Windows Language 1

[PKonnerup]

Hello,

My objective is to make a simple FEA program with a GUI for a Windows (Vista/7 32/64bit) platform. My skills in programming goes as far Matlab scripts, so you can easily say I’m a newbie to programming.

My question is: Which language will with 'simple' programming (as similar to scripting as possible) enable me to make a program with a GUI?

I just need a place to start and a language to learn. Is it VB, VBS, Java or a variation of C or a totally different language I should look at? And also if you could point me towards some literature (book, tutorial or webpage) I’d appreciate the help.

Thanks in advance
P

 

[IDS]

Why not use a program that already has the GUI done for you; i.e. a spreadsheet?

You can use VBA to get things working, and concentrate on the FEA aspects, and link to compiled routines later if you need to.

I develop a frame analysis program in Excel, starting from a single beam analysis here:

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/frame-analysis-with-excel-1-single-beam/

Follow links in the comments for later installments, or search the blog for "Frame Analysis with Excel"

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[xwb]

You could do the utility as an .hta - basically the same as a web page but it is an application.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd742317.aspx

http://computer-programming-tutorials.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_windows_hta_tutorial

The great thing about htas is that they've been around since Windows 95 - it will work on all versions and you don't need anything special. They can be written in any language supported by IE

 

[Brad1979]

I used to work for a fairly large company and used Matlab everyday and even wrote quite a few GUI's in Matlab. When I left that job for a smaller company, I found out they didn't have a Matlab license so I went searching for some free alternatives. I looked at SciLab, Octave and a couple others but ultimately settled on Pythonxy. Website:

http://www.pythonxy.com/

Pythonxy is a distribution of Python that is built for scientific/engineering development. It comes with NumPy and SciPy, which are packages that have many common scientific and engineering functions. It includes a tool called Spyder which has a user interface that is similar to Matlab. It comes with PyQt, which is a great tool for making GUI's.

One warning, though. You'll want to make sure you have a good grasp of Python (and object oriented programming in general) before you start GUI programming.

 

[IDS]

Brad - I hadn't heard of PythonXY - it looks great! (although not exactly compact at 400 MB+ for the full download).

I still think a spreadsheet would be more appropriate for the OP's needs though!

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/