first interactive app

[Miki]

Hello Tim,

> I want to write a tiny interactive app for the following situation:
> I have books of many chapters that must be split into volumes before going
> to the printer.
> A volume can have up to 600 pages. We obviously break the book into volumes
> only at chapter breaks. Since some chapters make a natural grouping, we want
> some human interaction for where the volume breaks occur.
>
> Not having experience with interactive apps, I'm asking for advice about how
> to go about it. The data I start with is just a dictionary with chapter name
> = ending page number. I figured I would first show where the volumes would
> break with no human interaction, with the begin and ending chapter
> names/pagenumbers for each volume.
>
> From here I thought about having a slider for each volume, but the number of
> volumes could change during the session.
> Or maybe I should just ask 'enter the ending chapter for the first volume'
> and recalculate, etc until all volumes are defined.
>
> Any ideas on a simple interface for this?
How about something like:

Chapter 1 (001-200 200)
Chapter 2 (200-300 100)
------ 001-300 300 ----
Chapter 3 (300-450 150)
Chapter 4 (450-500 50)
------ 300-450 250 ----
Chapter 5 (500-600 100)
------ 500-600 100 ----

Where the user can move the divider up and down to create new volume,
they can also add and delete dividers.

The program will not allow to drag the divider above the 600 page
limit.

HTH,
--
Miki <miki.tebeka at gmail.com>
http://pythonwise.blogspot.com