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At work we have a large amout of processes which are laid out in several different Word documents. Some as large as 30mb and they include screenshots. What I would like to do is create a front end using in order to be able to search all of them simultaneously and have autocomplete to suggest which part of the process to go to. I've looked at various ways of doing this but it seems I would have to put all the Word document data in to a database to make it work and that would have the disadvantage of not being able to see the screenshots. Is the best way to compile all of the processes in to one Word document then search that somehow or would I need to export the different sections in to a database but how would I then make the screenshots visible? The other way I was thinking was making each part of the processes in to a seperate page which I could call via bootstrap as I have a rough idea of how to structure the data. The problem is this would be very laborious and I'd prefer if there was a way of categorising it by some automated process or script. Any ideas welcome. The method I would like to implement is a single web page which I could store locally and everyone could access implemented using Ajax.
This seems to be off topic, based on the subject...
but at first glance, A simple media-heavy Filemaker database could be made in 30 minutes, and you could implement .pdfs of the Word files as well as full text content, for quick lookups.
The added advantage would be that you could access it via iOS, Mac, or PC....
This option could easily allow thumbnails as well as full documents (.doc or .pdf) either inserted or attached to the file, and available for download if preferred..
The only component of prep which could take time would be actually cutting .pdfs from each Word file to attach for easy viewing...
You would then reference the text in each file in one record field, view the thumbnails in another, and download (or read) the whole document in another. Filemaker allows numerous views of any record, and this can all be accomplished quickly in a single layout.
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The question i have is many fold.
So I work IT for this company. It’s a small company. Very small. They have an ancient ordering system that uses MSACCESS and was built in Visual Basic. I’ve been tasked with developing a new ordering system that processes orders as well as take in orders online.
I’ve created an order form in Excel with all the proper calculations that need to be made as sort of a foundation. I’ve found a service called SpreadsheetConverter that converts it to HTML or if I’d like Node.JS. But to be completely honest I have no idea what to do with Node.JS. I have some knowledge of VB and i’m (sort of) starting to understand databases.
My question is where would the best place to start if I wanted to build an application that can take in orders, store/retrieve customer data (autofill?), store order information into a database so i can retrieve them. The order system has to customly tailored to this company, they make Doors, so the calculations deal a lot with sizes and styles.
I have all the calculations i need. Basically where should i start if I want to build a UI, write simple code, and have it interact with a database. I’ve checked out Xojo, I have a Mac so i cant use Visual Basic. Where should i look to start a database?
Or is it possible to connect the Node.JS that spreadsheetconverter creates and connect it to something like Firebase?
I’m sorry if this all seems confusing, I basically don’t know where to start and a push in the right direction is all i need so i can narrow my focus.
Xojo might indeed be a good start for this.
Xojo includes access to a sqlite database, and you can add new records rather easily. You do need to know how to design and query an SQL db, though.
The biggest question is probably how to implement the user interface. This will be the biggest task. With Xojo, you can design it fairly easily, using its window layout editor.
Then you can either develop a monolithic desktop app, i.a. a Mac or Windows app that runs and maintains its database all on the same, single, computer. Or, if you want to allow multiple users access the database from different computers, consider writing a Web application in Xojo, which will be used through a web browser then. Most code will be the same, but testing will be a bit more complex and slower for a Web app, probably.
You would have to re-implement all your calculations in Xojo, though, as Xojo has no way to use or import Excel sheets this way.
Also, have a look at FileMaker. I have never used it but it may fit your needs.
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Before I start: I know this is a very broad question, but it is the best way I could phrase it, I have searched around a lot and can only seem to find generic explanations. I searched SO and didn't find much. I have also skimmed through some pages in the wordpress codex, and didn't find anything really useful.
I would like to create a simple database driven blog-style website, it will really only consist of stories (their title, date, content, etc), I just began teaching myself web development and my idea of how database driven websites work has proven to be completely wrong. I figured you would always need a file connecting to the database for each article, but the more I read I learn about mark up being generated on request, and so on, so the actual /year/month/day/article doesn't actually have to exist on the server, or that may be wrong, that is why I am here.
As I said I cannot find much on this topic that isn't a generic graphic of a server interacting with a web page. How does one go about creating a database driven website of this style? Are the files/directories not actually on the server but only created on a case by case basis as someone requests it? If so, then why can you type out a complete url and it be there with out throwing a 404? I have a lot of questions, really all I need is a strong explanation of how these sites work, code examples, and so on. Could someone explain how they work or point me to information (recommended articles, examples or books)?
EDIT: Please don't recommend a framework, I want to understand how these sites work and build one myself.
It's actually quite simple. Wordpress's index page calls wp-blog-header.php. That file calls for other files, and those files call for other files. It goes on for some time until all the contents of the page are actually loaded.
The databases come in when you start thinking about having users. Obviously the user information is stored in the database. Beyond that, Wordpress keeps post titles, dates, and other information in the database for easy loading later on.
Comments are also stored in the database. Each comment is associated with a number, and in the database, just like the posts, the dates/times as well as the usernames associated with the comments are kept.
Further exploration in the actual Wordpress files will reveal a lot of interesting features.
You might want to check out Django. It is an open source Python web framework that provides a lot of the functionality you are talking about. It also has a lot of very good high-level documentation with even a free e-book. It is centered a bit more on newspaper type sites than blogging, but most of the same principles apply. If you are new to python and like to use IDEs I would recommend checking out PyCharm. It has tight Django integration and makes for simple project setup and debugging.
Generally speaking, you'll use a framework that will take input parameters (year/month/day/article), run some code to fetch data from the database, and dynamically create the webpage. There isn't an actual .html file sitting on the webserver. One of the most popular frameworks to do websites like you're describing is Ruby on Rails, which makes it incredibly simple to do.
