C# app for easily setting IP address

What we need is a small and VERY userfriendly application for displaying IP-information and network status, and also editing it. This is for debugging and easy configuration of our custom made multimedia players, which are based on Windows XP.

**Our goal:**

- should display information so that people might not even need to call support (i.e. display "Network cable not connected")

- We'd like to preferably assist the people locally over the phone, making them able to fix problems themselves without sending someone from our offices.

- if still a problem, debug and getting as much information as possible over the phone, so our support staff will know exactly what they need to do before they go out to fix it.

**Extensions:

**

- More functionality will be required at a later stage.

## Deliverables

**The requirements** are:

- Choose between static and dynamic ip, and give an error message if no dhcp found

- Super-easy entering of values

- Must be able to dynamically adapt to various screen sizes (please note: screens may be mounted horizontally or vertically) Preferably, use the whole screen.

- Screen may be TV-screens, so thin, small letters may be difficult to see. Use bold, large letters, and if possible, test your app on a TV-screen to check if it's usable.

- Some sort of triggering from other apps/ inclusion in other projects. If possible, we want our app to be running, and when the user hits for instance F12 or clicks three times with the mouse, the ip-setup app starts.

- Choose which network card to use, and be able to enable/disable them

- Show connected / not connected, i.e, if the cable is connected or not. If no cable (or wireless) is connected, please indicate by disabling all options and write a message on the screen to check all cables

- Setting wireless settings the same way as Windows SP2 does (or of similiar level of easiness for a non-experienced user to be able to do it with our support over the phone)

- ping default gateway about every second, and visualize by a green icon or something similiar if ping is sucessfull. The point being to establish if a connection problem is locally between the pc and the gateway, or externally between the gateway and the internet.

- Use some sort of XML save/load settings. Perferably, automatically search for settings on USB / CD-ROM / other removable drives. If there is a problem, we can send removable media with a correct XML-file with settings, and the person locally can just press "OK" after the media has been inserted, and detected by the program. Other ideas welcome.

**"Nice to have"** - features we'd like, but that are not crucial

- If possible, configuration by EITHER mouse OR keyboard, in case the user has only one of them available. (This has actually happened to us a few times!) This means that perhaps there should be a on-screen keyboard and numeric pad, so one can configurate just by mouse. No clear idea how to do this the best way, suggestions are welcome.

- Sometimes the person configuring the computer might not see the screen, it can be in another room or even on another floor. Must therefore be able to config via keyboard with someone else looking at the screen and relaying information by shouting or phone. Please keep this in mind, and if possible, make it easy enough for "non-computer" people to be able to do this. This means that for instance use of TAB-key should very clearly indicate exactly which textbox has focus.

- "any other problem-finder/diagnostics" we might need. A user friendly trace-route, anything that might help to discover network problems. The more we can fix over the phone, the more value this application has to us, and the more we'll pay for it. _***Please consider including features we might need, but have forgotten to ask for.***_

- "must look cool" - a detail, but preferable none the less. Apperance means a lot in every area, so we want to put some attention to it. This config-app will also be shown to potential customers, the point being "see how easy it is to manage our product". Also, a very "computerized" or "technical" appearance might "scare" / confuse the non-technical person who's configuring the computer.

**Extensions to this project:**

- We are looking to make this the complete configuration-tool for our multimedia player. This will mean more configuration options for the actual multimedia programs, but also more functionality such as security, passwords etc. Mainly it will be editing registry values and editing various XML-documents on the computer. Little or no filecopying, syncronization and so on.

I cannot give an estimate as to how much extra work this will be, as it will need to be a continous process, and updated whenever we update our media player. But there will be quite a lot more work on this project than outlined here.

**Conditions:**

Since we may get many different solutions I ask that I may freely choose a more expensive one, if I find it more user friendly, or has extra features that sets it apart from others. User friendliness is really the key here, the more we can fix over the phone the better. A more expensive program that fixes more problems will end up a lot cheaper in the end.

**Other projects:

**

We are in a situation which can be described as needing "12 coders for 2 months", not "2 coders for 12 months". Our customers want detailed and customer specific solutions. If you are interessted, please tell us a little bit abit yourselves, and your areas of expertise.

We are looking to buy quite a number of "programming hours" from different specialists, since we acknowledge we cannot be experts in everything ourselves. We are looking for C# skills, .Net, and pretty much anything within multimedia. 3D, Flash, imaging, audio, streaming multimedia. Please contact us for detailed information.

Good quality code, delivered in a timely fashion will pay good money. One solution may be for us to buy for instance 200 hours or more, for a certain fee. More hours will be purchased as necessary. Please suggest an estimate of what may be interessing for you, how many hours a month you (and your co-programmers, if you are a team) may be willing to work, and for what fee.

Standard conditions from RentACoder.... :-)

1) Complete and fully-functional working program(s) in executable form as well as complete source code of all work done.

2) Deliverables must be in ready-to-run condition, as follows (depending on the nature of the deliverables):

a) For web sites or other server-side deliverables intended to only ever exist in one place in the Buyer's environment--Deliverables must be installed by the Seller in ready-to-run condition in the Buyer's environment.

b) For all others including desktop software or software the buyer intends to distribute: A software installation package that will install the software in ready-to-run condition on the platform(s) specified in this bid request.

3) All deliverables will be considered "work made for hire" under U.S. Copyright law. Buyer will receive exclusive and complete copyrights to all work purchased. (No GPL, GNU, 3rd party components, etc. unless all copyright ramifications are explained AND AGREED TO by the buyer on the site per the coder's Seller Legal Agreement).

## Platform

Windows XP, all editions. Framework 2.0 may be used.

Ingeniería Microsoft MySQL PHP Arquitectura de software Verificación de software Windows Desktop

Nº del proyecto: #3138811

Sobre el proyecto