Microsoft Visual C#

[Donovin]

Hi all,

I am looking at writing new software to replace an existing old DOS based
package our company uses for project cost estimating. I have downloaded and
started to learn the in's and out's of microsoft's visual c# but, as I get
more into it, I'm not sure whether it will be able to do all that I'm
looking for.

Basically what I need is:

1. To import a schedule of items from an Excel spreadsheet,
2. Using a database of resources, assign these to individual items in the
schedule and get a cost rate for that item,
3. Print reports that show the schedule items with associated resource costs
etc.

and a number of other functions.

I know this is a very broad question but, before I go and spend too much on
books etc, just wanted to see what kind of feedback I could get and whether
other packages would be more appropriate.

Regards

Donovin

 

[steve.falzon@]

Hi all,

I am looking at writing new software to replace an existing old DOS based
package our company uses for project cost estimating. I have downloaded and
started to learn the in's and out's of microsoft's visual c# but, as I get
more into it, I'm not sure whether it will be able to do all that I'm
looking for.

Basically what I need is:

1. To import a schedule of items from an Excel spreadsheet,
2. Using a database of resources, assign these to individual items in the
schedule and get a cost rate for that item,
3. Print reports that show the schedule items with associated resource costs
etc.

and a number of other functions.

I know this is a very broad question but, before I go and spend too much on
books etc, just wanted to see what kind of feedback I could get and whether
other packages would be more appropriate.

Regards

Donovin

Hi Donovin

I wouldn't worry about the capabilities of c#, the requirments you
give are achievable in c# or other .Net languages.

What is it that has made you doubt whether you can do these things?

By the way, I'd browse the web or usenet for examples of what you are
looking for rather than splash out on books. There are thousands of
fantastic resources on the net.

cheers
Steve

 

[Donovin]

Thanks for the info Steve,

Well, I have already started creating my project and have succesfully setup
the menus, forms and datasets that I need to start off with but, when I
started researching about importation of data from excel etc, I found very
little info. That got me a bit concerned because the package is no good to
me without the import from excel function.

Now, that I know this is possible, I can take it further.

regards,

Donovin

 

[sloan]

You can get to excel data through and IDataReader.

Here is a starter link:

http://aspalliance.com/958_CodeSnip_How_to_Query_and_Display_Excel_Data_in_GridView_Control


Try to NOT use the Excel object model for just reading data. And in an
asp.net application, you should try to avoid the excel object model
completely.

You can also just load the excel data into a dataset, but I prefer an
IDataReader.

 

[PS]

Thanks for the info Steve,

Well, I have already started creating my project and have succesfully
setup the menus, forms and datasets that I need to start off with but,
when I started researching about importation of data from excel etc, I
found very little info. That got me a bit concerned because the package is
no good to me without the import from excel function.

If the Excel spreadsheet is full of row based data then you can import it
using a datareader. I have never done this as for under $200 you can buy a
library that will read and write Excel files from tmssoftware.com. It is
called FlexCel and I found it to be excellent value.

PS