Software Recommendation for Dental App

[DudeGuyBro]

I'd like to start a hobby/project on the side and see how far I can take it. I work for a dental office, and we are slowly moving to a paperless format. I would like to build a lightweight app that would allow my office to do dental (tooth) charting, and export the charting to an image format that we can save to our google drive.

Below is the paper chart that we are currently using.

...and this is the type of thing I need to be able to do electronically...

Coloring teeth blue or red, marking out roots, connecting teeth in blue, red text for numbers entered that are higher than three, etc

I consider this a long-term, learning opportunity. Any suggestions for a particular type of language/foundation for this program?

Thank you.

 

[carnageX]

*snip*

Coloring teeth blue or red, marking out roots, connecting teeth in blue, red text for numbers entered that are higher than three, etc

I consider this a long-term, learning opportunity. Any suggestions for a particular type of language/foundation for this program?

Thank you.

Mostly depends on what platform(s) you're wanting to develop for. That would be the biggest question before we can give more advice.

 

[DudeGuyBro]

These are Windows 7 PCs, using Google chrome for our cloud-based software and Google docs.

 

[carnageX]

What kind of programming background do you have right now?

Since its Windows-based, you could look into using C# with Visual Studio. May be a little biased there though, since I'm a C# / .NET developer . Other people here may suggest other languages as well, which is why I asked your background.

You could also look into using Java (similar to C#) or C++ as well. But, IMO, if you're making Windows apps, I'd stick to C# since it's a .NET language, and .NET is Windows-world, so you can take advantage of a lot of features available from the .NET libraries.

You say cloud-based... are you saying you want the app to be cloud-based or this is a different part of your environment that's already cloud-based? If the former, then you'll want to look into making a web-app rather than a standalone installable application, I'm assuming? This would make it accessible to anybody without having to install any software to run it (you would have to either restrict it to only internal use or put good security on it if you're going to open it up to the web using Internet servers). But this also requires a webserver, and possibly a database if you're wanting to store these records, to be setup in your office to run the application and handle the requests.

Are you wanting to store the records digitally, or are you already doing this? I guess you did mention uploading to Google Drive, so you could probably implement something fairly easily using the Google API to upload the document after you create it.

 

[DudeGuyBro]

Thank you!

I'll check into Visual Studio, although it would be kind of convenient to make an app in Google Chrome, since that's where the staff spends much of their time. I don't need a separate storage mechanisms for these charts... we can just import the files into the practice management software we already have, or use Google drive.

I realize that this is an undertaking; I just need to be pointed down the right path.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[carnageX]

Thank you!

I'll check into Visual Studio, although it would be kind of convenient to make an app in Google Chrome, since that's where the staff spends much of their time. I don't need a separate storage mechanisms for these charts... we can just import the files into the practice management software we already have, or use Google drive.

I realize that this is an undertaking; I just need to be pointed down the right path.

Thanks for your advice.

You mean make an app in Google chrome as in a built-in browser app (like what's installed through the Chrome Extension market), rather than making a standalone app or website? I guess that could be possible.. never done that before though so I'm not sure what it's all capable of.