Project Technology Suggestions/Recommendations?

I have a legacy app that I would very much like to replace. It's basically a big data entry form written in VB6. Unfortunately, VB6 just does not work very well for large data entry forms. I think a web interface would work a lot better, but there are several constraints.

Right now, the form has all possible fields in one order. The users would like for several different forms to be generated depending on the type of application they are inputting. Also, the business logic is encapsulated in some VB6 COM objects, so I need something that will work with those. And of course, it would be nice if the whole thing was easy to update and maintain.

My initial plan was to build some sort of Mozilla app. This would work really well for the interface requirements, but I don't think that I can make it work with the VB6 objects (I would love to be proven wrong, however).

So what would you recommend for a huge customizeable data entry form that uses COM? ASP? .NET? Java? PHP?

Any suggestions/recommendations would be much appreciated. Thank you.

PHP

Perl (if you're list is open to addition)

Seriously, I know it's heresy in these forums, but IMHO, I think you'll have better luck fighting with the COM objects with Perl than with PHP... but then, I must admit, I'm not terribly familiar with the delicate innards of PHP yet.

I hadn't thought of Perl, but that's an excellent idea. Perhaps I can define the UI elements in XML, a la XUL, and then parse the file with Perl. Thank you very much for the suggestion.

The whole point of xml is that it can be parsed from any language, so that's hardly and arguement in favour of perl

That's true. But I could use PerlScript within an ASP page, which would probably play nice with the COM objects.

One of the many things I really liked about XUL was the ability to define boxes. The app I want to replace is an application form that comes in several different versions, and the fields can be in a different order depending on the application type. I thought the most straightforward way to dynamically create an interface would be to group fields in boxes and then arrange the boxes to match the app. But since Mozilla doesn't work with COM, I thought instead I could just write some XML that would adhere to the same principles and use that somehow to create the interface.

There are only a few users for this application, and since we run Microsoft software in-house (I know, I know) they all have IE, so anything that can't be done directly in ASP could be converted to an ActiveX control. This would also mean that the functions of this app are fairly compartmentalized, so if at some point in the future it needs to be upgraded, it could be done in pieces.

For the love of god! NOOOOOOOOOO!

Whatever you do I BESEECH you to stay as far from ActiveX as you possibly can. ActiveX controls are insecure, buggy, and just generally worthless. We use two at the moment on our Intranet. I'm trying to get one replaced with a JavaScript solution. The other I hope to replace as well, but that may be a tougher sell. The two controls don't get along with each other, and are always giving up some stupid error message because of it (doesn't look good to the people using our system). Don't even get me STARTED on the security issues associated with ActiveX implementations.

DO NOT USE ACTIVEX!

http://www.php.net/com !