No, this is not something new for OpenInsight 10 (OI10), or something else altogether. It’s a new personal project that is long overdue, but which has OI10 well and truly in mind.
I obviously dive into OpenInsight on a regular basis to undertake live demonstrations to interested people, prospects and the like, but that tends to be a need, feature, benefit, style of approach and it never really gets into application development planning and building. However, this week I found myself delving further into the development tools and immersed in code to add a new module to my RevSoft UK Contact Manager. Having not developed anything in quite some time, it was a) nice to find that I could still knock up something really quickly using OI 9.4 and b) not so nice to find just how rusty I had become.
Anyway, with the conference now only a few short weeks away, OI10 looming and a development project begging to begin, I thought it best to dive back into OI development.
As a hobbyist developer at best, it never amazes me to find what I can achieve with the toolset and this time my sights are set on trying to build the new system more slowly and better. I’ll be looking at exploring error trapping and I might even have a quick dabble at using commuter modules. All of this will begin with the current 9.4 version and then I will switch into OI10 just as soon as RevUS have a beta for me to play with.
Having started M4Photo nearly a year ago, it is now high time that I got myself organised and this new development will be an application to run the hobby business. I’ll begin with Contacts and Organisations because I need those modules like yesterday. I’ll then move onto a simple marketing management module for bulk email blasts and paper campaigns, and then I’ll computerise the sales and invoice side of the business. Lastly, I’ll dive into the Banded Report Writer (BRW) for mail merging and other reports.
Don’t expect to see too much of this project on the blog anytime soon. OI 9.4 development will shortly be old hat and I’ll keep the progress updates for when I dive into OI10.
In the meantime, watch for my conference updates via twitter and the blog during the conference week.
Martyn's RevSoft UK Blog 