Finish Line Ahead!
Back from the dead, once again.
Sorry for such long absence. At least I'd say I made up for it, since I'm nearly done with the project, as you can check on the progress report.
So, as promised, my last step is to add a last extra feature to the project and it's finished.
Nope, I'm not gonna reveal what it is, not until I've finished it.
Stay tuned for further news. Hopefully this won't take too long again.
Lost in Translation...
Hello folks!
This post's title couldn't be more accurate, because I did certainly get to expand my vocabulary quite a bit...
Anyway, I finally completed the translation of the whole project in all six languages (portuguese, english, french, spanish, italian and german)
There might be some errors on the translations made, in fact, I'm quite sure there will be. So if you ever manage to find any, please report them so that I can swiftly fix them. You obviously will only be able to do that, when I release the project though (which isn't right now, sadly)
The next step will be to optimize the graphics of the application, such as reset the dimensions of a variety of controls along the immense number of forms scattered about.
Until that time. Cheers.
Progress Report Feature
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success - Henry Ford.
Beggining this post with a quote felt best at the time, but I guess I'll leave that judgement to you. Anyway, I just wanted to give a brief brake to myself and took the oportunity of updating the blog with a nice little feature, which is located to the top right corner. From now on, you can check how far and how much is left for the project to be done.
Regarding the Recipe Master project, as you can see I'm really far ahead in terms of the translation project. So keep yourselves at bay.
Later!
Risen from the ashes!
Hello everyone! No, I'm not dead and neither stopped working on the ongoing project. In fact, I've been working on it really hard everytime I get a chance to.
Even though I've been working hard on the project, I'm still not far ahead regarding the translation process, which was the next step I needed to take. Why? You ask? It's kind of a sad story, but a humble lesson nonetheless.
As on every project, I initially plan to add unique features to make it them stand out and work on those as I go, but this time, "things didn't go according to plan". When I thought the application had reach the 100% stage, in terms of having all my pratical features working, somewhere between implementing these features and optimizing them, I completely forgot the core logic of the project. Since this project is based on an application, where different users may perform different tasks upon the same record, whether this record is related to a cook or a recipe, etc, this obviously implies a certain complexity at data manipulation level. For instance, if a user updates a record by changing one of its values and another user is updating the same record by changing one other value, things may become a little messy. At this time, I realized that my project was pure chaos, so I had to restructure everything from scracth, but luckilly most of the code could be reused. In short, a solution I came up with a not so easy approach, was to clone records for every new user, but... to keep things together and to be able to manage the database quick and easy, these records are considered as descendants from the original record, thus creating a certain chain of command, where each user is accountable to each their own records, without affecting the other users.
So, where does this leave me? Well, my project now respects the core logic and everything is again in balance. I've already started to translate the forms and have already done at least 4 of them and still going at it, so I bid all a bit of patience as this will be hard, since a lot of grammar check is needed.
Until then, I wish you all good tidings.
Even though I've been working hard on the project, I'm still not far ahead regarding the translation process, which was the next step I needed to take. Why? You ask? It's kind of a sad story, but a humble lesson nonetheless.
As on every project, I initially plan to add unique features to make it them stand out and work on those as I go, but this time, "things didn't go according to plan". When I thought the application had reach the 100% stage, in terms of having all my pratical features working, somewhere between implementing these features and optimizing them, I completely forgot the core logic of the project. Since this project is based on an application, where different users may perform different tasks upon the same record, whether this record is related to a cook or a recipe, etc, this obviously implies a certain complexity at data manipulation level. For instance, if a user updates a record by changing one of its values and another user is updating the same record by changing one other value, things may become a little messy. At this time, I realized that my project was pure chaos, so I had to restructure everything from scracth, but luckilly most of the code could be reused. In short, a solution I came up with a not so easy approach, was to clone records for every new user, but... to keep things together and to be able to manage the database quick and easy, these records are considered as descendants from the original record, thus creating a certain chain of command, where each user is accountable to each their own records, without affecting the other users.
So, where does this leave me? Well, my project now respects the core logic and everything is again in balance. I've already started to translate the forms and have already done at least 4 of them and still going at it, so I bid all a bit of patience as this will be hard, since a lot of grammar check is needed.
Until then, I wish you all good tidings.
RecipeMaster - Cleaning Up, Last Feature and Multi Language!
Back again after a brief absence and here to give out good news!
The application is on the final stages for release with only corrections to be made to the code and a few optimizations. However, hold your ponies for the above doesn't mean the application is almost ready for release. There's one more feature to be added, which I'll reveal later on and we're still going to add the ability to choose between six different languages.
So, having said this, you can only imagine and I can't stress hard enough how much work this will take. Nevertheless, news still will pour out every once in a while, so stay tuned for more news!
The application is on the final stages for release with only corrections to be made to the code and a few optimizations. However, hold your ponies for the above doesn't mean the application is almost ready for release. There's one more feature to be added, which I'll reveal later on and we're still going to add the ability to choose between six different languages.
So, having said this, you can only imagine and I can't stress hard enough how much work this will take. Nevertheless, news still will pour out every once in a while, so stay tuned for more news!
User Friendly Template Generation
Hello again! Yet again... last week was chaotic. With the upcoming Children's Day and the fact that last week only had 3 week days, for me that is, having to produce almost 25.000 labels for a campaign launch for that single 1st of June day, country wide, I have to say I was quite happy to have four days of rest.
Anyway, on the midst of chaos and brief pauses of contemplation upon my project, I pondered about a feature that could further improve performance usage of the application and still help the user not get lost along the way. The application has the ability of massively importing data, which means that whenever you want to register let's say... 20 new cooks and about 100 new recipes, you'd probably not be happy about having to do an insert into the database for each one of those. So, being able to import loads of records in a single go into the database greatly reduces times and prevents headaches. Well... not quite, because there's always the human factor here and please don't be offended. There's always margin of error on automated processes that require human intervention, so the only way to greatly reduce errors that have even a slight probability of occurrence is to develop the tools that are specifically designed for user intevention in order to help with automated processes, in order to avoid any possible errors.
In this specific case, files are needed for the massive data import to be done and these files are templates that follow the rules for correct data integration into the database. So, we developed a simple template generator, which as it states, generates the files that are to be used for massive data import.
This way, we ensure that the user uses the correct files for the process at hand and nothing else, thus preventing errors and reducing time wasting on manual creation of those files.
Anyway, on the midst of chaos and brief pauses of contemplation upon my project, I pondered about a feature that could further improve performance usage of the application and still help the user not get lost along the way. The application has the ability of massively importing data, which means that whenever you want to register let's say... 20 new cooks and about 100 new recipes, you'd probably not be happy about having to do an insert into the database for each one of those. So, being able to import loads of records in a single go into the database greatly reduces times and prevents headaches. Well... not quite, because there's always the human factor here and please don't be offended. There's always margin of error on automated processes that require human intervention, so the only way to greatly reduce errors that have even a slight probability of occurrence is to develop the tools that are specifically designed for user intevention in order to help with automated processes, in order to avoid any possible errors.
In this specific case, files are needed for the massive data import to be done and these files are templates that follow the rules for correct data integration into the database. So, we developed a simple template generator, which as it states, generates the files that are to be used for massive data import.
This way, we ensure that the user uses the correct files for the process at hand and nothing else, thus preventing errors and reducing time wasting on manual creation of those files.