Opinions needed - no knowledge required!!!!!

[spunkymonkey]

Ok, hopefully the title has grabbed your attention, so let me explain.

I'm in the middle of an OU degree which includes a fairly heavy computer programming content. Coming to the end of one of the modules, I decided to develop an application to keep track of the costs and work needed on our Daf and the (so far undecided) classic car that I'll be getting myself next year.

The idea is to be able to enter jobs, fuel used and so on and keep track of costs, work needed, due dates for stuff and so on. Basically a glorified version of the notebook I've always kept in my glovebox

I'm doing it for the fun of it but, if I end up with something that others might find useful, then I'd be happy to make it available as freeware. The plan is to make it suitable for an unlimited size fleet!

Where the help is needed is that I now have a prototype interface (which currently does absolutely nothing - but doing stuff is the easy part) and could do with honest opinions on whether:

(a) your initial reaction is it might be useful

(b) from the stage it's at it still looks like it might be useful

(c) if yes to (a) and (b), any suggestions for stuff that I've missed or could include?

If anyone feels nervous about downloading unknown software, all I can say is - I'm writing it myself so I know it's "clean" and at least one member here knows where I live and where our Daf is so if it isn't then y'all know where to find me ;D

Anyone who's willing to help with opinions (good or bad can find the basic interface at:

www.dafmobile.ournet.org.uk/downloads/CarMonitor.exe

and either post here or PM me with their comments - honesty either way is all that's asked

Thanks,

Joe

[spunkymonkey]

Thanks to that, John. In the working version completed work will all be viewable (with cost) but will need a button click to get to - I hadn't considered a supplier section, but I like the idea

[Bob Scrivens]

Hi Joe, hope you are both well.
Looks like this could be a usefull program, not only for us restore wizards but also for any one who wishes to keep a record of any transport they own or run.
I use a bit of softwear in the Company and one of the modules is related to the normal task's associated with maintenance of the unit (service visit items to check, materials required for that task, part numbers and supplier(s))
A full print out of the history of the ownership of the car would be a very good selling point.
Hope I have not given you input overload with the above!!!
Hope to get up to the "Pig Inn" soon, see you then.

Bob.

[spunkymonkey]

No overload with that, Bob, and thanks for the suggestions. Printing would certainly be a good addition - and if I'm going to look at suppliers then parts numbers would be a sensible addition. With parts and suppliers info as separate data files, they could even be passed between members as new sources were found and confirmed.

This looks like it might grow a little more involved than I'd expected but that keeps it interesting - and is great experience of using "customer" feedback to develop the software!

[spunkymonkey]

I'll do you a special version with password protection - without the right password it'll show 6p/mile including fuel

[spunkymonkey]

Ok, now have a (basically) working system. You can enter car details (max of about 2 billion vehicles I'm afraid) and keep track of fuel, servicing, MOTs and repairs.

You can also save and load the details to disk (so you can get round the 2 billion car limit if you need by splitting them across files ).

It's by no means finished yet, but if anyone would like to play, there's a revised download at:

www.dafmobile.ournet.org.uk/downloads/CarMon.zip

The zip file contains the program, a pic of our daf, and an example data file based on what we've done with the Daf so far.

Still to do includes:

Allowing input of tax and insurance details

Adding the cost summary in the (now default) tabbed view

Making more than UK units available - currently fuel is in litres, fuel consumption is in miles per UK gallon and distances are in miles.

Possibly adding a supplier and part number database to the Tab view - ideally saving to a separate file, with a merge option so that these files can be shared between owners. That could be fun to write!

[spunkymonkey]

Lots more updates done and it now has :

* All the tabs working, so it will keep track of road tax and insurance dates + costs

* Full ability to edit or delete cars

* Full completion and cancelling of work tickets

* Warning boxes if you try to do something that will lose or overwrite data

* A working help system - some more pages still to add, but the basics are covered

* Much neater display of photos, without distorting them.

* It's own Daf-based desktop icon


The file format has changed, but the new version should accept the old format and convert it, saving it back to the new one automatically. If that happens, a warning box will display to let you know but all you have to do is click OK.

