Hi there!

I am new to Planet Press, but have considerable programming experience.

About two years ago, at my last job, I sat in on a sales presentation for PlanetPress, and distinctly recall that you could code operations in C# or VB.NET.

Is this true?

Also, I have been reading the user guides that came with the software. While they give some good instruction on some of the functions available in Planet Press, they seem to gloss over quite a bit.

Is it reasonable to expect that I could become fully proficient with Planet Press using only the User Guides that shipped with the software, or is classroom training a necessity.

Any direction would be appreciated.

Hello,

"and distinctly recall that you could code operations in C# or VB.NET"

PlanetPress, the design tool does not allow any type of programming except for our native language of PlanetPress Talk.

With the current release of our SDK you cannot create plug-ins using .net. Our next release should allow the create of plug-ins with .net if done correctly.


"Is it reasonable to expect that I could become fully proficient with Planet Press using only the User Guides that shipped with the software, or is classroom training a necessity. "

This question cannot possibly be answered due to the fact that your usage of PlanetPress weights heavily onto this (fully proficient can mean many things. Many of our clients have very custom and specific needs that might not cover what I consider fully proficient) as does a person's ability to learn from a book. Some people just don't learn well from books and need hands on training. Other people can pick up a book and learn something in a few days.

I guess the best I can is that we have many customers who have not been trained and did the software by using it and with the help of the guides. As to the "gloss over" comment, not much I can say as this is a personal opinion.

Thanks for the reply, Danny.

OK, no programming except for PlanetPress Talk. That's fine. Talk looks like a variant of VB6. No problem there.

In my shop, Planet Press is primarily used to create variable data billing statements and business letters from a wide array of data sources(databases, flat files, spreadsheets, etc.). I hope to discover other uses for the product, too.

My preferred mode of learning is to read a good manual. However, you can't learn what isn't there. For example, the User Guide has two paragraphs devoted to "Channel Skip Emulation". The two paragraphs describe what Channel Skip Emulation is, without providing any instruction on how to use it. On the other hand, the User Guide has EXCELLENT coverage of User-Defined Emulation. It seems that the book wasn't intended to be a comprehensive guide to the product, but a conceptual overview with some in-depth instruction on selected functions.

Again, thank you very much for your reply.

- Mikeymac