About the pottery software. The offlist response was, to put it
mildly, overwhelming. I've also made some changes in the decision to
focus on the Palm platform with only a conduit for Desktop. I'm going
to focus on a Desktop suite and write a Palm program later, if at
all.
As for the Handspring Visor's proprietary system, I was
stuck. However, I've just decided sell the Visor and move to a Compaq
iPaq, which will run Linux. This means that I can give up writing on
the difficult PalmOS platform and write straight for a desktop
system. I can still use it on my Palmtop Linux system, you all can use
it on your desktop. Better for the many here who wanted that
anyway (Sorry to the PalmOS users. I'll probably write one for that
platform later). This changes the timeline from a year to maybe a
couple months, and a couple weeks for a beta-test.
But if I write for a UNIX system, am I the only one that can use it?
No. I'll write it in the Python programming language, which means the
same software should work the same way on windows, mac and UNIX. There
are small things that change between platforms, but it's basically a
cross-platform system. All it'll do is save information in a text file
or two.
So, what I need from all those respondants- and non-respondants who'd
like to try it- are ideas. Specifically, ideas related to what would
and would not be useful to you. I'm developing the software in stages,
with each stage consisting of a major part of the suite. Stages are as
follows, and based on what I need to accomplish for myself:
Stage 1: Kiln logging/scheduling system
Stage 2: Kiln firing time calculation/graphing system
Stage 3: Glaze/clay database system
Stage 4: Inventory control/ cost analysis system
Stage 5: Glaze/clay analysis system
We'll tackle stage one now. What would you want to log? I have the
following in mind:
Date/Time, both to log past and schedule future firings
Which kiln
How many pieces
How many shelves
Average size (Maybe how many small, medium large pieces)
Cone/final temp
Firing time/schedule (to be used in conjunction with Stage 2)
Maybe running cost analysis/firing based on cone/firing time/user
defined fuel/electricity cost.
Notes on firing.
I'm going to try to make this as userfriendly as possible (Hey UNIX is
user friendly! It's just real picky about who its friends are
:-). Things like which kiln, how many pieces, etc. Will be set with
drop-down menus and stuff. Ideal is to make logging speedy. Maybe
between a few and 30 seconds to log/schedule a single firing. All
menus/such will have defaults set, but you should be able to
change/add to them. For instance, the "kiln" menu item will have a
single item to start: "Kiln 1," but you should be able to change that
and add to it so that, for instance, you can make the menu read with
four selections that you enter: "Electric Bisque Kiln," "Electric High
Fire Kiln," "New Sawdust Kiln," "Fred's Kiln at His Mom's House," etc.
Send Ideas. I may ignore them, they may become a feature. How many times
will you get a custom program for free?
That's all for now. I'll post a webpage with screenshots and some
preliminary working code when I get something finished.
-J
--
Jonathan Pennington | john@coastalgeology.org
"It's hard to take life too seriously
when you realize yours is a joke."
