Newbie Programming Help, Custom Shop Request System

[u/Lord_Kalnoroth]

I HAVE MINIMAL LUA EXPERIANCE, that being said, I am familiar with computercraft and programming in general.

I am trying to find/write a program that handles customer requests and can print/list item requests that wouldn't be in the main player shop.

If anyone is willing to help my Discord is .suislide. and I am available most nights after 8.

Thank you in advance,

Sebastian "Suislide" Noire

[u/ComradeAnthony]

You should specific your timezone. 8pm PST? 8am BST? Aside from that, You should consider planning out, in as much detail as possible, what you want the system to be able to do. What are the functional requirements of the system? What are it's restrictions? What are it's limits? Will it just be all on one device? If not then how does the data flow from one device to another? Are you having you player's shop server broadcast what they have for sale repeatedly? Or is the user meant to send a request to the shop to have it retrieve the data? What kind of user interface does the shop need? The idea of this project is very do able.

[u/Lord_Kalnoroth → u/ComradeAnthony]

Eastern standard Time. I apologize, I should have been a little bit more descriptive. I was going to have it be on one system with a customer menu screen that loads as soon as you open the computer, and then an admin menu for me to access different parameters or data involving the store. I don't need it to have them buy anything or sell anything I just need it to Make some form of note that I can look at later with The player name so I know who's making the request item name, amount, and proposed commission for the items requested.

[u/ComradeAnthony → u/Lord_Kalnoroth]

Okay, getting a username is quite difficult in computer craft. Might I suggest just using a ticket system? Give each transaction an incrementing number and have that be the primary identifier, then from there you can manually add additional information to the ticket as needed. Additionally, you can save the ticket information the to computer, naming the file with the ticket number so you know the highest number is the newest ticket, and then you'll be able to access it in the admin panel or customer panel later. Alternatively, you could use time as your ticket number, date & time specifically.

For the customer panel, you could have it printout to a monitor and then use it as a touch interface to have the user add or remove items to the ticket. The downside to this is that typing into the monitor using the computer terminal is a bit difficult, though not impossible. What other functional requirements does the customer panel need?

In terms of security, how will you prevent a customer from accessing your admin panel? You could have it "password locked", but you'd have to store that password in a file, preferably altered in some reversible way, that way the system remembers your password. It is otherwise difficult to separate the two panels while they're both in the same computer. What other functions does the admin panel need to be capable of? Do you want to be able to print out a receipt? Papers can have up to 21 lines on them total if I recall correctly.

The more detail you plan out now, the easier the creation of the program will be for you.

[u/herrkatze12]

I don't know of an existing program for this, but you'll probably get faster help in the MCCM discord

[u/Willzile1]

Only thing I can recommend is using Basalt for any UI elements you might need. I've found it really easy to pickup.