Programming Microsoft Office 2000 Web Components首章

译者说明：《Programming Microsoft Office 2000 Web Components》是我从网上下载的一本讲述OWC技术的英文电子书，之所以要翻译这本书，是基于以下几个想法：
1、阅读英文资料时常常会不求甚解，忽略很多细节和不容易阅读的句子，如果强迫自己逐句的翻译出来，则会对原来的英文资料有更加全面、详细和深刻的了解。
2、可以锻炼自己在英语方面的能力。
3、能够给其他需要这方面的资料的朋友提供一定的帮助。
这是本人初次进行这方面的工作，本人的技术和英文能力都很一般，所以希望朋友们能够对我的文章中的错误和缺陷提出宝贵的意见和建议，谢谢大家！

欢迎大家访问我的Blog: http://daidaoke.donews.net/daidaoke/



第一章Office Web Components 介绍



微软Office 2000中包含了一组名为Office Web Components(OWC) 的新控件。使用这些组件，你能在web浏览器环境和传统的编程环境中开发许多有用的数据分析和报表解决方案。

在这一章，我将解释为什么Office Web Components会被开发出来，它们是什么，以及您可以在什么地方使用它们。我也将会向您提供关于在商业解决方案中使用这些组件的一些初步的意见，本书第二部分会提供这些组件的一些常用的，基于实践的使用方法，并带您一步一步地了解在这些解决方案中所使用的各种技术。

如果您一点儿也不了解这些控件，请继续阅读吧，因为本章会提供本书其它部分所需要的基础知识。如果您已经熟悉这些控件了，只是希望了解如何在商业解决方案中使用它们，那么请直接跳到第六章吧。

第一节 为什么Office Web Components会被创建出来？

面向World Wide Web所开发的技术象一场风暴一样吸引了大大小小的商业机构，各公司现在意识到Internet和Web是发现客户和在客户，供货商，以及销售商之间传递信息的关键机制。各公司也意识到如果将同样的技术运用到公司的局域网或者广域网（就是我们所知的intranets）内部的话，能够为他们商业运行中共享信息以及开发和部署工具提供可伸缩的，灵活的，易于使用的机制。

在不久以前，建立和管理企业内部互联网的内容的工作是仅属于WEB站点管理员的魔法。随着站点管理和内容创建工具的出现，例如Microsoft FrontPage，普通人也能够创建可以在Web上发表的文档，并且几乎象管理他们本地计算机上的文档一样管理这些文档了。这样的工具使得非专业的技术人员建立Web站点，并且在他们的同事之间共享信息这样的事情成为可能。

纯文本的文档能够很好的兼容于HTML和Web浏览器技术，但不是所有文档在仅使用静态文本浏览时都能很有效地发挥它的作用。那些创建了电子表格，数据库以及数据报表的作者当在公司内部的互联网上共享这些东西时遇到了特殊的问题和机会。共享电子表格或者数据报表的主要价值在于让其它的使用者和它进行交互并能根据他们自己的需要来调整这个模型。例如，如果您创建了一个能根据各种输入的价格来分析产品利润率的电子表格，共享这个电子表格的一个重要方面就是使得其它使用者能够改变或者输入新的假设值并查看重新计算后的结果。

同样的，如果您创建了一个Microsoft Excel的数据透视表(通常被称为交叉表)，那么允许其它人排序，过滤，分组，重新组织，或者钻取更多的详细信息是共享这些文档的一个基本目的。换句话说，在Web上发布一个电子表格或者数据文档仅仅是故事的一半。故事的另一半是使得其它使用者能够与这些发布的文档进行交互，并能存储那些对他们来说有用的信息，而不仅仅是发布者才能这么做。

IT公司机构也意识到Web和Internet技术的益处。当在公司的内部互联网上使用Web技术创建信息系统时，许多系统变得十分易于开发，分布，使用和维护。有两种这样类型的系统：决策支持系统(DSS),也被称作主管信息系统(EIS)，最近更多的被称作在线分析处理系统(OLAP)；和交易系统，这个称呼很少被使用或仅被大众所使用。第七章的销售分析和报表解决方案提供了一个基于Web浏览器的OLAP的例子，第八章所描述的的Timesheet的解决方案展示了一个大众常用交易工具的例子。

