I have not had much luck previously when trying to develop small projects in Baan using the Open Source methodolgy. This I believe has changed with the advent of Baanboard (thank you Pat). There is a small group working on creating and alpha testing an editor I announced (http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=317) a week or so ago (thanks esp to Mark Holland on this project).

When answering this (http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=353) thread I thought of reviving my pet project. The problem of not having the source has been tackled by many people in many ways. I would like to create the equivalent of QKEY (http://www.redklay.com/oursolERP.html) in an open source manner. If you are a knowledgeable Baan programmer interested in this project, please email me at vamsi@who.net.

~Vamsi,

Your post reminded me of another solution people have been searching for - including me. The old 'Page x of y' problem. That is one I would like to see solved. I have yet to see a good solution to that problem. I would not mind participating in a solution for that. Not sure I would have time to assist in your request - I still need to finish working on the baan.api file for the editor. By the way thanks again for the editor.

Also since Kevin Brock developed QKEY, creating a open source solution to his product may not be a way to entice him to once again post his 'fabled' solution. :):)

Our site already uses QKEY and the product is very useful. The one problem that I see with it is that you can not replace or make adjustments to subroutines in a program. You can only work with the events - after.input,after.write,etc. You may want to keep that in mind.

Mark

Vamsi,

I applaud your idea of open source for Baan :) Though there is little I can contribute as I have no programming skills. Yet if there is a way in which *baanboard* can assist I would be glad to lend a hand!

May your venture be successful :)

People who are familiar with my postings on Baanfans would know that I have been a strong proponent of QKEY (and a loyal fan of Kevin :) himself) even though I have not been able to convince any of my 4 clients in the last three years to buy it :(.

The principle in QKEY is a simple one and something that people have been using for a long time. QKEY makes it easy to use the principles in a simple way. I don't think we would have a product that would compete with QKEY - we still would not have support (very important for a lot of companies here in the US) nor the ease of use offered by QKEY.

As for the "x of y" problem I was beginning to think it may have been something like the Fermat's Problem... Fermat supposedly had a solution (now lost) which has not yet been solved by modern mathematicians :).

Kevin is on this forum (klayvessel) and hopefully he will atleast tell us if there is such a solution or not - even if he chooses not to share it (which is very unlike him).

Yes QKEY is a very good product and I am sorry your customers did not elect to purchase it. Even if we did own the source code I would still rather use QKEY so I did not have to modify Baan code. What do people do when Baan releases patches and they have modified the source? I could not imagine having to redo changes to incorporate new code Baan.

Did not know Kevin was a member of this board. I thought he might have left the Baan arena since he stopped posting on the other board. Glad to see he is still around and I hope he reads this thread. I would appreciate any answer from Kevin.

I will try to help when time allows.


Mark

Sure Vamsi, am interested let me know if I can help you out in any way.

Yes QKEY is a very good product and I am sorry your customers did not elect to purchase it. Even if we did own the source code I would still rather use QKEY so I did not have to modify Baan code. What do people do when Baan releases patches and they have modified the source? I could not imagine having to redo changes to incorporate new code Baan.

In fact, this is what we face. We either retrofit Baan's changes into our version, or take Baan's new version and put our changes back in, whichever is easier.

This becomes a long, tedious project when it comes time to install a Service Pack.

I hadn't heard of QKEY until reading some posts on this board. If we had known about this product long ago, it might have saved us alot of grief. Then again, I've no idea what the cost of it is...

You could check with Redklay on the cost. But it is worth it in the long run. Another option is to look at Vamsi's Source (http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/showthread.php?s=&threadid=559). His code does appear to work and maybe would solve some of the conversion problems. Without knowing what changes you have made it is hard to say if it is worth converting your changes to any of the solutions. I still have some of our sessions to convert. Sigh. So much work so little time. :)


Mark

Hi folks!

Yes, this is Kevin Brock from RedKlay...it's been a long time. Thanks for all the complements about QKEY.

I've not posted for a long time as I was out for 6 months this year (in Africa on a sabatical). I've also been leading a development team for the last two years (since late 1999), so have not really had time to spend on the boards.

Tonight I just decided to stop by and noticed some QKEY posts.

As for the "x of y" problem (I assume you're talking about report page counts)....my original solution was a general solution and did not require any changes to the original report. If the old baanfans.com is down or unsearchable, then this solution is lost "to the world"...save that I have an archived copy of it. I have learned some things since those days so the solution could be even better -- that is there would be no need to change either the session or the report.

Hi Kevin,

Hope you can stop by more often in the future. Your contributions are always much appreciated :)