Inventory Online
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tyman00
Joined: 2002-08-02
Posts: 107 |
Posted: Mon, 2003-06-30 07:00
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Hello All, my father just told me he would like me to design a site for our family buisiness. This would include providing an online inventory (with details) for each of our trailers that we are selling. Our inventory is actually over 370 trailers new and used. I thought I would use Gallery to complete this task because I have learned enough about the customization of the program already. My question is this... what would my benifits be in waiting for G2? If I were to customize with the latest version of 1.x would I be able to carry everything over? Am I making the right move in selecting Gallery, or is there something better out there for use online? Open Source would be great, and high price tags will create problems for us. Thanks for your input! |
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Posts: 314
You basically have two options here:
- Use Gallery 1.3.4, especially if you already have some experience with it. The custom fields will allow you to enter all kinds of specific information. You should be able to convert all this data to Gallery 2 when it's ready.
- Build your own site, based on a database with all the information (I assume you have that anyways). This is a lot more work though.
The only drawback of using Gallery is the fact that it can't be integrated easily with an existing database, and you would have to make all changes and modifications to your data twice (once in your database and once in Gallery).
Posts: 107
Well, the thing is this. Our business has been running a DOS based database system for the last 8-9 years. Well our system is old and tired (lovely old 386's). So we are going to rebuild our network and then operate in another database system.
If any of you are familiar with the program we used Great Plains Software (small company based out of ND, now owned by Microsoft) and we are going to convert everything over into QuickBooks. ( Is this an ok program )
But our trailer inventory is done a little differently. We just want an online website where we can show our inventory with just a few details (length, color, brand, and other needed comments) and then a picture.
I am no programmer, so building our own site and database would be a pain for me, and no one else has enough computer knowledge for this, so we need to stick with what I can alter... and Gallery seems to be a good solution, especially when I know what I need to alter.... plus with G2 comming up... it looks even more promising.
So simply said gallery and our database do not need to be combined or need to work together. At least for now. Maybe in the future... and then I can work on it then as I will be trying to learn more programming.
Posts: 3473
G2 is a completely separate code base from G1, it's been redesigned from scratch. So my advice would be to manage as best you can with vanilla G1, and don't start your customizations until you move to G2.
Posts: 107
Thank you, but I need to have this developed and out by a large seminar we are going to. So I will need to have this done in less than a month as it looks.
I have not been following the development of G2 so forgive me when I ask when is G2 expected to be released?
I guess I will have customize it, and if it does not work with G2 then I will just have to start over again.
But thank you all for your input.
Posts: 314
G2 will probably reach alpha stage within a month (according to Bharat in this post). Considering that you shouldn't even use bèta software for a production site, I really suggest to just start using Gallery 1.3.4, since it has all you need. The custom fields can be used to display length, color, brand, and other needed comments. The main customisations will probably be in the design and graphics area and you be able to use a lot of these when redesigning your site for Gallery 2. But my guess is that G2 won't be a production version for another half a year (judging by the development so far).