Curtis and Tom,

Curits, you know how I love the Drupal, but I don't think Drupal is a
good solution for this problem.

One, using a browser-based solution could be an overall problem because
theres always a chance of unreliability, slowness, internet
connectivity.  Also, Drupal has a lot of overhead.  And Drupal does not
have good, stable support for Google Gears.  So, unless you need actual
website with content (besides data entry), Drupal is probably not the
answer.  Don't get me wrong, Drupal is great and can accomplish this,
but I don't see it as the best solution.

But, I'm not entirely sure of the scope of project.  Do you need
anything besides data entry?  Security issues?  Design aspects?  LAN or
WAN support (this could remove the browser/internet problems)?  Needless
to say, I don't have any real solutions that I can think of.


-- 
Alan
http://alanpalazzolo.com/




On 9/11/08 11:13 AM, Curtis Griesel wrote:
> If you want your application to be
> - browser-based
> - standards-compliant -- works on most computer browsers / platforms
> - easy to configure
> - secure -- easy to patch and upgrade on an ongoing basis
> - modular -- start with core features and easily integrate new features in
> the future
> 
> I would look at building it in Drupal.
> 
> True, there is a learning curve involved to actually do the development, but
> it is PHP so not at all hard for an existing software developer to grasp.
> Plus, there is a large and active Drupal community so you can easily get
> free help, or even hire a local Drupal developer to do the work for you if
> you don't want to be bothered.
> 
> Curtis
> 
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 10:51 AM, Tom Penney <tpenney at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Forgive the off topic post. I was hoping that someone might have some
>> advice for me.
>>
>> I've been handed a home brew data entry system written in VB6 that is
>> in need of replacement. Code is poorly commented and the guy who wrote
>> it can't be found. What I would LIKE to do is start from scratch and
>> write a nice browser based system using google gears or something like
>> that but I don't have time. I would think there would be a ton of
>> stuff available, open or otherwise, as we are not doing anything
>> unusual. But what I've found seems antiquated and expensive. I was
>> asked to evaluate some Viking Software stuff which has the features
>> that we need but, man, low tech, 8 character file names,  keyboard
>> overlays required, etc.
>>
>> We process about 10,000 hand written forms a month entered from
>> scanned images on screen. Each form is entered twice by separate
>> people and compared  for accuracy. some fields are looked up in a
>> table  to auto populate other fields which can then be accepted or
>> edited. nothing to fancy. Has anyone here run across anything I should
>> be looking into?
>>
>> --
>> Tom Penney
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>>
> 
> 
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