I plan to get round to a proper download page that I can start posting but, for now, anyone who wants to play can download at:

www.dafmobile.ournet.org.uk/downloads/CarMonitor.zip


If anyone has already started entering details in the old version (John ) then, after downloading and unzipping this version, copy your data file into the new folder and you're ready to go. Will be working on neater ways to update in future but I am only an amateur

[spunkymonkey]

Sorry for the wasted typing, John, but pretty sure I know what the problem was, and it's fixed in the new version:

On the earlier one, If you entered details in a new (blank) database and then chose "Save" from the menu it didn't save because it didn't have a filename to save to. You had to use "Save As" for the first time you save it so that you could type in a file name for it to save to.

Only, there were no warning boxes to let you know - it looked like it had saved until you tried to open it again and found your info had gone. If you Opened a file first (such as the example.dat file) then it would save ok because it would use the last-opened file.


If you try the same in the new version, it will ask you for a file name, just as if you chose "Save As" in the first place. It's amazing how many little details like that come to light when you start doing something like this!!!

[spunkymonkey]

Something like this?

www.dafmobile.ournet.org.uk/carmonitor/

Was going to build a download page bt then I realised that I could just export the help file as HTML and upload that. As long as I update the help when I make changes, it's guaranteed to be in step

[spunkymonkey]

pre-1 versions were the ones that only part worked (dummy GUI & so on) Figured that getting everything basically working was worth a major version of its own

Will be interested to hear how it works with Wine. Meanwhile, I'll add a Linux port to the To-do list

[spunkymonkey]

You're really puzzling me now, John! If you've got the latest version it has a help file that gives screen shots of the Open and Save dialogues. If you can't get the Help up in-program then it's the same as the version online at the latest link I posted, so you can browse it there.

I'm guessing you've found the Open one because you were looking at the example file I included.

The Save as one looks very similar (they're both standard Windows pop-ups so you should be familiar with them anyway).


If you're getting the Save As dialogue up and seem to save it, but then can't see the file when you try to open it again, it may be that it's trying to save it into a different folder. That's one of the things I need to look at preventing in the next bug-fix.

If that's the case then your data should be there, it's just a case of finding out where! the easiest way will probably be to:

1) open the example file

2) immediatelly choose Save As from the menu.

3) Don't actually save, but note what folder it wants to save in.

4) Press the cancel button

5) Choose Open, and browse to the folder that you noted from the Save as dialogue.

Hopefully you should see your data files there!


If the above doesn't work, run a Windows Search from your Start menu for the filename you tried to save and see if it shows up somewhere totally unexpected! Oddly, the default Windows way is to let them change to whatever folder you looked at last!!!

One of the next things to add is a Preferences system so that the Open and Save As functions will always open in the same folder.

Finally, if you still have no joy try:

opening the example.dat file, adding one of your cars, and using Save (not Save As) to save it back to the same file. If you then open it again you should see your added car. Use the Delete Car button to get rid of "Betty" and save again. Then just use example.dat to store your cars in.

[spunkymonkey]

I'm using Vista, but have also tested in XP (on the Teenager's laptop) and Win98 in a virtual box on mine. If it's saving anything (the car details stuff) then there should be no way it can fail to save the rest because you'd end up with a corrupt file which then wouldn't load at all.

Woke up about 3am this morning with a sudden thought about your missing data files... Did you add photos and, if so, were the data files in the same directory as the photos came from by any chance? I'll get a basic preferences sytsem added as soon as possible to hold directories and stop that happening. Unlikely to include those d**n US gallons as a preference just yet but I'll get there ;D


edited to add: version 1.0.1 is now available from the dowmload page:

www.dafmobile.ournet.org.uk/carmonitor/



Improvements include:

* defaults to loading and saving in the program's directory so files shouldn't go missing anymore.

* fixed a bug that caused the lifetime fuel quantity and cost record to double each time you loaded a file - was making the lifetime consumption look bad even compared to stuff from Detroit ;D

* tall, thin, photos now display correctly as well as short, wide, ones

* a few little tidy-ups, extra tool tips and help pages.

[spunkymonkey]

Just uploaded an update to this if anyone's been playing. It now includes display (AND PRINTING!!!) of a maintenance history report. The on-screen report only shows the first page at the moment - it's trickier than I expected to "page" stuff on the screen - but the printed version (sent to your default printer) pages itself as required. So it finally does something potentially useful

The report format (printed and screen) is something like this:






Latest version is www.dafmobile.ournet.org.uk/carmonitor/downloads/CarMon-1-1-0.msi

with the updated help file at
www.dafmobile.ournet.org.uk/carmonitor/


Only slight worry is, it seems that Betty has so far cost us about £3.60 per mile - good excuse to do more miles to offset the initial costs