[Gambas-user] Report

[Benoit Minisini]

On Monday 16 January 2006 11:31, Ignatius Syofian wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just need opinion from gambas user or expert, if you develop a
> application and needed report, which can viewer first before printing, what
> a suggest report method you will use ?.
>
> I know there a
> 1. DBReportDesigner or DBReportViewer
>     some of problem is : if i use myappliac.showmodal then i run
> DBReportViewer.show it will raise error
>    if myapplic.show then i can run DBReportViewer.show
>
> 2. Kugar
>     some of problem, i can't use special feature sum/average or else.
>     Learn from Laurus example, i found the subtotal it from gambas
> application not from Kugar.
>     I try to email to Koffice team, but still no answer until now.
>
> 3. DataExample Report
>     this is from Gambas Example.
>     It write html file, it write from gambas application
>
>
> no 3 means, if you change a title or header then you must change gambas
> source also, am i right ?
>
> Maybe some of you are experience with this report application. I need you
> suggest to solve my problem, which one i must do or there is something else
> i can try ?......

I studied this problem on Windows with Visual Basic some years ago, and 
implemented the following solution:

Split the reporting process in three parts: the presentation, the data, and 
the program. 

The program takes the data, the presentation, and sends the result to the 
printer. (On KDE, you even have an automatic previewing of the result)

The presentation were a bunch of text files with a C-like syntax describing 
the report.

The data was a text file with a specific format generated from the source by 
the program that calls the report. It can come from everywhere.

The presentation were splitted in section, each section having one text file. 
A section was a hierarchical set of "controls", each control printing a text, 
an image, a drawing, and "containers", that arrange their contents 
(vertically, horizontally, in a table...).

What data to print, and where printing it, was represented by special markups 
in the presentation files.

There was a special syntax to repeat some presentation controls if the data is 
actually a list.

Because of this repetition feature, a section can print several pages, until 
all the data is printed.

There were almost no absolute coordinates in the presentation files. All the 
layout is done by the program each time the report is printed, lie a web 
browser does with HTML pages.

This solution is a bit slow (at least in VB), but it allows you to have 
different reports for the same data, by just modifying some text files.

I'd like to have the time to port this reporting program to Gambas, but I 
don't have the time at the moment...

I hope I gave you some ideas :-)

Regards,

-- 
Benoit Minisini