决策支持系统能够非常好的利用Web技术和Web用户体验。想知道上个月您的产品销量吗？打开您的浏览器，点击一个特殊的链接即可。需要了解您地区的客户清单吗？这仅仅是从您的公司内部互联网主页上的又一次点击而已。例如CGI和ASP这样的技术使得IT组织能够根据需要提供生动的报表，这些报表能够被查看，打印，或者被导出到各种分析工具中。

然而，查看报表的人常常希望从一个稍微不同的角度来观看报表，根据一个不同的值来排序，根据一个不同的次序来分组数据，钻取并获得关于某一个数字的更详细的信息，或者通过图表的方式来查看数据。当以上任何一种特定的情况发生时，IT组织们回到了一个他们一直必须要处理的同样的问题，那就是：他们怎样才能建立一个满足每个人的需要的，灵活的，功能丰富的，并且是易于使用的报表系统呢？

第二类系统—交易系统—也从WEB技术中获益。需要改变您的401(K)计划吗？(美国养老基金体系相关的一个计划)只要跟随人力资源主页上的链接漫游，输入新的值，并且点击提交按钮即可。需要别人帮助修理您的电脑吗？在热线支持站点中漫游，填好表格以描述您的问题，并且点击提交按钮即可。不需要运行任何安装程序，不需要执行复杂的应用程序，并且只需要很少的客户端磁盘空间，甚至是不需要。

有时这些应用程序需要一个胖客户端界面，以便提供类似网格的数据输入界面，重新计算功能，更新图表以显示当前数据产生的效果，等等。为了保持分布的优点，一个IT组织会需要在页面中使用一个这样的灵活的组件，然而，他们经常缺乏资源来自己开发这样的组件。

术语解释

严格的说，术语”决策支持系统”,”主管信息系统”,和”在线分析处理系统”不是完全相同的—每个术语都有各自的侧重点，使得它有一点点的独特。自从信息系统不再仅仅被主管人员使用，术语”主管信息系统”现在已经很少使用；然而，从前这个术语描述的是这样的信息系统：向监控公司正常运营的主管们提供及时，高水平的商业信息的系统。术语”决策支持系统”具有很大的泛指性，适用于那些着眼于决策制定和关注特别数据分析的发布的系统。 “OLAP”是当前的一个热门词语，它常常被用来描述一类的技术，而不是围绕他们所建立起来的解决方案。 唉，我们商业出版领域中的朋友常常混用这些术语。

那么，如何在企业内部网上发布一种交互的使用体验呢？如何使得电子表格或数据报表在web浏览器中变得生动呢？如何开发和分布能够提供丰富的数据分析和数据可视化能力的解决方案呢？如何使用胖客户端界面建立交易解决方案呢？答案就是Office Web Components。





附录：

英文原文：

Chapter 1



Introducing the Office Web Components

Microsoft Office 2000 includes a new set of controls called the Office Web Components (OWC). Using these components, you can build many useful data analysis and reporting solutions, both in the web browser and in traditional programming environments. In this chapter, I will explain why the Office Web Components were created, what they are, and where you can use them. I will also give you a few initial ideas for their use in business solutions. Part II of the book will provide some common, practical uses of the components and will take you on a step-by-step tour of the techniques used in those solutions.



If you don't know anything about these controls, read on, as this chapter will serve as the foundation for the rest of the book. If you are already familiar with the components and just want to see how to use them in business solutions, skip ahead to Chapter 6.



Why Were the Office Web Components Created?

The technologies developed for the World Wide Web are taking both large and small businesses by storm. Companies now see the Internet and the Web as key mechanisms for reaching their customers and for distributing information among customers, suppliers, and vendors. Companies are also realizing that the same technologies used internally on their LANs or WANs (known as intranets) provide scalable, flexible, easy-to-use mechanisms for sharing information and for developing and deploying tools to run their businesses.



