可以广播到浏览器的桌面应用程序

Question

I started learning C# just under a month ago and I've gotten pretty familiar (I think) with wpf, xaml and the MVVM pattern. I'm trying to make a program for managing sporting events (powerlifting and weightlifting being the focus of the first version).

We already have a program for this but it is not at all user friendly and requires some training and knowledge of networking to use. The current program has a client and a server application where the server is for entering information while the client displays it. The server offers several views for things like who's up next on the platform, who's winning etc. Each view is displayed on a monitor and each monitor needs to be connected to a computer that has the client installed. The client computer can only show one view at a time, ie only one monitor per computer. Each client then needs to be configured so that it knows the server's ip address etc.

What I'm trying to do is make a simpler solution where there is only the server application which then broadcasts (I'm not sure on the terminology, like I said, I've only been learning for under a month) the views so that they can be displayed in a browser. This not only eliminates the need for a client being installed on every computer displaying a view but also makes it possible to connect several monitors to the same computer, each having a single browser window in fullscreen.

I also want the program to require almost no computer skills to operate or setup, ie you can just run the installer (or even just copy a folder) and you're good to go.

The data entry and stuff related to that, ie basically the UI and logic behind it as well as the database and such, I can manage and am already well on the way of creating using WPF and the MVVM pattern.

Now that I have finally finished explaining what I'm trying to do and the requirements I can go on to my questions. After extensive Googling I still haven't found out how I can make my program broadcast the views so that they can be viewed in a browser. This is probably mostly because I don't know the correct terms to look for.

So here are my questions:

• Is what I want to do possible (preferably without having to dig too deep).

• What should I be looking for?

• What would be the best way of doing this? Remember that the simplicity of the program for the user is my primary focus.

• Are there any libraries, tools and/or techniques that can help me with this project?

• Is WPF OK for this or should I be using some kind of web based platform?

• If so is it possible to have a single installer file that sets everything up like I described before?

Edit: I forgot to add that I want to type the server's ip address in the browser to get a menu for which view that particular browser window should show.

Answer 1

Sounds like you're trying to architect a fairly standard enterprise-type application but it's very difficult to answer this in a single post without knowing any of the many variables you'll inevitably be facing. Oh well, here goes anyway....

If you're on a secure sub-net then I'd probably forego a web server altogether along with all the configuration hassles that they entail for naive users. Create a WPF app and have it create the web server at runtime. Clients can shout out a UDP broadcast the first time they run asking all servers to identify themselves, obviously the clients should also have a feature that allows the user the force this at any point in future. As for serving up your data you'll probably want a real-time data stream and for that I'd use web sockets, they're specifically designed for this sort of thing, they're compatible with all the major web browsers (should you ever want browser support in future) and best of all they can be implemented in WPF with a few dozen lines of code. Do it like this and you should be able to provide your clients with standalone WPF applications that they install on the relevant machines that self-configure without any input from the user.

Answer 2

If your "server" was a web server, the entire application could be a web application. Then, your clients would only need a web browser. An ASP.NET application only runs .NET specific code on the server - what is delivered to the client is pure HTML/CSS/JavaScript, etc... With a good design, the clients could be anything (desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, etc...).

When you talk about broadcasting, it sounds like you want the server to push updates to the clients. A better approach would be to have the clients (the web pages) request these updates from the server.

Answer 3

What I'm trying to do is make a simpler solution where there is only the server application which then broadcasts (...) the views so that they can be displayed in a browser.

eliminates the need for a client being installed on every computer

I also want the program to require (...) just run the installer (...) and you're good to go.

All you described can be accomplished with VirtualUI (to web-enable the application) and jsRO to redefine the user interface making it simpler (yet without affecting the original app).

You can find some references on this CodeProject article.