Estimate Files

A. SOFTWARE
===========
ESTIMATE is an Open Source, Web-based "Construction Estimating Software".
ESTIMATE has been released under GNU Affero General Public License.
Archives/Files on the Sourceforge:
1. Netbeans Project folder with full source code. Libraries/Jars required for building the Application have been included separately (not included in the source tar ball).
2. User Manual with System Requirements, Installation Instructions, details of Application features (PDF Document) and step-by-step introduction to all modules.
3. Libraries required for building the application from it's source. We encourage the developers to download/get the latest versions of the libraries from their respective distributions.
4. War file for deployment on Apache Tomcat Server. Current application has been deployed and tested on Apache Tomcat 7 and Mysql Database server 5.5.
5. Database dump for testing purpose only (WARNING: use only with a freshly initialized database).
6. Each new release will have it's own dedicated directory.

B. INSTALLATION
===============
Download the latest version of ESTIMATE from Sourceforge.
Read the CHANGELOG to know the difference between various releases.
You can either download the "war file" for direct installation (recommended) or you can build the application from it's source.
Please read the User Guide for detailed installation instructions.
If prompted for installation key, use any 25-character long string like the one given below:
XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

C. BUGS
=======
If you find one then please bring it to my notice.

D. WISHLIST
===========
1. Tender and Risk Management.
2. Internationalization (Language and Currency).
3. Report Generation in formats other than PDF, addition of new reports, customizations.
4. Augmentation of the User Interface.
5. Packaging and Installer.
6. System Integration with Project Management, Document Management and ERP Applications.
7. Code Documentation and Clean-up.
8. Reference Manual

E. DEVELOPMENT
==============
1. The user-interface of the application is completely database-driven. User Interface is separate from business logic of the application.
2. Interesting Places:
    a. WEB-INF/classes
    b. Go through com.wanhive.basic package and sub-packages inside the "src" directory to understand the under-lying framework.
    c. themes directory inside the web directory.
    d. "menu" table inside the database schema (search inside WEB-INF/classes directory).
3. Feel free to contact me in case of any query, but only after you have completely exhausted your brain-power.
4. The basic framework itself is use-case neutral, it can be easily modified and can be used for development of any entirely new web-based application.
5. Character sets used: latin-1 in database, ISO-8859-1 in web pages.
6. Documentation is incomplete. Keep looking inside the "Documents" folder.

F. SUPPORT/CONTACT
==================
1. Official web-site of ESTIMATE: http://estimate.wanhive.com
2. Twitter handle: wanhive
3. Subscribe to our mailing list on Sourceforge
4. Send me an email: amit (at) wanhive-(dot)-com