[NTLUG:Discuss] Office forms

[Kevin Brannen]

Randall Gibson wrote:
> 
>         Well, I have tried about all Office packages, and Word processors that I can, and none seem to support Forms and most dont have any of the features like text boxes and drop down menu's. I could not try Wordperfect (Office) 2K because there is, as far as I can tell, a free download for it. Same with ApplixWare. I am not going to pay for them if I am not sure they will do as I need. I have no problem with paying for software, even in Linux, but not throwing it to the wind :)
>         Just thought I would give you all a update because I personally like to hear back on the resolution of things posted to the lists, especially if I was one of the people that have tried to help out :) Thanks for all the input with my problem. Hopefully a soon planed major upgrade of system will be done, fixing my speed problems :)


You could always resort to "rolling your own".  If the forms are reasonably
simple, a person could knock out a Perl/Tk app in short order.  Some labels,
text boxes, and option-menus are pretty easy.  Your problem may be with output
form, you'd get text of some sort (normal text, or CSV format, or whatever
else you can print).

If you don't know Perl or TK, there's always C, Tcl, and other languages; plus
Gtk, Qt, Xaw, and other GUIs.  Heck, you could also do it in CGI and use it
via a Web browser (local on your machine) and let it do the graphics.  Output
would still be in ASCII text.

Probably not as easy on you, but it could be done.  [You've probably already
considered this, but I don't recall it being mentioned anywhere.]

As for your speed problems, a faster CPU would help; but more memory may help
more.  Something to consider.  I recently upgraded to 256M and find that I can
run Netscape, Vmware, plus all my xterms with room to spare.  Performance is
quite reasonable (OK, I've got a 500Mhz P3, but it wasn't as reasonable when I
only had 128M).

Kevin