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How can users paste tabular data into a web-based VB.NET app?
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#1
 
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How can users paste tabular data into a web-based VB.NET app? -
06-05-2008
, 10:27 AM
#2
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* First post - please advise me if this should be posted to some other group * Hi folks, I work at a small government agency. We have contractors developing a VB.NET app to capture chemicals and their concentrations, as found at hazardous waste sites. Staff will be entering the info once the app is developed. The staff often get electronic docs with this chemical and concentration data existing as long tables in the doc. Format could be anything but is often a Word doc, Excel ss, or PDF. Our staff would really, really like to be able to simply cut and paste these tables into our new VB.NET app, from whatever other electronic source. (In fact, it's liable to make or break the app.) In particular, the app should be able to 1) handle various origin formats (the doc types listed above) being in the paste buffer, as well as 2) allow the whole source table (with dozens of rows) to be pasted in one fell swoop. These tables have complex chemical names and concentrations you don't want to make a single transcription error on. (I think we can handle the possibility of different sources having data "fields" in differing columns - that shouldn't be a problem.) A key contact on our programming team says that "we present a 'dumb' html data entry webpage; you can't just cut and paste a whole table into a cell of it". I can't help but think there must be *some* way to accomplish this... perhaps, instead of copy and paste per se, the user would copy from the source, then click some sort of control in the VB.NET application, which would fire some applet whose purpose is to process the paste buffer and populate the data into our target data fields. As you can see, I only barely know some of these technical terms. But I can't help but think there must be some way to paste / process a table in the paste buffer. Could anyone please advise us re: possible solutions? It'd be greatly appreciated! Mike Atlanta GA |
#3
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* First post - please advise me if this should be posted to some other group * Hi folks, I work at a small government agency. We have contractors developing a VB.NET app to capture chemicals and their concentrations, as found at hazardous waste sites. Staff will be entering the info once the app is developed. The staff often get electronic docs with this chemical and concentration data existing as long tables in the doc. Format could be anything but is often a Word doc, Excel ss, or PDF. Our staff would really, really like to be able to simply cut and paste these tables into our new VB.NET app, from whatever other electronic source. (In fact, it's liable to make or break the app.) In particular, the app should be able to 1) handle various origin formats (the doc types listed above) being in the paste buffer, as well as 2) allow the whole source table (with dozens of rows) to be pasted in one fell swoop. These tables have complex chemical names and concentrations you don't want to make a single transcription error on. (I think we can handle the possibility of different sources having data "fields" in differing columns - that shouldn't be a problem.) A key contact on our programming team says that "we present a 'dumb' html data entry webpage; you can't just cut and paste a whole table into a cell of it". I can't help but think there must be *some* way to accomplish this... perhaps, instead of copy and paste per se, the user would copy from the source, then click some sort of control in the VB.NET application, which would fire some applet whose purpose is to process the paste buffer and populate the data into our target data fields. As you can see, I only barely know some of these technical terms. But I can't help but think there must be some way to paste / process a table in the paste buffer. Could anyone please advise us re: possible solutions? It'd be greatly appreciated! Mike Atlanta GA |
#4
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* First post - please advise me if this should be posted to some other group * Hi folks, I work at a small government agency. We have contractors developing a VB.NET app to capture chemicals and their concentrations, as found at hazardous waste sites. Staff will be entering the info once the app is developed. The staff often get electronic docs with this chemical and concentration data existing as long tables in the doc. Format could be anything but is often a Word doc, Excel ss, or PDF. Our staff would really, really like to be able to simply cut and paste these tables into our new VB.NET app, from whatever other electronic source. (In fact, it's liable to make or break the app.) In particular, the app should be able to 1) handle various origin formats (the doc types listed above) being in the paste buffer, as well as 2) allow the whole source table (with dozens of rows) to be pasted in one fell swoop. These tables have complex chemical names and concentrations you don't want to make a single transcription error on. (I think we can handle the possibility of different sources having data "fields" in differing columns - that shouldn't be a problem.) A key contact on our programming team says that "we present a 'dumb' html data entry webpage; you can't just cut and paste a whole table into a cell of it". I can't help but think there must be *some* way to accomplish this... perhaps, instead of copy and paste per se, the user would copy from the source, then click some sort of control in the VB.NET application, which would fire some applet whose purpose is to process the paste buffer and populate the data into our target data fields. As you can see, I only barely know some of these technical terms. But I can't help but think there must be some way to paste / process a table in the paste buffer. Could anyone please advise us re: possible solutions? It'd be greatly appreciated! Mike Atlanta GA |
#5
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If you want this to be able to be done using a web application, my suggestion would be to create a page that takes the following steps: 1. Allows the user to upload the data file 2. On the postback, the data from the uploaded file will be imported into wherever you want This will allow you do avoid forcing the user to take any extra steps in preparing the data, as well as allow you to do all the data transferring on the server-side. You may also want to have the application delete the uploaded file after the data has been imported so you don't need to worry about having a bunch of extra uploaded files on your server. But another question I would like to ask you is whether you really want a web-based application or a desktop network application? Anyway, I have told you my suggestion, so good luck! -- Nathan Sokalski njsokalski (AT) hotmail (DOT) com http://www.nathansokalski.com/ |
#6
