Tim Santeford » .Net

Document Management System (Developer & Graphic Designer)

Tim Santeford — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:39:51 +0000

I’m currently co-developing a massive enterprise level web application used by fortune 500 companies and government contractors. The application includes user roles and permissions, advanced reporting using separate reporting servers, custom APIs for interfacing with client internal systems, custom workflow processing for internal approval processes, inventory tracking, and regulatory threshold monitoring. The application includes fully customizable data driven forms that allow application engineers tailor the application for specific customer needs. The application also supports translation into over 900 languages and even allows customers to override any text with their own jargon.

As part of a 6 person development team, my primary roles are co-architect of core features, progressive enhancement specialist, and primary graphic designer.

Project Specs
Role	Developer/Graphic Designer
Platform	.Net 2.0/3.0
Database	SQL Server 2000/2005

Touchscreen Kiosk (Developer & Graphic Designer)

Tim Santeford — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 07:39:02 +0000

This application is designed to allow employee access to emergency preparedness and response documentation. The app can be run directly from a standard desktop or from a standalone touchscreen unit located directly in hazardous work environments. The application uses a local Access database to store searchable document text and document attributes. The interface provides document search capabilities by allowing the user to use an optional onscreen keyboard. The kiosk has a theme engine that uses xml skin files to allow customer’s to easily re-theme and re-brand the interface. Control size and location can also be configured. I implemented custom GDI painting routines that allows the usage of transparent PNG images for a delicious alpha blended layering effect. In addition to the advanced GDI painting, I created skinable labels and buttons that are capable of auto scaling font sizes to fit oversize text strings. This was important due to the fact that there is no control over how long translated text will be in other languages. The controls will even wrap text in an attempt to prevent text from being clipped at the edge of the control.

Atalasoft PDF rasterizer was used in conjunction with custom page caching to load PDF pages with a background thread. This allows users to immediately view the first page of the document while the rest of the document was loaded. I also create an export routine that exported the kiosk documents from a document share and information from a SQL server database into a Access database. The finishing touch was to add a language menu start page that renders each available language in is actual language characters.

Project Specs
Role	Sole Developer/Sole Graphic Designer
Platform	.Net 2.0
Database	Access
Extra	GDI Painting, Font Scaling, PDF Rendering

UPC Inventory Tracking

Tim Santeford — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:48:33 +0000

This thick client / server project was developed as an inventory package to be used in a touch screen environment. The client application takes advantage of WPF animation effects to create a fluid and user friendly interface. The server side is a PC based web service connected to a SQL Server 2005 database. The system was designed to track location and inventory based on UPCs or custom barcodes that uniquely identify containers. The client application is capable of generating and printing labels to affix to containers found without barcodes. The client application synchronizes via wireless or cellular network when a connection becomes available.

SQL Server Express proved to be a good choice for the client side data storage and ran surprisingly fast with large data sets event on portable 1.3Ghz mobile device. I was able to achieve sub minute synchronization times by using a streamline serialization method developed in an earlier inventory project. I would highly recommend using the Toughbook U1 to anyone in need of a fast and rugged portable solution.

Hardware
Panasonic Toughbook U1

Project Specs
Role	Sole Developer
Platform	WPF
Database	Client: SQL Express/Server: SQL Server
Database Size	15 tables with record counts in the 50k-100k range