I want to keep track of writers and photographers and their assignments for a newsletter. I envision a contact screen and an assignment screen. Then I want to be able to display the info in a variety of ways: by writer, by issue number, by deadline date, finished assignments, unfinished assignments, unassigned stories, etc. It be nice to be able to create an assignment in the application and email it to the writer but this isn't necessary. I have purchased FM Pro 6, but never used it. I know it's supposed to be easy, but why re-invent the wheel unnecessarily? It would seem that this (or something similar) has been written hundreds of times before. I've searched but can't find it. I'm not looking for a freebie. Before I break out the manual and try to do this myself, can someone refer me to a ready-made source? I'm on a PC running Win 2000, single user. There would be maybe 100 writers and photogs and maybe 200 assignments. (By the way, I'm here because folks say that FM is the best, but if this application is ready-made on another platform, that's okay with me. Can I say Access and Excel here without rotten tomatoes coming my way?)

Where are you?

There are a couple of ways you could do it.

The hardest is learn FMP, then learn relational database design, then build it yourself. It's the cheapest way, but will take the longest time (think months and years, not days and weeks).

The easiest way is to pay a developer to build it for you. It'll be the quickest but most expensive.

You may be able to convince the developer to charge you a lower rate if they can sell it to other people as well (ie, a non-exclusive license).

I'm in Los Angeles, California. But these days I don't suppose that matters much.

I don't mind paying a developer to do this. But it would be a shame to do that if this already exists somewhere. I would think that there are thousands of newspapers, magazines, newsletters -- even high school newspapers -- that need to keep track of their writing and photo assignments. If an off-the-shelf $295 program doesn't exist, then some developer does indeed need to write it. I think there is a market.