Web and WebWorks Development

[giridhar_bhandekar]

Team,

             I developed a simple web application using visual studio 2008 and then i installed BLACKBERRY web PLUG-IN

Tested the appllication with the startup web page  (using Browse-With  option pointing out to BLACKBERRY BROWSER ) and was able to go ahead with testing on BB 9000 Model Simulator.

Now i would require to move the web APP  to webserver and make it available as widget to BB 9000 model

Please let me know the procedure what need to be done in detail like packaging and Deploying of web app

Could you also please let me know whether we can view ASPX pages in BB, provided the webpage is packaged into a widget?

Kindly expedite your suggestions/solutions.

Thanks in Advance,

Giri

[tneil]

Hi Giri,

You will want to create a BlackBerry Widget project and make the start page of your widget point to the URL of your ASP.NET website.

You will also want to add the domain of your ASP.NET website to the <access> elements to allow access to your domain.

You will not be able to physically package ASP.NET web pages into your widget.  Your widget will have to view your web pages remotely.

[giridhar_bhandekar]

Thanks Tim for your quick reply ,

Have 2 queries against your suggestions. Would appreciate if you could answer them.

1) You will not be able to physically package ASP.NET web pages into your widget.  Your widget will have to view your web pages remotely.

Kindly elaborate the above.

Viewing pages remotely means and how can we achieve that?

2) As asp.net web pages cant be packaged into widget, the only option available is to work out with  HTML page. How can we utilise the web controls of asp.net in our blackberry widget APP to make my applciation as RICH USER INTERACTIVE /  RICH WEB CLIENT aplication?

Thanks in advance

[tneil]

You can set the start page of the BlackBerry widget to point directly to the URL of your existing ASP.NET website.  None of your application would run locally, but it would be like having your own custom browser around the content with the ability to extend into the existing BlackBerry widget APIs

There are many ways to build rich web applications using CSS and HTML.  ASP.NET does give some interesting abstractions for some user interfaces but they are typically built with a "wired" connection in mind.  They do a ton of post-backs and chatty communication between the client browser and the web server.  This can cause performance issues because of the latency of wireless socket connections.

Below you will find some examples of HTML, CSS user interfaces I created in a matter of a couple of days:

[jmace]

great share Tim. Looks like you've extended the advanced UI post into the widget world.

[tneil]

I'll be posting these up as samples... Stay tuned

[giridhar_bhandekar]

Thanks Tim,

                     Seems everything is possible to develop UI in HTML like databinding XML data to HTML table and all.

I am exploring the maximum possibility to reuse my code developed for the existing normal website.

i got an clear idea on the point .aspx UI/page will not be of use.

But is there a way to utilize the functions written entirely in VB.NET(call vb.net functions modfunctions.vb from javascripts functions),which performs the key processings like authentications and related sort or i had to entirely depend everything on JAVA SCRIPT functions alone.

Please Suggest a way out,being dotnet developer  exploring the way to include dotnet related functionality to a possible extent. 

Regards,

Giri

[giridhar_bhandekar]

Doesnot BB WIdget support VB scripts

[tneil]

A BlackBerry Widget's runtime is the exact same as a Browser with the addition of our BlackBerry Widget APIs.  

Just like a browser, a widget cannot run VB scripts.  VB scripts only run on the server.