Transposition – the success story of migrating VB6 applications

The following post is taken from Visual WebGui Blog on ASP.NET

Since all of you VB developers in the present or past would probably find it hard to believe that the old VB code can be migrated and modernized into the latest .NET based HTML5 without having to rewrite the application I am feeling I need to write another post on our migration solution. Hopefully, after reading this and the previous post you will be able to understand the different approach of our solution which already helps organizations around the world move away from the constraints of VB6 and free them to access the applications from any computer or browser-supported devices. I will write on such organization later in this post.

As discussed before the solution is called Instant CloudMove while its main tool is called the Transposition Studio. Why transposition you probably ask yourself?! Well, we found that this term best describes what the tools do. Transposition refers to exchanging elements while everything else remains the same (in mathematics) or moving an element as is from one environment to another (in music). So how dows this relate to software and programming? Well, due to the award-winning Visual WebGui platform we are able to take the source code and put it in a modern technological environment with relatively few adjustments. As you can see in the diagram below Visual WebGui preserved the server centric architecture of client/server applications – enabling the same methodology of work by optimizing the message queue over the web:

So as you can see we have a better starting point to get the code run over the web. But what about the migration process itself?

Here we also bring a refreshing approach that is based on a set of Mapping Expressions which are basically links between an element in the source environment and one in the target environment that has the same functionality. About 95% of the code is usually mapped out-of-the-box and the rest is handled with easy-to-use mapping tools designed for Visual Studio developers providing them with a familiar environment and concepts for completing the mapping and allowing them to extend and customize existing mapping expressions. The solution is also based on a circular workflow that enables developers to make any changes as required until the result is satisfying.

As opposed to existing migration solutions that offer automation are usually a “black box” to the user, the transposition concept enables full visibility, flexibility and control over the code and process at all times allowing to also add/change functionalities or upgrade the UI within the process and tools.

This is exactly the case with our customer’s aging VB6 PMS (Property Management System) which needed a technological update as well as a design refresh. The decision was to move the VB6 application which had about 1 million lines of code into the latest web technology. Since the application was initially written 13 years ago and had many upgrades since the code must be very patchy and includes unused sections. As a result, the company Mihshuv Group considered rewriting the entire application in Java since it already had the knowledge. Rewrite would allow starting with a clean slate and designing functionality, database architecture, UI without any constraints. On the other hand, rewrite entitles a long and detailed specification work as well as a thorough QA and this translates into a long project with high risk and costs.

So the company looked for a migration solution as an alternative; the research lead to Gizmox and after examining the technology it was decided to perform a hybrid project which would include an automatic transposition of the core of the VB6 application (200,000 lines of code) while they redesigning the UI, adding new functionality, deleting unused code and rewriting about 140 reports with Crystal Reports will be done manually using Visual WebGui development tools.

The migration part of the project was completed in 65 days by 3 developers from Mihshuv Group guided by Gizmox migration experts while the rewrite and UI upgrade tasks took about the same. So in only a few months period Mihshuv Group generated an up-to-date product, written in the latest Web technology with modern, friendly UI and improved functionality.

Guest selection screen of the original VB6 PMS

Guest selection screen on the new web–based PMS

Compared to the initial plan to rewrite the entire application in Java, the hybrid migration/rewrite approach taken by Mihshuv Group using Gizmox technology proved as a great decision. In terms of time and cost there were substantial savings; from a project that was priced for at least a year (without taking into account the huge risk and uncertainty) it became a few months project only.

More about this and other customer stories can be found here

Extending applications to HTML5 & Mobile – recorded webinar

Hi,

The recording of the webinar we did with Forrester Research recently is now available. At this opportunity I would like to thank Jefferey Hammond of Forrester who did a great job in discussing the Open Web, Cloud computing and Mobility trends and presenting the new development challenges they bring and why organizations need to rethink their application development strategies.

The 2nd part of the webinar is a presentation from Gizmox, discussing the Instant CloudMove assessment and transposition tools, which support those trends Jefferey Hammod talked about and help companies extend Windows apps to HTML5 and mobile platforms.

