When we advise clients on GUI, we always advise a divide and conquer approach.
It is amazing just how small a percentage of a system actually needs to be GUItized, once you have partitioned out the business rules, report and (strange) user menus, admin facilities etc. Use a regular report designer [AD - mvQuery] to handle the reporting. Keep the admin stuff on the green screen. Turn business rules into subroutines and test then from the green screen first. Then look at what is left, and employ someone who understands GUI to create the new front end. You might be surprised how little is left to be reworked, if you use the right tools. We use uvCase, but we don't sell that outside the UK so that won't help you! But there are plenty tools around that can. <soapbox moment> Sticking a few text and combo boxes on a screen is not a GUI. It's a form with a few text/combo boxes. Desiging an effective GUI is a skill that takes time to learn - like any other computing skill. Do employ someone to help you do it. </soapbox moment> Some lateral thinking can help too: One of my favourite demos for mvQuery involves running a Command Before to capture an existing BASIC print job. I have a simple 300 line BASIC program that executes a print job to &HOLD&, uses a definition record to strip data from the job by locating recognized headings/subheadings and stripping text out at relative x and y offsets, and uses that data to write a number of records into a work file. I can then use mvQuery to select the work file and design e.g. a modern looking PDF or an export. None of that is rocket science, and I can use that technique to redesign a quite number of existing reports in a matter of minutes - without having to analyze how the original report was created! You can do similar things with other tools: it's just takes a little bit of thinking around the issue. Brian ________________________________________________________________________ This email was checked on leaving Microgen for viruses, similar malicious code and inappropriate content by MessageLabs SkyScan. DISCLAIMER This email and any attachments are confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the named recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy the information. In the event of any technical difficulty with this email, please contact the sender or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Microgen Information Management Solutions http://www.microgen.co.uk -- u2-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.oliver.com/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