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If you want this to be able to be done using a web application, my suggestion would be to create a page that takes the following steps: 1. Allows the user to upload the data file 2. On the postback, the data from the uploaded file will be imported into wherever you want This will allow you do avoid forcing the user to take any extra steps in preparing the data, as well as allow you to do all the data transferring on the server-side. You may also want to have the application delete the uploaded file after the data has been imported so you don't need to worry about having a bunch of extra uploaded files on your server. But another question I would like to ask you is whether you really want a web-based application or a desktop network application? Anyway, I have told you my suggestion, so good luck! -- Nathan Sokalski njsokalski (AT) hotmail (DOT) com http://www.nathansokalski.com/ |
#7
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If you want this to be able to be done using a web application, my suggestion would be to create a page that takes the following steps: 1. Allows the user to upload the data file 2. On the postback, the data from the uploaded file will be imported into wherever you want This will allow you do avoid forcing the user to take any extra steps in preparing the data, as well as allow you to do all the data transferring on the server-side. You may also want to have the application delete the uploaded file after the data has been imported so you don't need to worry about having a bunch of extra uploaded files on your server. But another question I would like to ask you is whether you really want a web-based application or a desktop network application? Anyway, I have told you my suggestion, so good luck! -- Nathan Sokalski njsokalski (AT) hotmail (DOT) com http://www.nathansokalski.com/ |
#8
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Thanks very much for your input, Nathan. You were mentioning "uploading a data file". Note that we specifically want to cut and paste, not upload a data file. Thus we need a control that can read from the paste buffer. Then a method - hopefully one pre-written - that can parse through whatever is in the paste buffer, to determine cell and row boundaries. With a little experimentation, I found that simply cutting and pasting from Word and Excel into a large, empty text box in this web app resulted in pretty usable results: cells were separated by tabs, and rows by carriage returns. However, pasting from PDFs put spaces instead of tabs between cells, which is a problem, because a lot of the data has spaces in it (names, etc.). Cutting and pasting from a web html table is also a little problematic, but if the user c&ps into Excel first, then c&ps that into the web textbox, it works ok. Any further thoughts from anyone are greatly appreciated! "Nathan Sokalski" wrote: If you want this to be able to be done using a web application, my suggestion would be to create a page that takes the following steps: 1. Allows the user to upload the data file 2. On the postback, the data from the uploaded file will be imported into wherever you want This will allow you do avoid forcing the user to take any extra steps in preparing the data, as well as allow you to do all the data transferring on the server-side. You may also want to have the application delete the uploaded file after the data has been imported so you don't need to worry about having a bunch of extra uploaded files on your server. But another question I would like to ask you is whether you really want a web-based application or a desktop network application? Anyway, I have told you my suggestion, so good luck! -- Nathan Sokalski njsokalski (AT) hotmail (DOT) com http://www.nathansokalski.com/ |
#9
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Thanks very much for your input, Nathan. You were mentioning "uploading a data file". Note that we specifically want to cut and paste, not upload a data file. Thus we need a control that can read from the paste buffer. Then a method - hopefully one pre-written - that can parse through whatever is in the paste buffer, to determine cell and row boundaries. With a little experimentation, I found that simply cutting and pasting from Word and Excel into a large, empty text box in this web app resulted in pretty usable results: cells were separated by tabs, and rows by carriage returns. However, pasting from PDFs put spaces instead of tabs between cells, which is a problem, because a lot of the data has spaces in it (names, etc.). Cutting and pasting from a web html table is also a little problematic, but if the user c&ps into Excel first, then c&ps that into the web textbox, it works ok. Any further thoughts from anyone are greatly appreciated! "Nathan Sokalski" wrote: If you want this to be able to be done using a web application, my suggestion would be to create a page that takes the following steps: 1. Allows the user to upload the data file 2. On the postback, the data from the uploaded file will be imported into wherever you want This will allow you do avoid forcing the user to take any extra steps in preparing the data, as well as allow you to do all the data transferring on the server-side. You may also want to have the application delete the uploaded file after the data has been imported so you don't need to worry about having a bunch of extra uploaded files on your server. But another question I would like to ask you is whether you really want a web-based application or a desktop network application? Anyway, I have told you my suggestion, so good luck! -- Nathan Sokalski njsokalski (AT) hotmail (DOT) com http://www.nathansokalski.com/ |
#10
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Thanks very much for your input, Nathan. You were mentioning "uploading a data file". Note that we specifically want to cut and paste, not upload a data file. Thus we need a control that can read from the paste buffer. Then a method - hopefully one pre-written - that can parse through whatever is in the paste buffer, to determine cell and row boundaries. With a little experimentation, I found that simply cutting and pasting from Word and Excel into a large, empty text box in this web app resulted in pretty usable results: cells were separated by tabs, and rows by carriage returns. However, pasting from PDFs put spaces instead of tabs between cells, which is a problem, because a lot of the data has spaces in it (names, etc.). Cutting and pasting from a web html table is also a little problematic, but if the user c&ps into Excel first, then c&ps that into the web textbox, it works ok. Any further thoughts from anyone are greatly appreciated! "Nathan Sokalski" wrote: If you want this to be able to be done using a web application, my suggestion would be to create a page that takes the following steps: 1. Allows the user to upload the data file 2. On the postback, the data from the uploaded file will be imported into wherever you want This will allow you do avoid forcing the user to take any extra steps in preparing the data, as well as allow you to do all the data transferring on the server-side. You may also want to have the application delete the uploaded file after the data has been imported so you don't need to worry about having a bunch of extra uploaded files on your server. But another question I would like to ask you is whether you really want a web-based application or a desktop network application? Anyway, I have told you my suggestion, so good luck! -- Nathan Sokalski njsokalski (AT) hotmail (DOT) com http://www.nathansokalski.com/ |
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