Networkable VB.Net Application?

Question

Hi, I am not a developer by any stretch. I come from a web-designer background. But I am trying to expand into vb.net and having a great time learning.

I need some high level, general advice on building a little application with which I could show the status of several chairs at a dentist office. This application's interface is simply a form consisting of several groups of radio buttons to show if a particular dental operatory is "Ready", "Needs Prep" or is "Busy".

The idea is to convey to everyone in the office (on the LAN) what the status of the operatories are at a quick glance.

Operatory Status Board
	Ready	Prep	Busy
Operatory 1
Operatory 2
Operatory 3

My question is how do I make such an application available over the LAN so everyone in the dentist office can view it and use it? (I am sure that there are many facets to this, but I'm really just looking for someone to point me in the right direction.)

What classes of objects should I familiarize myself with?
Are there any good tutorials available for this type of project?
What is the terminology to describe such a project? (So I can search for help using appropriate and effective search terms)

Any help is welcome.

Adnan Hasan · Answer

I think seventhsense 's solution is also good one, it now upto you what will you implement. Thank you Adnan Hasan

Jayadev Nair · Answer

I agree with Adnan hassan not to go for remoting. But as he suggested, using a central DB only will achieve his requirement? As per the scenario, i hope Mr.Hassan was just mentioning to fetch central DB by each client to get the lastest status of each chairs. It is ok as far a limited number of clients are accessing the DB. What you think of using TCP/IP communication on this scenario hasan? Just sending a XML string can get all clients keep updated am i right? I mean If Chair1's status changed to Ready, It will simply send Ready to all clients. As soon as everybody gets the message, just parse and do appropriate change on the monitor too. Of Course TCP socket communication have its disadvantages. But skip, if you can disclose more on your requirements as well as scenario of implementation we can decide the best method of implementation. What you say Hassan? Thanks

Adnan Hasan · Answer

I think remoting is not the best way do do this. This is very simple I think, You can use Datagrid and replace different values of status with some imges like green or red LEDs images. You can do these type of things normally in ItemDataBound Event of datagrids. As far as LAN is concerned, if you can build central DB location than every one on the LAN can access the application just like an interanet application.

Skip · Answer

Since posting this a couple of days ago, I have reserched the issue more completely and have concluded that the best angle of attack will be through the use of remoting . There are VB.net system classes which handle remoting challenges which I am beginning to experiment with. They are complex for a beginner like myself to grasp but as this application will essentially only need to communicate within the domain of a workgroup or active directory structure through TCP, so remoting seems to be the most straightforward vehicle to achieve the goal. C# supports more sub-classes for remoting and I may end up having to source the project out to a C# brain instead of using VB. Hopefully this will save other beginning developers from the lengthy search I have undergone to decide with way to proceed to write a "networkable" application in VB. I am still looking for any advice I can get on this subject. Thanks, SKipB