Vehicle Maintainer (Software)

[rbattelle]

I recently wrote a vehicle maintenance program.

Vehicle Maintainer (VM) is a simple windows database for vehicle maintenance. It’s designed to occupy minimum disk space, and all data is stored in simple text files. Simplicity is the key here.

My philosophy in writing VM is to provide a means for estimating when (in time) upcoming maintenance is likely to occur. This is done based on the average rate of mileage (or hours) accumulation on the vehicle. The idea is to be able to provide some idea of when (calendar day) a recurring maintenance item is likely to occur given the vehicle’s use rate.

This software operates by the “garbage-in, garbage-out” principle! There are very few steps taken to “idiot proof” it, and it is therefore very easy to get garbage results if you fill it with garbage. For example, if you make it a practice to record the mileage on a particular event as “pickles” instead of a numerical value, VM will not be kind to you.

VM uses a simple hierarchical relationship between a vehicle and events that occur with that vehicle. There are only three objects in VM - the vehicle, events, and fuel events. The most basic entry would be a vehicle without any associated events.

Vehicles are identified by a unique filename, where all their data is stored (including basic vehicle information and events and fuel events). This file is a simple text file, viewable in any text editor or word processor - in case you lose the software, you don't lose all the information you entered.

The initial startup screen


The new vehicle entry screen


The new event entry screen

The existing event view screen


The new fuel event screen

The existing fuel event screen

The reports generator

The upcoming maintenance view

Ryan