Plandroid Help Documentation

You can integrate Plandroid with other software packages, such as custom inventory or management software, so that it functions as a seamless part of your sales process. Plandroid can be called from the command line, or from another software package, with command-line arguments controlling how the program should work. The command-line arguments can specify a base design to use, a plan image file to use, and a settings file containing various parameters to control the program. For example:


 > plandroid  base_design.pd  plan.gif  settings.xml

This allows, for example, a set of base designs to be used with new plan images, so that you only need to modify an existing design to suit a new house layout. Plandroid can be configured so that it writes out the resulting design image, the parts list, and saves the Plandroid save file (.pd) file before returning to the calling software.

The command-line arguments can be specified in any order, but subsequent files will overwrite any data in earlier files. For example, if you want the settings customer data to overwrite any exisiting customer data in the base_design.pd file, the settings file must be given after the base design file name.

The plan image file can be in any one of the formats: PNG, GIF, JPG, BMP, or PDF.

The following is an example Plandroid XML settings file:


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<settings>
  <customer>
    <quoteNo>012345</quoteNo>
    <firstName>FirstName</firstName>
    <lastName>Surname</lastName>
    <title>Mr</title>
    <address>Addr</address>
    <city>City</city>
    <state>State</state>
    <postcode>Postcode</postcode>
    <siteAddress>Site Addr</siteAddress>
    <siteCity>Site City</siteCity>
    <siteState>Site State</siteState>
    <sitePostcode>Site Postcode</sitePostcode>
    <phone>(09) 1234 5678</phone>
    <email>name@email.com</email>
    <status>Quote</status>
    <due>2012-08-09 10:55 AM</due>
  </customer>
  <options>
    <parentApp>CallingAppName</parentApp>
    <filename>OutputFileName</filename>
  </options>
</settings>

All fields are optional in this file, however the parentApp element must be specified to activate the associated user interface components, which allow you to export the relevant data and return to the calling software.

Contact us at support@plandroid.com for technical assistance in integrating Plandroid into your own process software.

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