Carrier Companion News

We would like your input of what we can include or change in the new program. Since this is a new build, we are open to make it as diverse as possible. For example, we are now included input for Social Security numbers, as well as vehicle make and model for Schedule C forms, and may be including telephony so you can call customers by using your voice modem and headset.

If you deliver phone books, or even flyers, we want to include you too! Drop us an e-mail, and let us know!

administrator@carriercompanion.com
or
ryan@carriercompanion.com

Thank you!

After some research, we can finally start wrapping up the design of Carrier Companion 2008 (This was a grueling task, believe me).  Now, when you enter a value in a data field on a form, a red box will surround the text with a tool tip telling you of the error. We want stop the input process if there are errors, so we will be looking into the code to see if we can do this.

Also on the list is adding a reflection to the title bar of the program. We wanted to give it a truly awe inspiring look and feel. This way it is fun to use as well as informative. We’re trying to make history by being the first Newspaper Carrier Software Company to release a Line Of Business (LOB) software with the look and feel that is unique. And to rid the drab of grids and lists.

One more thing we wanted to look into was giving the program a 3D feel. Of coarse if you don’t have the requirements then the program will revert to standard 2D so it won’t render performance.

After all that it’s simply taking a bunch of pieces and placing them into a perfect picture. Giving the vision we see onto the desktop of newspaper carriers!

We are now looking into the weather ribbon. We wanted to have this ribbon on the top under the title. The weather will query a chosen web service or RSS feed and display the weather in your general area through images. When you hover over the image it will display the details. Or, we can place the detail under the image.

We may also include the weather in the title reflection. For example, if the forecast predict rain,  then the reflection will have drops of water, or on a clear day/night, the title will have a sun or stars in the background. This is so you can quickly see what your weather will be like during the delivery hours. Of coarse, if you are not connected to the WWW, Carrier Companion will not display these things.

We also wanted to remind users that the new Carrier Companion will not have an expiration to it. Instead it will only limit the amount of information you can insert into the data file. This way, you can use a full version at home, for example, and use a trial version on another computer. The trial will allow you to change the existing data (short of renaming complaints, statuses, etc…), but will not allow you to add data.

WPF is very versatile on displaying a dynamic user interface, and we feel this is truly the future of windows programming. It is just the matter of finding it’s limits, and working around them.

Ok, after some trial and error, we may of found a way for date entry in Carrier Companion. There were other programmers that have ran into the same problem with date and time, as well as other type of input (including SSN, Zip Code, etc…). We will be looking into those in the next few days since carriers entry now can track SSN for tax purposes.

But as far as date entry, we may just have a drop down menu for the month and day and a text box for the year. Or we could just have a text box for all three.

We’re finding the Windows Presentation Foundation can make compelling user interfaces, but it lacks components for user input. Nevertheless, we can work around that since we want to create a program that feels like a web browser since that is what most computer users are used to. Let’s face it, most people browse the web with their computer, so why not make a program that has a familiar interface. Even Turbo Tax uses a web interface in their program.

Ok, we wanted to keep you updated, so you won’t think our production has stalled. Now back to work!