how do i solve this problem?....

[krossfyter]

here my situation...(odd one bear with me here)

a friend of mine whos a botanist, works at a greenhouse and uses a mac, asked me if i know an easier way of doing a certian task. this task requires my friend to draw basic symbols of plants with brances and leaves. each branch has a number of leaves represetned by lines and circles. in the circles are numbers...which represent something i cant remeber...this whole botinist thing. anyways....my friend needs a template of this so one can go in there and cange the color of some cirlces and change the numbers in the cirlcles...everthing else is not to be changed. so basically i need a template. now im sure one can do this by making a program...but im not a programmer....so im wondering if there is any other way to get this done that you all may know of that i dont?....the only thing i can think of is doing it in illustrator. if not ill just tell my freind to ask a programmer. i know this sounds wierd but hell i dont care im still shooting it out.

 

[Beej]

I've been playing with OpenGL... you could do it in that. But if you're not a programmer, then you've got no hope I'd love to be able to offer to do it for you, but I've been fiddling with it for about 2 days, and there's no way I could do something like that just yet.

Apart from that, I really don't know. Not a question you hear every day!

 

[krossfyter]

open GL aye?!! too bad i no nothing about programming. thanks anyways beej. is one able to use open GL on windows or linux?... because i know of some programmers from where i am from using win and linux.

 

[Beej]

You can use it on pretty much any platform you could think of. I'm programming my OpenGL in OS X and it runs fine on Linux.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Why do you need to program. Couldn't you use a draw package, like Illustrator or Freehand to set up the templates? I think you may have to discribe what you're trying to do a little better. With OpenGl, you could make it 3d!!

 

[krossfyter]

the reason im thinking about programming it is because it is assumed that the user does not know how to use illustrator or any other program. all they need to know is how to click in the little circle change the color and place numbers in it. however if i go the illustrator route (which i just may do...since i know that program like mad) then i will just have to teach that user how to do what they need it to do on the template.

 

[iGav]

I'd use....

Director, by the sounds of it you'd easily be able to build this, you could also make it 3D if you wanted.......

I'd develop it as a kiosk based product, so that you basically design it for a user with a limited knowledge of the navigation, so it would have to be easy to understand, and not require a science degree to operate it...... and be accessible, whilst still mainting the functionality you'd desire......

Judging by what you've said, it'd take you a day max... to program the template.........(that's probably seriously over estimating aswell!!)

Open GL would be complete overkill for such a simple project!!! Director would give you all the interactive control you'd need!!!

Also allow you to interface with databases, print hard copies, save versions etc........ if you need to!!

 

[Taft]

Diagramming tool.

Why don't you try a diagramming tool. Omnigraffle is a great example. The drawings won't be as detailed as illustrator, but it will be much simpler to use. Plus its shareware.

Omnigraffle is a great tool. Very well implemented.

Matthew

 

[Beej]

Until you register it, OmniGraffle is limited to 10 items per file, so you'd need to register it.

Using OmniGraffle is a really good idea.

 

[buffsldr]

Omingraffle may work as said, but I could make something like that in Flash. I dont know how to do it, but I have done enough flash "programming" to know I could figure it out in flash. I suggest you check that out.