Web Developement Advice

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fdaniels

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2006
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898
Hey guys,

I've got a million years of software development in a huge array of languages, but I have done little to no web development. Currently I am tasked to 'fix' up a web based tool for internal use.

This is what it does. It has fields that you can set (Time, timezone, periods, etc). And it has filters (stores a list of strings that is used to query a database). When you have configured your selection you can process it. The page will then update and show a bunch of graphs and hyperlinked entries in tables. Currently the graphs are being rendered by Perl scripts.

Here is my question. How do I beautify the website so to speak? It needs to be platform independent, so I don't think that Silverlight will be an option. Is Flash free? If not, are there any other APIs that I can use to do pretty graphs and tables with?

How about DHTML and Javascript? Sorry, as you can see I don't really know that much about web development :D
 
Nod

Nod

Honorary Master
Joined
Jul 22, 2005
Messages
10,057
What part do you want to beautify? If it is the basic look, then some CSS would work.
 
F

fdaniels

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2006
Messages
898
Definitely the basic look, at least initially. Also at the moment all the metrics are being output onto one long page. Though that is more of a design issue.

Edit: After looking at the source code I realised that the graphs are actually being rendered by ruby scripts.
 
Nod

Nod

Honorary Master
Joined
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Messages
10,057
It that case changing your CSS would work the easiest.

If you want to add a menu to get rid of the "one big page", that will take slightly more work depending on how complex the code are.
 
D

dequadin

Expert Member
Joined
May 9, 2008
Messages
1,434
fdaniels said:
Currently the graphs are being rendered by Perl scripts.

Here is my question. How do I beautify the website so to speak? It needs to be platform independent, so I don't think that Silverlight will be an option. Is Flash free? If not, are there any other APIs that I can use to do pretty graphs and tables with?
Click to expand...

Raphaël javascript library
 
DearHeart

DearHeart

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Joined
Jun 22, 2005
Messages
1,423
Man, if you are working for a company they can surely dish out a few Rands ;0) Adobe Flex Builder gives you beyond wet - watch out for steam: Dashboard Sample As a programmer your will instantly feel at home with feel at home with MXML and Actionscript, no artistic streak needed :p Imo, this is so 2010 :D And then, once you've mastered Flex and stunned your managment, they will give you a budget for ILOG Elixir
 
Last edited:
D

dequadin

Expert Member
Joined
May 9, 2008
Messages
1,434
DearHeart said:
Man, if you are working for a company they can surely dish out a few Rands ;0) Adobe Flex Builder gives you beyond wet - watch out for steam: Dashboard Sample As a programmer your will instantly feel at home with feel at home with MXML and Actionscript, no artistic streak needed :p Imo, this is so [-]2010 :D[/-] 2009 And then, once you've mastered Flex and stunned your managment, they will give you a budget for ILOG Elixir
Click to expand...

Fixed!

HTML5 is so 2010 :whistling:
 
F

fdaniels

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2006
Messages
898
DearHeart said:
Man, if you are working for a company they can surely dish out a few Rands ;0) Adobe Flex Builder gives you beyond wet - watch out for steam: Dashboard Sample As a programmer your will instantly feel at home with feel at home with MXML and Actionscript, no artistic streak needed :p Imo, this is so 2010 :D And then, once you've mastered Flex and stunned your managment, they will give you a budget for ILOG Elixir
Click to expand...

I work for a large multinational company. We are not allowed to install programs that require licenses, even if we own a private license for it. Secondly the red tape that I'd have to cross in order to get this will likely be hectic. Also this is not a business critical application so I doubt they will agree with my 'need'. Also while I do have a windows laptop, I pretty must just use it for outlook. Our development environment is red hat enterprise.
 
DearHeart

DearHeart

Expert Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2005
Messages
1,423
fdaniels said:
I work for a large multinational company. We are not allowed to install programs that require licenses, even if we own a private license for it. Secondly the red tape that I'd have to cross in order to get this will likely be hectic. Also this is not a business critical application so I doubt they will agree with my 'need'. Also while I do have a windows laptop, I pretty must just use it for outlook. Our development environment is red hat enterprise.
Click to expand...

Been there, done that... Suppose once a hacker, always a hacker. Reminds of "'n Boer maak 'n plan, met 'n tang en 'n stuk draad"
 
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