The current system is implemented (has been working for several years) on a PC and allows the user to enter product data using the usual GUI widgets such as tabbed frames, scrolling frames, entry boxes, pull down menus, check boxes and radio buttons (a total of over 200 widgets). Therefore the user has to be ‘close’ to the PC. My customer wants his customers to get access to a similar GUI over the internet. In this case, the users would get onto the company’s internet site and go to a password protected area which had the product design GUI. In both cases after the data has been entered a data file is created which is used to create a drawing using a standard CAD package. In the internet based system a pdf copy of the drawings will be e-mailed to the user. All the elements of both systems are ‘working’ except the GUI based data capture application for the internet based version.
Therefore I am trying to see how internet access and use of the product design system can be provided.
From the other two replies I can see that there are a number of possibilities which I think range from:
1. Having the current system (or something close to it) run in some sort of ‘shell’ provided by the company’s internet system to
2. Rewriting the GUI data capture part using applciations such as JavaScript, css, and cgi.
I suspect that the 2nd option would give the more ‘proper’ internet system. The downside is that this would need the larger development time.
One detail about the GUI is that it all the widgets are defined in a spreadsheet. Therefore I want to see if the applciations used to create the GUI for the internet could use the spreadsheet data to create the GUI. I have used the Tk grid packing method for the widgets which has the very useful benefit that the widgets are automatically positioned (in x and y) initially and as the widgets change size.
I can see I will need to discuss with the company’s internet provider the ‘shell’ option. In parallel I am trying to see what the development route is for the ‘rewriting’ option.
I hope this answers the question from the anonymous monk.
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