The first segment of the About Visual Basic series on VB.NET 2005 deployment provided an overview of the two major new options you have for putting your applications into service:
- ClickOnce - All new in .NET 2.0
- Setup Project - Vastly improved over what was available before
This segment will get into the real details of ClickOnce - Microsoft's all new deployment solution designed for the Web. ClickOnce is the latest demonstration that Microsoft continues to support and develop what are called thick client applications even in this age of networking.
Thick client applications are systems where most of the code actually runs on the user's computer. Rather than use that label, which doesn't really have a lot of appeal, maybe we should call it "full featured client" or "robust, flexible client". Or perhaps even "the client that doesn't clog up the server with a lot of user processing". In spite of the efforts of competitors, such as Sun and Oracle who don't really have much client software to offer, "thick client" does have a lot to recommend it. And "thick client" is where Visual Basic shines.
But since networking has become the mainstream of data processing, one problem has started to become huge for "thick client" and that is the difficulty of deploying all that software to the clients. Years ago (many years ago) as a network administrator, I can remember running around to a hundred machines with a diskette to install the same module. That kind of inefficiency is simply out of the question today so you have to have a better way. ClickOnce is a better way!
Some of you may have experience with Windows Installer (also called MSI - Microsoft Installer). Although you can solve just about any installation problem with MSI, building and debugging one can also become more difficult than writing the program. VB.NET 2005's Setup Projects are designed to help with that and we'll cover them next in this series. ClickOnce is designed to be the quick and easy solution for everything that doesn't require the advanced features of Setup Projects.
The best way to get started with ClickOnce is to simply create one. It's so easy that you can do it in just a few minutes. After that, we'll discuss the details of just what happened. ClickOnce deployments are a little like ducks swimming on a lake: smooth and tranquil on top but a lot going on underneath.
I use IIS (Internet Information Server) to host my ClickOnce application in this initial example. ClickOnce itself doesn't require IIS, but it's an easy and quick way to use it. ClickOnce does support all of the same operating systems & languages as the core .NET Framework, however. And ClickOnce doesn't use any special protocols to transfer files. You can use a regular file share, IIS or any web server.
But without further delay, click the link below to see the two minute ClickOnce application. (Literally! I timed myself. Actually only one minute and thirty seconds. If I had a faster machine, I could have done in in less than a minute.) Then be sure to return here to continue this article about ClickOnce.