The video is available through the visualwebgui website and it is free of course:
http://www.visualwebgui.com/tabid/738/Default.aspx

via Extending applications to HTML5 & Mobile – recorded webinar.

Trends in HTML5 open web and mobile development

Hi,

I’d like to point out an opportunity to view a live session with a world leading expert in open web and client architecture, next-generation mobile and software development productivity. Jeffrey Hammond, a Prinicipal Analyst at Forrester Research will be co-presenting with Gizmox a free webinar tomorrow (April 24, 1PM EST) and will speak about market trends in enterprise software development and the changes brought on by the move to web apps and open web architectures.

Jeffrey and Gizmox will also discuss about the new development strategy in enterprise and how they are moving to the cloud and extend operations to mobiles. Gizmox will present its solution for extending enterprise client/server applications to HTML5 which can be consumed in any web browser and mobile device. There will also be a short live demo of example WinForms and VB6 applications moving to the web using the tools.

It is going to be very interesting to developers, managers and IT people, so don’t miss it!It’s Free and there are several spots left:
http://www.visualwebgui.com/Gizmox/Landing/tabid/674/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/987/Extending-Windows-Applications-to-HTML5-and-Mobile-Has-Never-Been-Easier.aspx

Thanks!

via Trends in HTML5 open web and mobile development.

New Enhanced Visual WebGui WINWEB and .NETHTML5 Versions

After a long wait and huge anticipation from the Visual WebGui community, I am happy to announce the release of new versions for the WINWEB and .NETHTML5 branches. The new 6.4.0 Release d and 6.4.0 beta3 versions are available after an extensive work on core capabilities of Visual WebGui including extension of existing controls and adding new controls such as Strip Controls, RibbonBar, DataGridView, ComboBox, PropertyGrid and RadioButton as well as some major enhancements to both versions in terms of cross-browser support and performance.

We apologize for the delay in the release of those most expected versions, but we believe that the extra time lead to a more mature and complete product. As you can see the changelog is pretty long and includes a list of enhancements, new features and bug fixes: http://visualwebgui.com/Developers/KB/tabid/654/article/w_changelogs/Default.aspx

The new versions are available for all versions with open sources for Visual Studio 2005, 2008 and 2010.

You are welcome to download the WINWEB Free Trial and the Free .NETHTML5 beta on the downloads page.

via New Enhanced Visual WebGui WINWEB and .NETHTML5 Versions.

Migration & Modernization: Windows/VB6 Apps to ASP.NET HTML5 – Visual WebGui Blog

I would like to invite you to a webinar we are doing in collaboration with Jeffrey S. Hammond, Principal Analyst serving Application Development & Delivery Professionals at Forrester Research.

The webinar is free and it will will introduce the substantial changes brought on by the move to Web Applications and Open Web architectures, and the challenges it places on application development shops. We’ll also introduce how we at Gizmox are helping client navigate this mobile shift and evolve existing Windows applications with a new set of Transposition tools called Instant CloudMove. We will discuss the alternatives in the market to evolve your existing applications and focus on our transposition tools that reduce migration risk, minimize costs, and accelerate your time to market.

So if you have locally installed Windows, VB6 or ASP applications that you are looking to enable as SaaS, offer over Cloud platforms or allow end users with mobile accessibility then you shouldn’t miss that one.

Free registration:
http://www.visualwebgui.com/Gizmox/Landing/tabid/674/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/987/Extending-Windows-Applications-to-HTML5-and-Mobile-Has-Never-Been-Easier.aspx

Migration & Modernization: Windows/VB6 Apps to ASP.NET HTML5 – Visual WebGui Blog.

Upgrades and extensions to the Visual WebGui core capabilities

In the past few months the Visual WebGui core team has been intensively working on upgrading the overall out-of-the-box capabilities of Visual WebGui by extending and adding controls and features within the system. A version incorporating all the new capabilities and features is expected to be released before the end of the year.

