Displaying shifts on a timetable/calendar using C#

Question

I am very much a beginner and have experience of SQL and a tiny amount of VBA. What I am looking to do is create a tool to pull shift times from a database and to display them on a timetable/calendar. It will be part of a desktop application that the (very tech illiterate) end users will use to view and amend shift patterns. In essence it will be a grid with days on one axis and people on the other (I would however like to have the blocks proportional to shift length). In my mind it would potentially be a simple Gantt chart.

All computing stuff I've learnt has been through trial and error and I want to use this project to get a much better understanding of C# as well as to get to the end product. I have been reading around for ways to tackle the problem and my issue is creating the timetable framework to which I will bind the data. I am using Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2.

Do you know of good resources which will either start me on the road to designing my own interface or give a basic framework I can adapt? All the resources I've found so far have been in different languages or for web based applications.

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

ok a complete implementiation for your needs: ZedGraph

or you can take this one and adapt it: TimeChart (it is german but the sources are english)

Answer 2

Given your past experience with SQL and VBA I recommend building your first version in Excel using VBA so that you get something work as fast possible. Later you can migrate to C#.

Creating GANT charts in Excel is easy, plus you can use your VBA/SQL skills to load/save data from your database.

A google search for: excel gant charts
Turned up lots of easy to follow samples.

With VBA you can use ADO to access your database.

To get user input you can create Forms in VBA or simply drop UI controls right on your Excel worksheet.

The usability of Excel and VBA is perhaps not the best, but you will get a version 1.0 out the door, and sort out all your business requirements.