Creating a Smart Client?

[jimbassett]

Is there a paper or other source of information that shows step by step the creation and deployment of a Smart Client application? I can create Window Forms but how to make it a Smart Client I don't understand.

Thank you

Jim

 

[jmcilhinney]

A smart client IS a Windows Forms app. A Web Forms app is a thin client because most of the intelligence is on the server.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/programming/winforms/smartclient.aspx

 

[jimbassett]

Thanks

Thank you for the link, not sure why I never found that one on the MS site. I know a Smart Client is a Win form based app but it isn't a Smart Client just because it is a win Form App. Thanks again

 

[jmcilhinney]

it isn't a Smart Client just because it is a win Form App.

Of course it is. Notice how they keep comparing the smart client architecture to the browser-based model? It's just WinForms and WebForms, plain and simple. A smart client is just an application where the intelligence is in the client, while a thin client, i.e. browser-based application, has its intelligence at the server.

 

[jimbassett]

I understand your point

Yea I understand your point and I think you made the point that I was trying to make, that the WinForm app has to have the "Smarts" in it to make use of the Internet for deployment and data access.

Due to requirements I used VB6 to create a Smart Client. It is installed via the Internet and has the Smarts to know there exists a newer version and updates itself. It makes use of SOAP to access Web Services so a Smart Client does not have to be a .NET Win App.

Thanks again for the link because like I mentioned in my post I never found this URL on Microsoft and the information is what I was looking for.

 

[kevin8092]

In a 2 tier (client/server architecture) application the designer has a choice of where to put the core functionality of the application. If you put it on the client side and use the server as a data store then it is considered a 'Fat' client. 'Smart' is a new name for a Fat client also sometimes referred to as a 'Rich' client.



Choose the server side for the application logic and the client is considered 'Thin'.



Win Forms and browsers are just user interfaces. The browser concept was originally intended as a universal platform independent thin client pallet, one to solve all the world’s problems.



To press the issue about user interface, it is perfectly proper to have a client server application with a fat client and have no user interface at all, no forms or browser at all. This is common.



The issue seems fuzzy because most often in the fat client model the interface and the application are interwoven together or 'tightly coupled'. There is nothing wrong with that in 2 tier architectures, it only becomes problematic when using an n-tier model.



Browsers (read: thin) are a 'loosely coupled' model, intended only to collect and display the results of processing, not do the processing. In theory, only the user’s inputs are processed by the thin client. Nothing about a Win Form is intrinsically fat or thin, indeed it may be either, depending on where you place the application logic. Clear as mud?

 

[jimbassett]

Very Clear.


thanks

 

[jmcilhinney]

See if this helps: http://www.syncfusion.com/FAQ/WindowsForms/FAQ_c105c.aspx#q1062q