Question

I am trying to write a kiosk program for my print center at a school for students to select size and media type and then have it generate a price. I am currently doing this with radio buttons which works fine but we are adding many more options and a drop down list box would be more appropriate. Also, my code for calculating the price is out of control. I would like to set this up so that calculating the price should be easy. Setup is something like this:

File1 – Paper Size (9 options) – Media Type (18 options)
File2, File 3, etc.

I was going to store this in a 3D array filename[]papersize[]media[] for processing the price.

The problem is that not all media types are available in all sizes. I see that you can not disable items in the list. If you pick one size, I can selectively populate the other drop down with or without items, but it changes my index numbers. If I could disable items, I could keep the same index and make an easy loop for processing prices. As it is now I would have to manually specify and loop for each paper size since the media types are different indexes.

I hope this makes sense, I am not really a programmer, I am just trying to make something simple to improve our workflow and accuracy at the print center. I can provide a screen shot of the old program and a mockup of my new program if it would help. Can anyone think of a more elegant solution for this?

Thanks!!

EDIT

Yikes.. Ok, this is ending up to be more difficult than I was expecting: Thanks everyone for your input, it is much appreciated. I did not really expect any responses and there were a lot. Thank You. I attempted the table idea mentioned below but I am not exactly sure how to implement it. I will comment on that post for what I tried. Let me provide more detail in the event that someone else has another idea.

For example of what I am trying to do:

Size = 8.5×11 has media = matte, double sided matte, luster, gloss, acetate, resume
Size = 11×17 has media = same minus acetate and resume
and so on, up to a 60″ roll with backlit media and all sorts of stuff.

Price for 8.5×11 is 1.50 regardless of paper and then each paper has its own price
Price for 11×17 is 3.00 and each paper has its own price which is more than their 8.5×11 counterparts

8.5x11 matte = .25
11x17 matte = .50

8.5x11 matte total = 1.75
11x17 matte total = 3.50

I am trying to do this in as little steps as possible. Currently I have radio buttons which take up a bunch a screen real-estate and do things like: When 11x17_1.Checked acetate_1.Disable, etc. Also for calculating price I have hundreds of lines of code doing things like:

 If(8.5x11_1.Checked)
    {
        If(matte_1.Checked) 
            price = 8.5x11matte_1; 
        if(luster_1.Checked) 
            price = 8.5x11luster_1;
        ...etc.
    }  

Rolls require more data (height) to be processed as we charge by linear inch for these. Currently for each file I just have a height box that they are required to fill out. I could just put a height field next to each file for my new version. Then if they select a roll, the height box bust be filled out, which requires more IF’s… which I currently have hundreds of. Any thoughts on a more elegant way to do this?

I just don’t have the programming background to simplify this, but I know this can probably be done in 10 lines of code using an array and drop down lists:

It has been a long time since I used arrays but I was thinking of something like:

Selection[file_1][combobox_size.Index][combobox_media.Index]

I think I would have to manually define each array value since the prices are arbitrary?

[0][0][0] = 1.75
[0][0][1] = 1.75
[0][0][2] = 2.00

And so on.

My winform would have let’s say 12 rows for them to enter a file name and then pick the drop down lists. If filename != null then I will process a price for the file and selections.

So if file 1 was 11×17 gloss my array would be something like:

[0][1][3] which I would have pre-defined with a value of $4.00 for example

If it is a roll then I would just multiply by the required height box.

Is this logic sound or grossly inefficient?

EDIT #3

Ok, almost there I think. Sadly, I was unable to figure out the other solutions offered by the community, but I wrote a “get_index” function that looks like this:

public static int get_index(string index)
        {

            if (index == "Matte")
                return (1);
            ....
            if (index == "Luster")
                return (3);
            ....
            else
                return (0);
        }

in my main program I define prices like this:

for (int x = 0; x < filenum; x++)
            {
                pricegrid[x, 0, 0] = 1.75; // 8.5x11 Resume
                pricegrid[x, 0, 1] = 1.75; // 8.5x11 Matte
                pricegrid[x, 0, 2] = 1.75; // 8.5x11 Double Sided Matte
                pricegrid[x, 0, 3] = 2.35; // 8.5x11 Luster
                .....
            }

Then to calculate the price I am doing something like this calling that get_index function:

private void calculate_price()
        {

                getindex[0] = get_index(media1.SelectedItem.ToString());

            ....


        }

Answer 1

You should populate your ComboBox dynamically as you do.
Instead of using SelectedIndex you can use SelectedValue which does not depend on number of elements.

See for example: Using ValueMember in ComboBox