This widget will be used by my customers to determine if they have new orders that have come in.
I need a widget that will run when windows starts up. This widget will need to remember the user name and password and look at a specific web page in order to determine if a new order/orders exist. If a new order exists, the widget should get the users attention repeatedly until the order has been processed.
## Deliverables
This is how we think the widget should work, if you have suggestions on how we should do this differently, all ideas are welcome.
This widget will be downloadable from our website from a certain customer page. Once downloaded, the widget should install itself and sit and wait in the Task Tray (I will provide the icon and all other art). Once installed and running, the widget should ask the user for a username and password. After the user enters the user info, this info should be saved and not ask the user again(NOTE: if the widget is deleted/uninstalled, the user info should be deleted as well). This username and password will be used to lookup customer info from the MySQL database. If the customer only has one store ("Unique Number") registered with our service, then the widget will connect to that "Unique Number" and wait for orders generated for this single store. It is possible that the customer has more than one store with our service. If this is the case, a screen should show a list of all the stores that the customer has and allow the user to select one or more of the individual stores ("Unique Numbers") that this widget will monitor. This widget should also start up when windows starts up.
Next, this widget will continually look at the website to see if new orders exist. This is one way it CAN work: The widget can connect to a unique URL and read data from either an ASP page or an XML Page. If you have a better idea, please let me know. The website is constructed with ASP classic and run on a MySQL database. In the case of multiple stores, the widget will need to connect to multiple unique URL's. Everything should be based on the customers' Unique Numbers in the system.
Once the widget finds a new order, it will have to notify the user until the user processes the order. A window should pop up "On Top" and say something like, you have a new order. Click here to process the order/click here to minimize. If the order is minimized, the widget should keep notifying every 2 minutes until the order has been processed. We have a proprietary sound that we would like to play as well (it would be great if it can be installed when the widget is installed). If the button to process the order is clicked, the widget should have the power to make a change in the MySQL database to change the order from pending to processed (we will give you the detail on that) as well as pull up an HTML page displaying the order (we will help with the URL for that as well). The most important thing of this widget is to make the user process the order quickly after receiving it and keep the user from forgetting about the order at all costs! If there is more than one order pending, the widget should form a list of all orders pending so that the user will have to click each one in order to process it.
Other features that would be nice is to have the widget window customized so that it has our logo and looks cool.
Please let me know if you have any experience with this type of project and send examples if possible.
Thank you