how to...

[whosyodaddy]

ok, I am making a simple program, which is basically has new info everyday. What I am saying is, everyday when you run it, different stuff will appear. Sort of like a news-tracker. What I want is the user to open it and, lets say, a certain image appears (although the image is not built in the program, so It will have to be updated everyday automatically) and i choose the image. how would i go about doing this? It is quite a large question. I've read some books, and still, have no clue how to do this. Thanks. :D

[Robby]

Where are you getting the info or images from?

 

If you use a database for the info, you can easily randomize which item to display.

[wyrd]

Is this info. going to be transmitted over to the web? I assume it is since you mentioned something about a news tracker (or did you mean news ticker?).

 

Try using a database + web services.

[whosyodaddy]

i want it so that i can choose what image they see and what text they see daily. whenever they run the program, yea, transmitted over web... Edited August 3, 2003 by whosyodaddy

[Robby]

Once again, where are the data and images coming from?

[whosyodaddy]

my website. or my computer. whatever one is easiest.

[dynamic_sysop]

from the net , here's an example of putting >> :D << in to a picturebox. you can specify your url's as you want in there.

   Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
       Dim stream As New Net.WebClient()
       Dim sr As IO.Stream = stream.OpenRead("http://www.xtremedotnettalk.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif")
       PictureBox1.Image = Image.FromStream(sr)
       sr.Close()
   End Sub

[whosyodaddy]

ok, well, how do i change the image whenever i want when other people have the program too?

[mutant]

If you want to change the URL to the image you could make a simple web service to retrieve the URL or path to the file, or have the program setup to download a small text file which will contain the URL to the image.

[Diablicolic]

Awesome, but how would you check if the person has an open internet connection?

 

Would you use Try and Catch? And then if there is an error, just close the program?

[mutant]

That would the easiest way, set up a Try...Catch block around the line that download the file and catch the WebException exception. Or, use InternetGetConnectedState API. Edited August 5, 2003 by mutant

[whosyodaddy]

thanks for the info! aLthough i dont know how to create a web service nor try and catch...

[mutant]

If you dont want to create a web service then go with the file approach.

Try...Catch is an error handling structure. You set it up like this:

Try
   'code that can cause errors here
Catch ex As WebException 'or any other exception you might want
   'handle the error or simple do nothing
End Try