If Goldenseal Pro were a construction project, framing and utility rough-ins would now be done (mostly), and drywall would be starting. It’s that satisfying period when the interior transitions from a 2×4 maze, to actual rooms. Or, from a software point of view, the code is starting to look like a real estimating/accounting program.
Goldenseal’s software interface has six functional modes: data entry, finding records, reports, custom layouts, printing, and accounting actions. The first two are now working, and we just started on reports. The six modes have very similar programming, so we will continue on them in that order until they’re all functional.
Work is progressing quickly enough that we probably will focus on just the Mac version for a while. The goal is to complete enough that we can start using it to run TurtleSoft. That’s a huge milestone, since we can then test daily under real-life conditions, with real business data. In the software world, this is known as “eating your own dog food”. Best estimate is a month or possibly two, to get that far.
After that, it shouldn’t take long for the Windows version to catch up. Working with the MFC library on Windows is easier than Cocoa on Mac, and the prep work in our existing code will already be done.
Our programming staff has definitely ascended far up the “learning curve” for the new language and libraries needed to build Goldenseal Pro. We are zipping right along!
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com