Not so long ago, setting up and managing content on an intranet was a black art relegated to "webmasters." With the advent of site management and content creation tools such as Microsoft FrontPage, ordinary mortals could create web-ready documents and manage them much like they managed files on their local computers. Tools such as these made it possible for semitechnical individuals to set up web sites and share information with their coworkers.



Documents full of text lend themselves well to HTML and web browser technologies, but not all documents are useful when viewed as static text only. Authors who create spreadsheets, databases, and database reports encounter special problems and opportunities when sharing these on their corporate intranets. Much of the value of sharing a spreadsheet or database report lies in letting other users interact with it and tailor the model to their own needs. For example, if you create a spreadsheet to analyze a product's profitability given various input costs, an important aspect of sharing that spreadsheet is enabling other users to change or enter new assumptions and view the recalculated results. Likewise, if you create a Microsoft Excel PivotTable report (more commonly known as a crosstab report), allowing other people to sort, filter, group, reorganize, or drill down to more detail is an essential part of sharing these documents. In other words, publishing a spreadsheet or database document on a web is only half the story. The other half is enabling others to interact with the published document and garner information that's meaningful to them, not just to the publisher.



Corporate information technology (IT) groups are also realizing the benefits of web and Internet technologies. Many information systems are much easier to develop, deploy, use, and support when created with web technologies on the corporation's intranet. Two such classes of systems exist: decision support systems (DSS), also known as executive information systems (EIS) or the more recent name online analytical processing (OLAP), and transactional systems, which are used infrequently or by large audiences. The Sales Analysis and Reporting solution in Chapter 7 gives an example of OLAP in a web browser, and the Timesheet solution described in Chapter 8 shows an example of a transactional tool commonly used by a large audience.



Decision support systems lend themselves incredibly well to the technologies and user metaphors of the web. Want to know how many units of your product were sold last month? Open your web browser, and click a particular hyperlink. Need to see a list of customers in your district? Again, it's just a click away from your team's intranet home page. Technologies such as Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) have made it possible for IT groups to deliver live reports on demand in a format that can be viewed, printed, or imported into a variety of analysis tools.



However, often the person viewing the report wants to see it in a slightly different way, sort it by a different value, group the data in a different order, drill down and see more detail about a number, or see the data organized into a chart. When any of these scenarios occurs, IT groups return to the same problem they have always had to deal with: how do they build a flexible, robust, and easy-to-use reporting system that satisfies everyone's needs?



The second class of systems—transactional systems—also benefits from the technologies of the web. Need to change your 401(k) contribution? Just follow a hyperlink on the human resources home page, enter the new value, and click the Submit button. Need help fixing your computer? Navigate to the helpdesk site, fill out the form describing your problem, and click Submit. There's no install program to run, no complex application to execute, and little to no client-side disk space needed.



Sometimes these applications demand a richer client interface, one that will provide gridlike data entry, recalculation, updates to charts showing the impact of the current value, and so on. To keep the deployment benefits, an IT group would need to use an active component in the page; however, they often lack the resources to develop such components themselves.



The Subtler Side of Buzzwords

To be precise, the terms "decision support systems," "executive information systems," and "OLAP" are not quite synonymous—each has a slant that makes it a little unique. The term "executive information systems" is hardly used today since information systems aren't used only by executives anymore; however, once upon a time the phrase described information systems that delivered critical, high-level business information to executives who were monitoring the health of the company. The term "decision support systems" is more encompassing and applies to systems that aid in decision making, often focusing on delivering ad hoc data analysis. "OLAP" is a hot buzzword today, and it's more often used to describe a class of technologies than the solutions built around them. Alas, our friends in the trade press often use all these terms interchangeably.



So how do you deliver an interactive experience on the corporate intranet? How do you make a spreadsheet or database report come to life in the web browser? How can you develop and deploy solutions that provide rich data analysis and data visualization capabilities? How can you build transactional solutions with richer client interfaces? The answer is the Office Web Components.

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