[Web-erp-developers] Re: Code as promised...

[Phil D. <ph...@du...>]

Hi Shane,

It looks great and I agree the overall appeal of the system has lifted
greatly - first impressions count a whole lot.

The difficulty is that with a big restrucuture like this inevitably the risk
is high that we introduce problems. I'm desperately keen to avoid these at
least in the distribution files. So in the short term my focus will be on
ensuring we do in fact have the latest files updated with the includes
header.inc sesssion.inc etc and that all the scripts work as intended so we
can release a new distribution archive with the new look. Your help in this
would be most appreciated. If you could fire off files to me as and when
that would be preferable to a complete zip of the whole lot otherwise its a
devil of a job to pick through all the files to figure out the changes. So
if you modify a file send it off there and then so I can incorporate it
straight away. The likelyhood of us both working on the same script at the
same time is minimised.

Sounds like there is no problem with .gifs anymore - great.

The focus for me for the future is:

Bug fixes and quality improvement as the major focus.

Shipment costing - integrated a shipment costing system into accounts
payable. Much of the work is done but have not got into finishing it off.

Conversion to R & OS pdf.php class for the balance of the reports - although
this may cause some difficulty for Sherif/Hani doing the conversion to
multi-language/localisation I understand that this class we are using has
some problems with foreign fonts. However, the pdflib pricing is astronmical
in a commercial environment and part of the fun of all this is doing for $0
what costs USD$35k from 1st tier software companies. I am holding off on
developing down this track while Hani works through the issues for
localisation.

Manufacturing functionality will then become a focus for me:
Work Orders
Work order issues of material
Work order receipts of manufactured stock
Labour issued to works orders - labour recovery and overhead recovery GL
postings.
Work orders outstanding
Work order cost report
Work order closing and cost updates/variance posting for usage and
efficiency variances.
Master production schedule maintenance
Material requirements planning - suggested works orders and suggested
purchase orders.

In general increasing the breadth of functionality ultimately so I could use
it the manufacturing business I am CFO for.

Things that would also be great and have large scale appeal to the business
community (I think) would be:

1. EDI standards compliant XML  based transactions with third parties. This
is an area I don't know much about although I have written a script to send
an order to a 3rd party warehouse for picking and packing in a format
required by the Radio Beacon warehouse management software used by some of
the logistics warehouse. I had some knowledge here. I guess this script
could be adapted quite easily to sending orders to suppliers in  formats
required by the supplier. But I am an XML dummy and have no knowledge. EDI
is a complex area and there are a number of standards - which of course
means there is no standard!

2. Point of Sale functionality. I have very limited knowledge here.

3. Bar coding and warehouse management functionality reading bar codes into
the browser window off a RF reader for picking inventory for sales orders.
Which could interface back to the confirm_DispatchInvoice.php script perhaps
for automated invoicing based on quantities picked. Dispatch labels, freight
company interfaces for freight ticketing or charging.

4. Lot control and serialisation of inventory. I think someone is working on
this.

5. Customer relationship management. Call logs, specific requirements,
rebates structure calculations etc. Incentives recording.

I have been  avoiding payroll - mainly because this is so specific to the
country and that to replicate stand alone software that is not really meant
for networking in a system which is all about networking and sharing of
information seems pointless.

Alco Ventures may have specific requirements and you may as well put into
the system the functionality you need. There is far too much to do.

Many ... many thanks for your contribution!

Phil


----- Original Message -----
From: "Shane Barnaby" <SBa...@al...>
To: <ph...@du...>
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 6:34 AM
Subject: RE: Code as promised...


