or sent to the server where a suitable file (e.g. PDF file) can be generated and then sent back to the browser. Unfortunately you now get the overhead of sending the image twice across the network and increased complexity on the server side.
Send XAML back to the server that is then rendered in a WPF application running on the server. The result is the sent back to the client. I'm not sure if this is possible at all however, but if it is the network overhead is less than in option 2. Unfortunately, the complexity on the server side is even higher.
Wait for Silverlight 4?
One thing I have considered is that my awesome control probably will have a ScrollViewer at the highest level, but the user will want to print the entire content of the control, not just whatever is visible inside the bounds of the ScrollViewer. How can I handle this added complexity?
In all seriousness, I think your best option is to wait until Silverlight 4 if your client can wait that long. I've seen a good bit of buzz about SL 4 supporting printing on twitter, though it's not official. I'd wait until PDC in a few weeks and see if any Silverlight bits trickle out to support printing.
Take a look at SmartPrint for Silverlight 3: http://www.smartwebcontrols.com/SmartPrintDetails.aspx
TBH I wouldn't use any of those options:-
Printing from the browser. Fine if you are printing say a chart or something else that scales well on a single sheet of paper. Rubbish for anything else especially where you have scrolled content.
WriteableBitmap. I can't see a client-side only solution being acceptable to the user "Please save this and then print it" message. It could be made to work bouncing off the server but would be bad for bandwidth use (bandwidth is import right? because in a well-connect intranet you wouldn't using Silverlight?).
Sending XAML to server for rendering. Really awkward it would be WPF XAML not SL XAML, where and how would you do the binding, why send XAML at all, since the server needs to be pretty much clued in on this so why can't it hold the XAML needed as well. Or were you thinking of sending just pure XAML with all the data needed? Still its a lot of plumbing needed in the SL that isn't actually related to SL.
Use Silverlight 4, its possible that in the not to distant future this would be the correct no-brainer choice (personally I wouldn't hold my breath) but right now SL4 doesn't exist.
A 5th option
Place report generating code on the server and have the Silverlight app inform the server of the data set required (not necessarily posting the data merely the criteria needed to access the correct set). In my experience direct prints of GUIs aren't particularly satisfactory when the user really needs a good printed form of the data.
Its true that at times the user just wants to quickly get some offline access to a grid of data as it looks there and then. In that situation users often find an export to spreadsheet compatible file preferable to printing, which would be possible from SL.
Something akin to number two is pretty much your best bet and is what I've seen done for printing in most Silverlight apps so far.
You can have the app send content for printing back to the web server (i.e. a new handler or query string parameters to a printing page) and pop up another page for the user to print web content from, or you could allow the user to download a file and have them print that.
Sliverlight 3 does not support printing.
If you can wait for silverlight 4, they have given it "high priority"
If not use Writeablebitmap: http://www.andybeaulieu.com/Home/tabid/67/EntryID/161/Default.aspx