Note: this blog post was originally posted on lambtracker.com and has been moved here for preservation. Some information may be outdated.
We’ve received a number of requests to expand LambTracker® into species other than sheep. I am slowly working through the tablet code to allow for use with cattle, goats, pigs, and horses in addition to sheep.
Work is progressing on the desktop addition to LambTracker®. After numerous aborted attempts at including reporting functions in the Android program, it’s become clear that LambTracker® requires a much more robust desktop version that can read from the same database and do more complex tasks.
I made several test programs to try out various languages and user interface systems. The goal is to write one program that can run on Macintosh, Windows, and Linux systems with little to no modification. The winner, after much hassle and gnashing of teeth, is Python 3 with Tkinter for the UI output. That seems to provide the most consistent interface across all three major operating systems with the same code. There are still problems to be solved, such as the transport of the database file to and from the handheld. I do it routinely now, but I use the command line for it, and that’s difficult for the average user. Synchronization is not going to be provided – at least initially – so it’ll be a manual replacement of the database from tablet to desktop and vice versa.
A detailed, functional spec is being worked on now. It will describe the operation of the desktop system in excruciating detail, including screen designs and detailed UI notes. My best guess right now is that the functional spec won’t be completed until the end of the year, and coding will primarily happen this winter.
As soon as the spec is more stable, I’ll post it on our GitLab for comments and ideas.