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I've just started using some mind mapping software (Freemind and Xind) as a replacement for text documents I was previously using to keep track of my work. The main issue (in both cases) is to maintain references to files and folders when I add,remove, or rename them (as every time I have to update the mind map).
What I am looking for is a mind mapping tool that would allow me to:
-automatically generate a folder/file structure in the mind map matching a folder on my filesystem.
-create relations between, add notes to, and change the style of these folders and files.
-whenever a folder/file is added, removed, or renamed, the mind map would automatically be updated accordingly (I'm guessing on linux it would work based on inodes).
Thanks.
Freemind can create your entire file structure by going to import->folders.
It works fine in freemind or freeplane but is you publish it to the web with the addon, it crashes. Working on that problem.
Mindjet 8 has a limited capacity but only maps two levels down. Not very useful.
randy
Docear has a mindmap mode which will import a directory structure, create a mind map, allow you to create graphical links between folders, and add notes. It has a feature "Add Monitoring Folder" and "Re-read Monitoring Folder", but the monitoring feature seems to only work for pdf files and sub-folders with pdf files in them. It might be a good place to start since it's open source. (It's based on freeplane).
There is an add-on for Freeplane that looks promising for what you are trying to achieve: dView(indexfile)
A sub-optimal solution is to use your file manager as the mind-mapping tool and then using directory names for topics, text files for details/notes and links for inter-relations.
To the best of my knowledge FreeMind and Xmind provide some sort of linking to external files but are not as extensive as what you request.
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I am in the planning stages of a database app for personal use. I have a good bit of the database structure planned, but as I think about how I'm going to write the program, it made me wonder if I'm doing this in the right order.
Which should I be planning first, the db structure or the classes?
I think designing your data model first is a very good idea.
If the app is to be database driven it is a good idea to have an solid understanding of what your data model is going to look like before even attempting to write any code.
You can still conceptualize how you think the classes may look as your thinking about your data model. Keeping this in the back of your mind as you determine your requirements will help when you begin to write some code as well.
Of course, as you begin to write code you will probably have to revisit your data structure, so it is an iterative process, but good planning at the onset of the project is a good idea.
I think you will get a differnt answer from data centric poeple vice application centric people. Personally I always start with the data but an application programmer would probably start with the classes.
In reality, I think you need to work on the two at the same time.
They most often develop together, although it's often easiest to start designing the basic structure of the database, and then move to the code. You'll find that depending on the size of your application the database will change frequently along the way to final product.
I typically plan as best I can, then I start creating the database per the planning/design specs I wrote for myself.
Then, I use something like Linq-To-SQL to generate some basic DAL classes -- wrap those in a repository class that manages most of my CRUD situations.
Depending on the complexity of the app, I then write a GUI which consumes the repository directly (quick/dirty) or I write a domain logic class (and potentially Data-Transfer-Objects or dumb POCOs) which wraps up the functionality in the repository.
Obviously, the best planning misses things, so make sure you take in to account that you'll have to go back and add fields, change types, add relationships etc.
If the purpose of your system is to store, retrieve and report on data, then I would say by all means it is appropriate to design the database first.
If, on the other hand, the purpose of the system is to implement a business process or processes using software, then it will often be more efficient to design the "domain model" first, modeling out the business process into objects/classes, then determining how to persist them to/from a database later.
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I have a bunch of data in a database and I want to generate some tables in PowerPoint. I had started doing this manually but I thought there might be a way I can simply write some code to take my data from the database and output it onto a PowerPoint slide.
Any advice here?
You can certainly automate powerpoint trough the use of its XPCOM api --
(although, everytime I looked for documentation on the COM API for MS Office I haven't found it)
But, I'd suggest that instead of creating PowerPoint slides, you created Open Document presentations (ISO 26300 - .ODT files) - which are easy to undestand, parse and edit programatically -
.ODT files are the default presentation format for Open Office, Koffice, and other office software, and I think that Microsoft has come to support it by now - (although they have pushed ISO to approve their own proprietary specification of a similar format)
Anyway, editing the contents of a .odp file is trivial; the ODP file itself is a zipped archive, you unzip it, and edit the "contents.xml" file inside it -- creating new slides is a matter of copying the XML node corresponding to a slide and editing the desired text --
and pack everything inside a zip archive again.
you can generate Powerpoint files with Apache POI (a java library)
python-pptx is a python library for creating and updating PowerPoint files
OpenOffice has an interface called UNO with bindings in several languages
PowerPoint has access to VBA right? (It does, I checked) So, you should be able to automate the generation that way. I've done this pretty extensively but in to an excel document. I've never tried it with power point.
The problem now becomes one of time investment? Learn how to do it with VBA or do it manually... If this could be a common thing, I'd suggest you learn how to do it via VBA. Generally speaking, I found that automating Excel with VBA was not too hard once you understood the basics. The time saved was definitely worth it in the long run.
Finally, I wish I could recommend a book to get you started, but alas, I've never considered trying this so I've never put anytime in researching this.
Probably the easiest route to take would be to use Excel to extract the data and then embed the spreadsheet in PowerPoint.
I think for what you listed ODT (or a spare intern) is the best solution. Especially if you just need this 1 or 2 times and/or how it looks in the final PPT is not important.
However, if this grows to be a situation where you have complex logic for what is pulled, or you want to have maore control over how the output looks and give non-programmers the ability to create/edit the templates used, then take a look at Windward Reports (disclaimer - I'm the CTO at Windward). With Windward you can design reports in PowerPoint that pull data from multipel datasources to then generate the final PowerPoint with the data incorporated.
Only for once or twice you can use excel. Place data in excel and generate tables. Then copy and paste it in your power point. Easy way but not an exact tool.