I'm looking for suggestions on the Visual Studio approach to take for a web application that is in the conceptual stage.My environment has a lot of tools:Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64bitVisual Studio 2010 Professional EditionSharepoint 2010 Server Enterprise EditionSQL Server 2008 R2Office 2010 ProfessionalI know I will need this app to retrieve data from a database (or a web service - not sure exactly at this point). The data needs to be placed in an Excel workbook dynamically. The app will need to have a nice user interface (standard web controls - perhaps with some Javascript effects). The Excel ribbon and worksheet grid will need to be hidden. Some web control(s) will cause the Excel chart(s) to be rendered.I am thinking this sounds like Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) so as to leverage .Net and hide Excel. Can you offer suggestions regarding: One ASP.Net Web App Project One Class Library Project for Excel or perhaps which one of the several different Excel 2010 project types (addin, template, document) Would Excel Services for Sharepoint be useful (or required) ?I am feeling a little overwhelmed with so many choices at this early stage of conceptualizing the app. Can you suggest some ideas for this sort of thing? Also, I am a bit more experienced with C# but I've read VB.Net is better for work with the Excel object model. What are general advises with regard to tool choice and overall approach tradeoffs?
Need advice for approach for a web-based app that loads excel worksheet but exposes only the charts
web development;design patterns;asp.net;excel