The following list includes some of the major extensions and enhancements:

New Strip Controls

• ContextStrip
• MenuStrip
• ToolStrip
• StatusStrip

RibbonBar

• Add a ToolStrip to the RibbonBar control.
• Allow the ToolStrip to be shown either above (default) or below the RibbonBar.
• Allow the RibbonBarPage (content) to be minimized.
• Add a round button to the top left corner of the RibbonBar.
• Clicking on the RibbonBar round Button a Form will show, while not hiding the Button.
• Change the RibbonBarGroups background on mouse over.
• Allow RibbonBarButtons to be of three size modes Small/Medium/Large without requiring to place the button in a stack item.

New Containers

• Panels can be docked at run-time to all directions inside a container and either pinned or auto-hidden. They can also contain other such dockable panels.
• New ExpandableGroupBox – Clicking on the header hides and shows the content pane.
• TabControl headers could be shown below the contents instead of above.

DataGridView

• Can group by column. Dragging a column header or more at run-time to a designated pane at the top of the grid will group the table by that column.
• Introduced table filtering on the column level, based on the value type of the column.
• New hierarchical grid. Will be able to display a table as it relates to a field on a row on the grid, below that row as part of the overall view.
• Run-time ability to select what columns will be displayed, by clicking on the related button and selecting the columns from the dialog.
• Column auto-fit layouts introduced.
• Multi cell selection modes introduced.
• Cell click action options introduced.
• Introduced the ability to determine if and how row expansion indicators are shown.
• New cell border styles introduced.
• New row border styles introduced.
• Allow the hierarchical grid to be virtualized
• Vertical scroll bound options introduced.
• Add a property that determines if when resizing a row all other rows will be resized to that new height.
• ToolTip shows the full column header text when column is too small to show all the header text.
• Double click on column separator will expand the column to content’s size.

ComboBox

• Added a property to set the character casing of the inputted text.
• Sorting options introduced.
• Shows an overflow indicator and tooltip when closed and contained text is longer than can be shown in control’s width.
• Allows setting the default value that is shown when there are no items.

PropertyGrid

• Property filtering at run-time introduced.

RadioButton

• Added a Button view.

Upgrades and extensions to the Visual WebGui core capabilities.

A New .NET Gateway to HTML5

The bew Visual WebGui ProStudio .NETHTML5 is a gateway for .NET/Silverlight developers to shift into the open standard HTML5 and still avoid the data-binding, session management and Ajax complexities of data-centric graphic-rich HTML5 applications.

ASP.NET Web Forms was Microsoft’s first attempt to enable web development with the ease and efficiency of the .NET desktop development environment. However, its failure to satisfactorily maintain session state prevented it from realizing the simple visual desktop development methodology. The problem looked like being solved in 2007 with Silverlight, a completely new framework by Microsoft, which allowed .NET development of stateful applications, in the form of a workaround requiring a plug-in client to communicate with the browser. Silverlight got very close to achieving the same desktop development simplicity even if it didn’t quite reach the level of visualization of the desktop application development process.

Now, some 4 years after Silverlight’s release, it faces the dilemma of not being supported by operating systems like iOS, whose popularity can no longer be ignored. When you add the promise of HTML5 into the equation, with its cross platform and mobile support included in Internet Explorer 9, the future of Silverlight as originally visioned is now in question.

The emergence of HTML5 as the new W3C standard, in which multimedia, rich graphics, animation and rich web application functionality are supported, brings the promise of a new generation of native cross platform web applications incorporating cool stuff without plug-ins. Its independency of plugins and proprietary run-time and video formats and its widescale adoption by all the leading browsers has brought many observers in the industry to predict the demise not only of Silverlight, but also Flash. Microsoft IE9 supports most HTML5 features, as do Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and mobile browsers.

HTML5 extends the capabilities of HTML by adding features to improve web applications and enhance the user experience. While it supports all the HTML4 form controls, it introduces important new ones such as the Video tag to embed movies, date pickers, sliders and others.

