First of all, Thanks if you have even bothered looking at this, to sum things up: my friend and I have recently undertaken the task to establish a private server that all my friends can play on.
So I wanted to create a custom client. And I need a bit of advise. I don't have much experiance in Java, But I have knowlage of various other programming languages (PHP, HTML, CSS, VB6.0, C#, etc).
Basicly I've just come to ask a few questions:
-Should the client be completly written in Java. Or could I intergrate a
client interface into say, Visual basic? (Kind of how SwiftKit works, but
with a modified RS client).
-Are there any relieable open source clients, that I would be able to
edit?
-Do you think a web based client would be better than a desktop
based client?
-Is there anything else you think I should research into?

Thanks very much for the time you have taken to consider adviseing me and any feedback is much appreciated.

-Should the client be completly written in Java. Or could I intergrate a client interface into say, Visual basic? (Kind of how SwiftKit works, but with a modified RS client).

-Are there any relieable open source clients, that I would be able to edit?

-Do you think a web based client would be better than a desktop based client?

-Is there anything else you think I should research into?