Simple Menu with free hand drawing / writing

[Majestic120]

Hi I am new to programming and want to make a Simple menu with names and numbers and after you finalize the names and numbers you can make the program full screen and free write / drawn on it. What is a program that can do this?

Your requirements are really quite vague. Any programming language with links to the win32 api can do this (languages without such links might be able to do this.)

What do you mean by menus? What you are saying and what you are explaining that you can do with it seem to be two different things.

As for the paint part of the program. You should realize that doing anything beyond MS paint esq painting is going to be pretty complex (heck, even MS paint stuff isn't going to be a walk in the park.) Don't expect to put any sort of photoshop functionality into this. While it is possible, it isn't likely.

Its hard to describe what I want to do but here it goes. At work we have a white board with names and what rooms are assigned to the rooms. I want to make a program that has a drop down menu to select names and rooms. At the bottom right corner I want to make a finalize button and then it makes it into a nice format with names and room numbers next to the names so people know what rooms they are assigned to.

The thing is sometimes there are changes to be made during the day and notes to be posted that don't fall into the category of names and rooms. So I want to be able to use the mouse and write free hand a note, anti-aliasing would be awesome but for now sloppy mouse handwriting will do.

Is this possible and with what program?
Can an adobe program do this?

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[Markbnj]

Virtually all programming languages will allow you to do this, and there's not enough information here to say much more than that.

 

[Ken g6]

Do you want to make a web app, a Windows app, a smartphone app, or some other app, e.g. Linux?

Do you want to use MS Visual Studio, Adobe something, Apple something, or Free software?

 

[Majestic120]

I want to make it a nice looking app for windows, something that i can make full screen.
If possible Adobe would be great, which adobe program could do this?

 

[Cogman]

Your requirements are really quite vague. Any programming language with links to the win32 api can do this (languages without such links might be able to do this.)

What do you mean by menus? What you are saying and what you are explaining that you can do with it seem to be two different things.

As for the paint part of the program. You should realize that doing anything beyond MS paint esq painting is going to be pretty complex (heck, even MS paint stuff isn't going to be a walk in the park.) Don't expect to put any sort of photoshop functionality into this. While it is possible, it isn't likely.

 

[Majestic120]

I edited the original to respond, see original comment.
Up

 

[Cogman]

OK, here are the solutions I would recommend (in order of difficulty)

1. The easiest thing to do in this situation would be to open up an excel worksheet Have the top row be something like Room number, Occupant name, and Notes. You will lose cursored in notes, however, since you'll probably need a keyboard there anyways, nothing really has been lost (Writing stuff with a mouse is a pain). This would give roughly the same functionality that your whiteboard is giving now.

2. The rest of these are going to be significantly harder to do as they will require some programming knowledge. Create a simple forms application in C#. I believe you could even set it up to look like the excel spreadsheet. (I would recommend that over the confusing menu system. Though, you could still do it). It won't require too much programming, but there still might be some.

3. If you want to store changes, have a list of occupants that you can draw from for the rooms, or whatever, you want to work with data, then you are going to have to learn how to interact with a database. This can be a real pain in the butt as you not only have to learn whatever language you write this in, but the database language as well.


I would really strongly recommend against the mouse written notes. They will look like crap (If you want an experiment, just open up paint and try to write a note like you normally would). The only reason I could think of for including such a feature is that you have people drawing mini-maps of buildings and locations on the white board.

One other thing, How much time do you have to do this? For option 1 you are looking at spending 5 minutes (maybe more to train people on how to use excel, so like, 1 hour to 2 hours tops). For 2, you could be spending anywhere from 1 day to 1 week (if not more) to get it the way you want. and for the 3rd option you are looking at anywhere from 1 month to 1 year to get it up and running right. Do you really have that much time to spend on this project?

Not only that, but if you choose option 2 or 3, someone someday will probably have to be hired to fix bugs and maintain the program. With this being your first adventure into programming, it isn't going to be an easy task (Sorry, but your coding is going to look like crap. There is no way around it.)

 

[Majestic120]

Thanks for the quick reply.
I guess it does suck having a vision bigger than what he can do.
I will continue to do research and see what is possible for me to actually do. Yes I can go all out and take a year but is that reality, no. I would love to but this is just a fun project for me and want to do something with least amount of work.

I will take that advice about not writing free hand.
I will look into something that has a virtual keyboard if anything.

What language would you suggest I try and make this program?
I want something that the final product is visually appealing, even if it does take 3 - 6 months to learn.

Thanks again for all the replies.

 

[Cogman]

I would use microsoft visual studios and C# to do this. They offer an express edition on there website that is pretty good and free.

 

[Majestic120]

I would use microsoft visual studios and C# to do this. They offer an express edition on there website that is pretty good and free.

Thanks a bunch, I will try my best and hopefully something comes from this

 

[Ken g6]

I'm thinking you can do this with just Excel. First, create a sheet with a bunch of drop-down lists. Second, on a second sheet, create formulas assigning each cell of the first sheet to a new cell ("=sheet1!B10" and the like). You can format this sheet as you'd like for display. You can also type in cells, or use the drawing toolbar to scrawl words with the mouse. And I think there's an option for full-screen in there somewhere.

 

[Cogman]

I'm thinking you can do this with just Excel. First, create a sheet with a bunch of drop-down lists. Second, on a second sheet, create formulas assigning each cell of the first sheet to a new cell ("=sheet1!B10" and the like). You can format this sheet as you'd like for display. You can also type in cells, or use the drawing toolbar to scrawl words with the mouse. And I think there's an option for full-screen in there somewhere.

Wow, I didn't even know that was part of the excel functionality. You really CAN do everything in excel (Something I tease my younger brother about. He is studying Accounting with a minor in CIT. They almost exclusively use excel and VBA)

 

[Majestic120]

Excel is great for basic stuff but it looks very ordinary, I would like for the final product to look a little less boxy looking

Can Visual basic or C do this?

 

[GaryJohnson]

Excel is great for basic stuff but it looks very ordinary, I would like for the final product to look a little less boxy looking

Can Visual basic or C do this?

Either can. So can excel (with VBA).

I would use flash.

 

[KIAman]

The point that everyone is making is that almost any language can do what you are looking for. What you need to do is define your environment. What's your budget? What's your timetable (schedule)?

Once you get some basics down on paper and you figure out what your constraints are, choose a platform/environment that suits your business then start working towards an implementation that makes use of your requirements and design.

If you don't do some of this groundwork, you'll get the responses just like in this thread where we'll tell you the options are limitless and you can use anything you want to achieve your needs. You can do what you need in basic or delphi/pascal or even assembly.

Your OP is analogous to asking "How do I do integrals? By the way, I've never done math before."