Advice on creating a program

Aero

Aero

Aero

Soldato
Joined
19 Sep 2007
Posts
3,149
Due to the nature of my work I do a lot of traffic sign designs, which can be done by hand (taking a few hours to a day dependant on factors) or done via an excel spreadsheet fairly quickly.

However there are software packages available which offer a slicker input for their data. An prime example is this:
Sign.jpg


How would you go about creating an interface like this? Where you provide a few inputs into a form and it can plot out the information that you specify to a simple drawing. I.e. showing slope of the ground, number of posts and their height and the dimensions of the sign and foundations.

I have no problems performing the calculations for this and I have already written an excel spreadsheet but I'd love to be able to create a peice of software that would allow me to input the sign specific details, perform calculations to check if it's suitable and then produce a basic drawing with some of the calculated data.

I realise that this may be a fairly complex task but it's something that I feel would be worthwhile for me to undertake and there are a variety of situations in which I feel this could be useful.

Any help or guidance on where to begin with something like this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
 
C# is perfect for this sort of thing, it's both an easy language to learn and very easy to create interfaces like your screenshot. You would basically need to learn the code to join togeather your calculations with the graphical interface.

You can download a free copy of Visual Studio here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/ and if you pick up a C# book for beginners and put a bit of time into the learning process it wouldn't take you that long to get to a point where you can make that kind of program. The GUI is very easy to create using drag and drop tools and you could do that straight off, making it functional is where the work is.

All that is of course assuming you don't mind learning the programming skills needed for such a task.
 
Could you not just create a front end for excel? Not sure regarding the drawing side of it but thought I would just throw it out there!
 
To be honest, something like this may seem pretty simple but any beginner will struggle to get it working properly.
If you have a set of requirements already I'd suggest having a look at one of the rent-a-coder sites out there. If this is something for your work I'm assuming you'd be willing to pay for it and you can get decent people reasonably cheaply if you look around.
 
Haircut said:
To be honest, something like this may seem pretty simple but any beginner will struggle to get it working properly.
If you have a set of requirements already I'd suggest having a look at one of the rent-a-coder sites out there. If this is something for your work I'm assuming you'd be willing to pay for it and you can get decent people reasonably cheaply if you look around.
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It's something I would like to try for myself separate from work. Just in my spare time. As I could count this as a chunk of CPD towards my chartership. It's more of a hobbie than a work based project.
 
Aero said:
It's something I would like to try for myself separate from work. Just in my spare time. As I could count this as a chunk of CPD towards my chartership. It's more of a hobbie than a work based project.
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OK, if it's a hobby thing then that's fair enough - always good to see people interested in programming :)
 
Looking at the layout you already posted, C# would be a good option as tntcoder said. You should be able to make the GUI yourself without any real programming, Set it all up :) Then work out what you need to code!

I would be more than happy to help you on some of it if required.
 
I don't have sufficient experience with C# to judge whether it's the better tool for this job but based on the number of replies recommending it, I recognise it may well be. Nevertheless, just to throw another idea out there, another way of doing it would be using Java, Eclipse and WindowBuilderPro (freely available courtesy of Google, despite what the name would suggest).
 
IMHO developing GUIs in Java is a royal PITA. Seriously, C# makes this sort of stuff almost too easy.

C# is also free using the express editions. Although if you're not pressed for time, I suggest trying both, see how quickly you can create a GUI (without functionality) in both Java and C#...
 
WPF might be the way to go with this (Windows presentation Foundation). It will allow you to create much nicer UI`s and the drawing of the sign`s etc will be much easier.

If you end up not wanting to do this youself, let me know and I will do it for you. Im looking for a project to do at home to learn some new stuff and its always difficult for me to come up with something 'useful' off the top of my head!
 
MrRoper said:
WPF might be the way to go with this (Windows presentation Foundation). It will allow you to create much nicer UI`s and the drawing of the sign`s etc will be much easier.

If you end up not wanting to do this youself, let me know and I will do it for you. Im looking for a project to do at home to learn some new stuff and its always difficult for me to come up with something 'useful' off the top of my head!
Click to expand...

WPF has a much steeper learning curve than WinForms though.
Yes, it's powerful if you're experienced, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone new to programming.
 
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