Opensource Student Timetabling database software for school - advice needed

[maverick280857]

Opensource Student Timetabling database software for school -- advice needed

Hi,

I intend to build a computer program with a GUI, for a school setup consisting of the following primary features:

1. Student information database (particulars of students, subjects they are registered in, etc)
2. Class information database (list of students in a class; each class may have several sections, e.g. there may be 4 sections of grade 4: A through D)
3. Fee information database (fee structure for each term (like a semester))
4. Report card generation

The program would be open source. I know there are several programs available on the net to do this, but I want to make one instead of using any of those.

Now, the problem is that while I am familiar with C/C++ programming, I don't know much about SQL or databases. Also, since a GUI frontend is necessary, I don't know how I should go about doing this in Linux -- I suppose I have to use gtk or xlib or something similar. I am not familiar with GUI programming in Linux, but I am willing to learn.

Would it be a better idea to make it in Windows instead? I don't want to get into SQL Server (Microsoft) or Access for databases, but I am guessing there are no other alternatives if I intend to use Visual Basic?

I am willing to learn whatever tools are required to work on this problem, but I am not very clear about what I need.

Any suggestions and pointers will be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

(To the Moderator -- Please shift this to the appropriate forum if this isn't the place for it.)

 

[ranger]

I've done some GUI programming in a Linux environment. I had the choice of using either the GTK+ or Qt toolkits. Eventually I chose GTK because of license it falls under. Not to also mention that I don't like the way QT widgets look. I would not advice you to use Xlib directly. What you should do is use a toolkit (like GTK) to interface with the X server. Also using toolkits will give much better flexibility and ease of programming.

Since you're going open source, you might as well use all open source components and forget the headache of licensing. MySQL over Microsoft SQL Server is a great alternative.

 

[maverick280857]

Thanks ranger, I'll get started with GTK then.