dirrection for simple record keeping app.

[nephish]

Hey there,
i have been spending some time learning python. i do enjoy it so.
Heres the deal. i need some dirrection advice.
i have a friend that wants me to set up a customer database for him.
Easy stuff like name, phone number, email address. and current status.
he also wants to be able to print this stuff out.
Heres the deal. He runs windows xp.
how could i write something to help him out ? i thought of glade, since
its gtk and gtk can use a windows runtime.... i also thought of making
something web-based and doing this with cgi scripts. but what would be
easier to learn.... using a database like mysql, or writing text files
and reading them to retrieve the info. The scripting itself could just
be a simple dictionary... so........
any suggestions?
thanks

 

[Chris Lambacher]

As much as I hate to suggest anything Microsoft, you would probably
save yourself a lot of work by using MS Access. That is what it is
designed for.

That said mySQL is probably a bit of a sledgehammer solution to the
problem. If you want a database, you might want to look at SQLite.
Is is pretty lightweight has python bindings and runs out of a file.

pyGTK is one good option. wxWidgets is another. pyGTK tends to be a
bit more unix centric while wxWidgets is more Windows centric. pyGTK
is nicer to program in, but wxWidgets will give you more of what you
need. Printing in Windows is hard (one of the advantages of MS Access
is that it will take care of that for you) but wxWidgets apparently
has a printing framework that you could use.

Of course if you are already familliar with HTML and javascript, CGI
route is a good one. It is easy to get a decent user interface set up
pretty quickly with CGI and printing is taken care of by the browser.
Multiuser is taken care of almost automatically. The main
disadvantage is you need a web server and a connection to the web
server whenever you want to use your system.

That should get you going,
-Chris

 

[nephish]

wow thanks,
i think i am going to check out sqlite.
acce$$ is not possible because of the cash. ick.
i am interested in learning the code anyway, but just want to learn
python instead of
javascript right now.
i have a simple cgi-script working to display info to the browser (from
apache)
but the script will not let me write the info to a text file.
if you are keen, perhaps you could help me find the error in my script?

thanks for your help by the way... still a real newbie here.