Images from FTP in Access

[xcrx]

My access program needs to pull images off a server to be used in my application. These images get updated frequently and there for storing them on the local machine isn't really an option. Currently all the computers using my access program are on the local network so I have been using a local share to accomplish this. How ever soon computers at other locations are going to start using my program and I need a way to share the up to date images with them. My first thought was ftp and it sounded simple enough to me but I can't seem to get it working. After searching around for a while on this site and on google, I can't seem to find a solution for what I need to do.

None of the computers need to write to the FTP server they only need to pull images off and really only one image at a time.

Does anyone have a simple solution to this problem. Should I try something besides FTP?

Thanks
Ryan

 

[DJkarl]

You say you couldn't get it to work, which part exactly? Are you placing the images on an FTP server for others to download?

 

[xcrx]

Yes and no. The images are on an ftp server but I would prefer if they were downloaded to a temp file. Like what happens if you were to go to a FTP site in your web browser. I just need to be able to display the image in my database so the user to look at and print off as part of a report.

I want to do it this way because the images are constantly changing and new images are being added. Maybe there is a better way to go about connecting to a remote server and linking to images.

I am open to any suggestions.

 

[DJkarl]

Well you can't link to the images on an FTP site if that's what you're trying. FTP is good for transferring files, you could have your clients run some code to download the files to a temp location locally then link to those. The
wininet.dll has methods for connecting to and uploading/downloading FTP.

 

[xcrx]

Okay that was the conclusion I had come to. Do you know of any other good way to host image files remotely and link them to access?

 

[DJkarl]

I'm not sure Access is capable of doing what you want.

Images can be linked to a shared drive as you've found out, but once you get outside of that into the Internet you leave Access's comfort zone. In A2k7 and A2010 they introduced support for hosting your DB on Sharepoint, of course this requires you to have Sharepoint running somewhere.

 

[xcrx]

I will look into it.
thank you.