Here is some feedback I would like:
1. Which languages are best and pros/cons of each for our purposes.
2. Estimated budgets.
3. Estimated timelines.
** Ultimately, I was thinking of contraction out to Asia / India and hoping 2-3 months tops.
** All graphics, icons, etc. provided, programming only.
Here are more details to the project:
Overview: Multimedia application for showing and playing videos.
Specs:
- The main page will include a splash image on 1/2 of the screen and icons and titles on the other half.
- Each icon represents a category, once clicked a dropdown menu appears that lists aprox. 10-20 titles, if clicked it takes you to a content page.
- A content page includes a video, player controls, title and text beside it.
- All pages will have icons along the top for config (switch languages, and minor config features), favourites, series (playlist), search, and slidemaker.
- The slidemaker is a tool that allows people to add their own videos, images, etc. to existing presentations or make their own presentations from scratch.
- The software will be protected with a hardware security key that links to registration information. If the key is removed the software should exit (with a loop checking if the key is plugged in everything 15 seconds).
- I would prefer that this key authentication tool be a separate application that is built in and runs as a system process or within the software. Essentially, the "player tool" communicates with the licensing server (built in to the player or separate" that asks if the key is still plugged in or not, then the software proceeds if the answer is yes. This request is so that we can offer network versions of the software with only distributing 1 hardware license key (we already have a licensing server ready that does this...so it can maybe be integrated into this new application).
- The education maker should include tools to draw basic shapes, add and edit textboxes, change the colour of text.
- Everything must be Mac and PC compatible.
- Some config tools include the ability to reorder menu lists, colour code certain titles within the menu, auto play features & loop on/off for the playlist.
- I would like the program to run at a minimum of 1024x768, but scale for widescreen and larger monitors (only the white space in the background needs to scale).
- I would like to have all of the videos included in a central library and then added to the categories from there. Therefore, if someone "Deletes" a video from a list/category, it still can be brought back form the central library and thru the education maker (so files are never deleted).
- It is absolutely essential that the program is configured thru .ini / .xml pages or something similar so that it can be completely customizable. ie: The base code should be a "shell" that imports the splash screen, category images, logo, categories, icons, titles, etc. from other files (.ini / .xml or something like that). These config files will also be used for layout.
- Ultimately, this means the programming creates a player / shell. The shell is "populated" by config files that allow us to create a handful of different software programs that use the same code but may or may not look 100% different....dependant on the categories, videos, content, titles, splash screen that we add separately in the config files.
- When someone clicks on a video title form the main screen, it loads the video, player, content based on a .xml / .txt or something similar that provides the layout of that page (coordinates), the content to load in the text box, the link to the video to play, etc.
- This also means that our software can easily be multilingual, since everything would be stored in config files.
- The ability to search hard drive paths for more data / if folders exist is also essential. ie: To see if multiple editions of the software are installed, and if yes allow for a dropdown menu / an item on the config menu to switch back and forth between applications (essentially no switching is performed, but the splash screen and categories are re-loaded).
Thanks in advance for your opinions on which languages are best.
thanks,
Cam.
Linear Mode