The new Visual WebGui beta is a combination of pure Microsoft .NET development, abstraction of JavaScript / HTML5 functionality through jQuery and the abstraction of Ajax, database connectivity and data binding.

The new version adds the complete jQuery extension and animation capabilities into Visual WebGui which allows developers to build rich, customer facing HTML5 UIs with animation and media streaming and also provides mobile & tablet support and cross-browser performance. Other benefits include enhanced data management features and more effective debugging capabilities.

Check out the Live HTML5 email application demo developed with the new ProStudio .NETHTML5 beta featuring rich animation HTML5 UIs with interactive carousel.

The free beta downloads are available on the download page.

Visual .NET Development simplicity meets Web 2.0 (finally)

I’d like to invite you to an upcoming webinar targeted at Visual WebGui newbies and beginners as part of the new completely free evaluation program for the Visual WebGui Experience.

“The Evaluation Program with its free webinar series is offered to new comers as we believe that this is the best way for developers to fully understand what Visual WebGui is and how its many benefits can contribute to your objectives,” says Itzik Spitzen VP of R&D at Gizmox.

Visual WebGui (VWG) has gained its fame for its simplicity that lets core Microsoft developers, develop rich ASP.NET Ajax based Web, Cloud or Mobile applications just the way they are used to developing desktop .NET apps. With over 200,000 .NET developers that have adopted Visual WebGui to write over 35,000 VWG applications you can be sure that VWG opens the new cross-browsers HTML5 horizons for developers.

The session “Develop data-centric Ajax-enhanced, secured-by-design application with 50 screens in 30 days” is available at the following times:

1.  This Thursday, March 31st at 10AM EST. Click here to register to this session: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/485884728
   or
2. Next *Tuesday, April 5th at 1PM EST*. Click here to register to this session: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/977211872

If you miss the good ole’ visual .NET development practices with the move to the web applications world, then Visual WebGui should greatly interest you.

VWG Technology to help moving applications to Windows Azure

“How to effectively move client-server applications to the cloud is something that has perplexed system administrators for years. There are a host of development, legal, compliance, and security issues that need to be addressed to make that move, but Gizmox has announced a solution that should help on the development front: Instant CloudMove.” Jeff James, Cloud IT Pro.

The Visual WebGui CloudMove technology provides the shortest path to the Windows Azure Cloud as the partnership between the two which was announced today highlights. VWG enables the auto-transposition of application code that runs locally as a client/server application into an application that runs natively on Windows Azure as a rich Web application which can then be accessed in a secure-by-design mode from any plain browser including cross mobile and tablet devices and OSs. Instant CloudMove was designed to enable the transformation of client/server code to the Web or cloud. The solution targets the architectural gap between desktop and the Web/cloud by bridging that gap using a virtualization layer atop a Microsoft ASP.NET-based Web server.

Application Migration to Azure without migraines on Vimeo.

To read the official announcement: Gizmox VWG Technology Now Available Through the Windows Azure Marketplace.

One step away from our official release

Gizmox R&D team has been working very hard in order to bring version  6.4 to the required stability level. During that period, thirteen QA versions have been produced and our QA team and beta-testers group have been testing it for a coupon real-world applications while covering all the possible scenarios we could think of.

The stability added in this version is really across the framework, mostly concentrating in client-side behavior and display matters but also in server-side and fine-tuning infrastructures. All of the Visual WebGui controls were touched somehow and brought to a much higher level of stability and completeness – compatibility with Windows Forms (MS .NET Client/Server).
 
The Visual WebGui Team is now very close to declaring the Visual WebGui 6.4 final Release version. Users who consider moving to Visual WebGui 6.4, should know that we have already completed 1832 development task-entries in Visual WebGui 6.4 as a total. Each such entry is a change to the framework, very large, very small and everything in between. In Visual WebGui v6.4 RC1 alone, 272 of those task-entries have been completed.

6.4 RC1 free downloads and free trials are available here.