Programmers, please point me in the right direction

[dwest100]

Hi folks,
I'm a self employed website developer and I am very busy with many, many tasks each day. I finally found an excellent little task manager (link below) that is almost perfect for me and my work flow. There are no others like it (believe me I searched and searched) and I don't want or need an "Organizer".

The problem is I would like to have some simple features added to the app and the developer is not interested even though I offered to pay him.

So, I've got to create the thing myself from scratch to get what I need and I'm not a programmer per se. I'm am capable though and if pointed in the right direction, I'll get what I want.

So, would some kind soul download and take a look at the app and the files involved in the package and answer these questions for me?

What language would I need to use to develop such an app? It's writing to and manipulating a text file that might be XML but it doesn't look "well formed". The GUI is standard Windows so I suppose its written in VB6. It's just displaying the text files in the display window.

What tools/controls should I pursue to create this?

Please offer any insight on how this little app works and how best to go about creating my own version of it.

Here is the link:

http://www.4thsoftware.com/download.html

I'm not interested in the server version so don't bother with that.

Many thanks!!

 

[johnwm]

Rather than re-invent the wheel, why not try MS Outlook, which already does most of what you need, and provides a programmable interface for you to tweak as you need. The download you point us to is an exe, and could have been written in any of a dozen languages

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[dwest100]

Thanks for the reply but Outlook is precisely what I'm trying to get away from.

I'm well aware of what it can do and how it can be programmed. I've laid out plenty of money on several third party add-ins that clunk and bang along and sort of do what I need. Unfortunately it's so bloated with features I don't need that I'm just sick of the complicated nature of it and not getting what I need out of it. It doesn't fit what I need to know in the course of my daily work. and is far too complicate a piece of software to accomplish what I need to accomplish.

I am simply moving toward apps that do exactly what I need and nothing more. It benefits the hardware, the hard disk space, and my patience

So, the question still stands....what tools and language would be best for developing this sort of app?

 

[chiph]

You can try one of the sites like rentacoder.com, but I suspect you aren't going to like how much it will cost you.

The reason why it will cost so much is that the developer will be writing code just for you, so all the development costs aren't spread around, like they would be if you (or they) were selling 2000 copies. An axiom in the software industry is that if you spend $250,000 to create a product, the first disc you ship just cost you $250,000. However, the second disc you ship only costs you $1.89 (the lesson is to sell in volume ... if you have a volume of 1, then thats where all the costs go).

Best of luck.
Chip H.


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