> Phil,
>
> I'm happy that you like the overall idea. I didn't expect you to
incorporate
> the changes so quickly. :)
>
> I have been making websites 'look good' for a long time. I think your
logic
> is good and it is what attracted us to web-erp. I'm not an accountant. :)
> When you put the two together I believe the system will be functional and
> easy to use.
>
> I read in the developers section of sourceforge that there are issues with
> the Netscape browser. I had to warn that I didn't do much testing on the
> changes I made when I sent the files. This was kind of a "first crack" at
> getting into the code for me. I had intended to test my changes further if
> you liked the ideas.
>
> As you can tell, I am new to the open source community and you may have to
> steer me in the right direction now and again. The use of GIF is a habit.
> PNG or JPG will work as well. (However, as a point of interest, I think
the
> LZW (GIF file format) patent expired this year. I also don't think
> CompuServe intends on renewing the patent.) The use of the Microsoft
> Graphics was just as place holders. (I didn't feel like drawing them at
the
> time :)) I never intended them for distribution.
>
> In answer to your comments:
>
> 1. I intended the image directory to be for images that will not change.
The
> logo.jpg would be a good example of this as you mentioned. I did not
intend
> the part_pics directory to change.
>
> 2. I always encourage segmenting the code into common directories. Having
a
> directory for scripts is very common. Things have a tendency to grow fast.
>
> I set myself up with a CVS tool so I can monitor the changes posted at
> sourceforge. Now that you have posted the changes, I will tidy things up
and
> test with some other browsers. At Alco, we have been primarily a Microsoft
> shop and we are trying to change that. We have a habit of using the IE6
> browser which can hide errors other browsers do not.
>
> If there is anything you would like me to focus on let me know.
>
> Shane Barnaby
> Web Administrator
> Alco Ventures Inc.
> sba...@al...
> www.alcoventures.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Daintree [mailto:ph...@du...]
> Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 10:55 PM
> To: Shane Barnaby
> Cc: web...@li...
> Subject: Re: Code as promised...
>
>
> Shane,
>
> This is brilliant - it really lifts the system graphically - there is a
fair
>
> amount of work in there too clearly you have put in a couple of hours to
get
>
> it to this point!
>
> It actually makes more room for the data by reducing the size of the
header
> and moving the copyright stuff down in the footer where it probably
belongs.
>
> I guess I was minimising the work for the parser by reducing the number of
> includes. (he said trying to make excuses for the woeful appearance of the
> old version by comparison!)
>
> I did like the company logo on the screen - though the point is well made
it
>
> was too heavy on real estate. The logo.jpg is still required on reports -
> inovices statements etc. I am not sure where the logo.jpg should live -
> wouldn't want it to depend on the theme so perhaps leave it in the root
> directory ??
>
> I am amazed at what you have done with a minimal amount of additional
> graphics.
>
> Is the images directory meant to replace the part_pics directory ?? But
you
> still refer to the part_pics directory in the config.php also have the
> images
> under the theme directory under css. I see the css/theme/images directory
> purpose but am a little confused on what the /images directory is for.
>
> I notice the icons are microsoft ones - I'd be keen to avoid these... I
also
> thought the use of .gifs was a problem - we certainly don't want any
> legal trouble. In the meantime I changed the icons to open source ones - I
> am
> completely relaxed about which ones are used except anything that lands a
> lawsuit on me should be avoided :-)
>
> Some structure to the files is appropriate, now there are getting to be
> quite
> a number of scripts. I was a fan of putting the whole lot in the same
> directory so the newbie developer doesn't have to hunt down the file he's
> after. However, the directory includes should give the game away adequetly
I
>
> think!
>
> There are a number of other files that probably belong under the includes
> directrory ie they are never called on their own but from some other
script.
> config.php ?
> class.pdf.php
> RFC822.php
> htmlMimeMail.php
> mimePart.php
> smtp.php
> DefineCartClass.php
> DefineJournalClass.php
> DefinePaymentClass.php
> DefinePOClass.php
> DefineReceiptClass.php
> DefineSuppAllocClass.php
> DefineCustAllocsClass.php
> DefineSuppTransClass.php
> FailedLogin.php
> Login.php
> Logout.php
>
>
> I have no problem with renaming the header.inc - session.inc and
> HeaderTitle.inc header.inc except for the work in doing so and in
modifying
> all the files that refer to them !! it does make more sense the way you
have
>
> it.
>
>
> I LOVE the WebERP+ logo!
>
>
> I have found a few bugs and will work through them:
>
> On some pages the footer appears at the top left of the page over the
titles
> -
> supplierallocations.php I didn't look into why but it'll be simple to fix
> I'm
> sure.
>
> The SelectItems.php table of options - that comes up when an item is
> selected
> - is missing some headings - again a simple one I guess.
>
> Clearly, I have seriously neglected the visuals on the system to date and
> your
> input here looks as though its going to be fantastic. My focus has always
> been on the function with my asthetic sense whilst not offended clearly
not
> well developed. It's really good to have some input here to complement my
> shortcomings!
>
> I think I have brought in all of your code now and I have re-applied the
> latest bug fixes I have done.
>
> Many thanks for this substantial contribution.
>
> Phil
>
> On Saturday 30 August 2003 07:00, you wrote:
> > Phil Daintree,
> >
> > As mentioned in my last email, attached is a zip file of the code.
> >
> > Shane Barnaby
> > Web Administrator
> > Alco Ventures Inc.
> > sba...@al... <mailto:sba...@al...>
> > www.alcoventures.com <http://www.alcoventures.com/>
> > tell: 604.513.2527
> > fax: 604.513.2528
>
>