Building a web app with CE - Opinions

[vey99]

Hello there,

We are implementing CE8.5 pro, and are having a nice time converting existing reports to CR reports.

Conceptually, CE would serve as a distribution point for reports. However, a lot of calculations/logic are embedded in our existing VB apps that call Crystal reports.

What we plan to do is to migrate all these to a unified web application. I have experience in Apache-PHP-mySQL development, but now, it seems like I have to start off building a web application using IIS-ASP instead.

I am sure I could move all my PHP pages to the IIS webserver, but then the issue of maintenance pops up.
PHP may be fun, but having to mix PHP and CSP/ASP on a webserver would go against the *unification* process.

Is anyone out there having an IIS-PHP-Crystal Enterprise web application? I am very interested in any opinions on this.

Thanks.

 

[Tracey]

My Opinion:

stick with apache

 

[barresm]

If you like PHP, stick with it. However, you will not be able to use ePortfolio or all the prebuilt web stuff in your app. If you want to use ePortfolio or CSP programming, IIS and ASP engine is required as CSP is an extension to ASP.

It really isn't all that bad though. If you want to integrate the report management functionality in with an existing or newly created web app, you have 2 choices. Build your business specific app in CSP with its limitations and prebuilt items, or build it in whatever web language that you want that supports COM. The SDK is a breeze to use and you can look at the CSP examples or ask here to figure out whatever you want to do.

For example, we were already using ASP.NET for a couple of applications when we needed to build some add-on functionality related to reporting. We decided to stick with the tool we previously chose for web development and just learn the sdk. Looking back now, I know we made the right decision.

 

[barresm]

Okay, I have officially lost my mind . CSP is not an extension of ASP and doesn't require IIS. However, if you want to setup to use another web server, you have to manually go in and register the mime types for CWR, CSP, and one other I can't remember off the top of my head when you setup a web connector. You probably will have to change a view of the .csp pages. I remember seeing a post about using Apache around here somewhere. You might want to search for it.