User Interface - Advice Required

[Imtiaz Murtaza]

Dear friends, I developed an application in Visual C++. The application is completed and successfully deployed. Clients are satisfied as all their requirements are fulfilled. In our application, there is a feature of 'scripting' i.e Users can enter their formula using VBScript, and then our application loads the script dynamically and executes it. Now the problem is that users are having problem while manually entering formula. Users don't know how to code in VBScript. Ofcourse, VBScript is easy for all of us; but not for the general public. Now you can say that we should hardcode all the formulas..no..this is not possible. Users define their own conditions using the formulas, ard there can be thousands of conditions..and..thats why we provided them scripting support. We want to make the process of formula creation, somewhat user friendly. And i want your suggestions in this regard. If you know any such application that provides userinterface for entering formula, then please tell me about it, so that i can take impression from it. And please give your advices in this regard. Thanks a lot. Imtiaz

[Maximilien]

what do you mean by "general public" ? as soon as there's an option for the user to enter new commands ( in you case, formulas ), it is a feature for power users; meaning that the user who need to enter such data will need to work a bit on their side to learn the scripting language, especially if it was part of the requirements. Also, if this feature is really important, then, you can't underestimate the need to ship documentation for the scripting language, with as many example and sample you can offer.

---

Maximilien Lincourt Your Head A Splode - Strong Bad

[toddbrooks]

Why not create a form or dialog or even a wizard that walks the user through creating a formula with drop downs, checkboxes, ie. standard UI controls and create the script behind the scenes? That allows your users to create custom formulas and at the same time, prevents them from having to learn a scripting language.

[peterchen]

Why not provide a "tutorial by example" first? Much more powerful than a wizard

---

we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is Vonnegut jr.
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen

[Tareq Ahmed Siraj]

Well, its almost the same as Truistic said ... i saw something like this in the Wise Installation Studio scripting (yours may be a lot simpler than that ... ) editor. goto wise.com and download the trial version of wise installation system 9 (if you own a copy... its even better) and see how their scripting editor operates... maybe this will give you some idea on what your clients would like to have. - tareq

[Henry miller]

If the most of the formulas are variations on a theme you can provide them in a simple torturial. Provide the best documentation you can. Direct it at programers. Tell customers that programers can be hired to write these scripts. Perhaps even have a list of those willing to do the work. For many customers the correct action is to have a standard contract rate to write them for the customers. Make sure you are fairly expensive, because you provide the highest quality results. That is you don't ask them for the math to translate into their program, you spend time finding out their needs in detail, to make sure it is the right thing for them.