Open ERP - Training module demo - concepts

Today I did a first demo of the Open ERP training module.

Of course this is not 100% finished but it is becoming workable. My customer was seriously pleased by the flexibility of the application. Automating administrative communications to participants and automating invoicing is a key decision factor.

Still the product is missing functionality for planning... I expected that remark and hope that can be worked out soon.

Summarizing this kind of application is difficult. Although I did a demo - 3-4 hours. I wanted to have a one page summary of the key concepts of the module.

Trying to connect entities quickly turned out into a spaghetti plate... so I removed most of the links and just defined major areas of the application to group concepts together.

Mind-mapping software usually promote the vision of a tree, from central to auxiliary concepts, in such situation such a diagram becomes impossible. I will come back in a few weeks to this as I am preparing my review of "Everything is Miscellaneous" from David Weinberger. Simple hierarchical modeling and classification are subjects to many pages in the book. I hope to add a software developer, database designer, knowledge worker perspective on these subjects as I found this book interesting but highly frustrating...

Time for summer holidays

It is time for holidays. So a bit of desk cleaning and that's it. Two weeks for giving up with databases, Java, Python... projects, plannings and budgets. I am taking my portable of course, but that's basically for emergency only...

I finished my first Tony Buzan book. This was a bit general - the french title 'une tête bien faite', I think the original title is 'use your head', the book goes over fast reading, memory and mind-mappings (a subject I like more and more).

There is a lot to say about these subjects and Tony Buzan has written books dedicated to each of them -- I will continue investigating.

Following Tony Buzan recommendations, mind-maps should be graphical (including graphic but also being smartly shaped) and coloured. It is a shame that all software tools that I have see currently are implementing very regular organisation pattern and don't promote that much colors and graphics. Anyway, I recommend you this book.

On the Open ERP front line, I finished a small doc concerning Initial Analysis - see previous post and what to prepare to have good, constructive interviews sessions with business processes owners. Tiny provided me three mind-maps. A good start but I will try to develop mine for the next project...

I have done a bit of testing with Python, but I had not time to finish my test software - submitting HTML forms to a Joomla web site. Hm that will be for August I guess...

Finally I am taking with me 'Everything is Miscellaneous' - ' The power of the new digital disorder' from David Weinberger. Social aspects of the web is fascinating and I hope to work more on it later this year...

So I hope to come back rested and a bit smarter - what a plan !

Python map

Is this blog not better now with graphic... :-)

Also it is not entirely open...

Note taking - mind mapping Python & Open ERP

As I am continuing to learn Open ERP, I tried to keep track of what I am learning (Open ERP, Python,...). I decided to use FreeMind a small software (written in Java) for creating mind maps.

FreeMind has a simple interface, you create nodes by pressing the return or insert keys. This is fast to create a tree structure of your ideas and in my case keep track of my progress. Navigation is globally more confortable than with a linear text.

Unfortunately the tool is not perfect.

For example as I learned Python, I wanted to keep track of code snipsets that are for me the most valuable source of information for remembering an aspect of a programming language. It is annoying not being able to specify a title and hide the body of the note - I am getting too big block of text, the work around is to create one node for the title and one for the code...

Another aspect is text formating which is applied to the entire node - no way to say that this word should be in bold/red (for example to separate visually the code from my comments).

Another issue is that FreeMind supports text but not graphic. I should say not that much. You can insert pictures but it is a pain and there is no way to diagram easily within the map and the Windows clipboard is not supported - that would save my life, helping me to work with Snagit (Snapshot taking) for example.

The interface is also sometimes driving me nuts. For example when you want to apply a function of the toolbar, the current selection is lost when you move over something else... watch out!

As I followed the Open ERP course I regretted not having used my PC to take notes. The problem remains which tool to use... FreeMind is nice but probably too basic in many aspects...

I will finish on a positive mention for the export, I can export my maps to HTML with Javascript. This makes my notes very accessible and easy to browse. Let's hope they will enrich it a bit so it can be of more general usage.

I will post my maps later on (I still don't know how...)