Will there ever be a feature or a companion product that will allow the creation of reports that would be more than the screen prints that you currently print with the web browser.
Tornado is a wonderful product for developing web based applications, but does have one large drawback because there is no way that I know that it can spawn a dynamic report based on the current data and not a link to a static report that was previouly generated with Access or Crystal.
I have a hard time eliminating Access alltogether, because I still need it to generate the end user reports such as monthly stats etc. and also users need to have a copy of Access on their desktop, which still means that I cannot eliminate that dependency.
Idealy Tornado would have a web report generator and then it would be a true web application generator.
For me the beauty of Tornado is that I don't have to be a great ASP programmer and I can quickly develop sophisticated applications, as long as there are no reports attached to the application. But as soon as we talk reports, then I just dont know how to approach that problem. Currently I use a link to launch Access that displays a report selector and the user can specify which reports they would like to print, which works well in most cases, but is not ideal.
Is there anything in the works that would address this issue or am I expecting too much of Tornado?
This item is on the ‘edge’ of the table. We are well aware of that even though many applications are on-line based and not paper based any more. When is the last time you looked at your financial report in the mail ? I remember that when tax time came I handled over the statements to the account and all the envelopes are unopened! On a daily basis, all I need is to login to my account and they showed you everything. So, is the regular bank statements. The transaction is up to date on the web site.
But there are many occasions that a paper report is needed. I have two PDF engines in evaluation and not quite satisfied yet. The cost is high. So, I might pick a good one, work out the interface and let he user purchase the engine separately. Not sure which way to go yet.
To answer your question. Yes, if I have a choice what to work on next, the PDF report engine will be next.
Provide me me whith some samples of your reports.....
Here is 2 samples, one is a time period report where the user specifies the from and to dates.
The other one is a single page print that reflects the status of the individual that is currently displayed on the screen, this type of dynamic reporting is what we would need, the first report I can produce by linking to Access and having the user specify the reporting criteria, but for the second one it could also be done by creating the criteria in Access with a Tornado silent command and then linking to Access to print the report, but it's a little more combursome and not as slick as I would want it, because of Microsoft's security checks that warns you that there may be a virus with the type of link (mdb) you requested and once you click OK then it asks it you want to open it or save it, which can be confusing to many users.
This is a PDF job ok. I'll look round whe here is any way to use MS office to do the printing. PDF is good loking but it is big and crash a lot of CPUs with less memory. Since desktop is all Office now, there might be a way.
I looked at your sample report again. It is a "form" type report which means a one record report. This can be done via a template (txt, html, doc or pdf). When you send me the actual sample doc template. I'll show you how.
To clarify one thing... Access, Crystal and others. They are local reports and not the type you have in your question which is web type. They look good in the browser (Crystal) but there is no postscript quality printing across browser. If I am wrong, point me to an example or reference where you can do that.
Seems like Doc and Excel templates works but not PDF. I'll test more and implement this in the ASPdbdownload. To get a pdf out of it, just install distiller in Word and print a pdf file from it - very easy.
Grid reports must be done via the PDF engine. That means you have to draw each report. I estimate this feature can be done by the last quarter of this year. The challenge is to come up with a way to product the template and not to draw it every time.
Doc/Excel template printing is ready in the next release 4.22+. Doc works the best as in Excel, the math does not work in sub-totals and totals etc after the items / qty are filled in. Better leave the grid and Excel type templates to the pdf. There is a slight chance of pdf [[tagging]]. If we hav eluck with that, then it'll be the first !!
It supports interactive mode (display) and printable mode. Also you may export to different formats including Excel and PDF. You don't have to be a great VB or ASP developer to use this tool.
I visited the site and there is no demo. Have to request one. I do not see PDF begin mentioned in the key features listing. May be it is standard. If you have to export report to a PDF manually, then the process is not integrated.
Overall, this is a tool that allows you to submit a few parameters and it generates a simple DB report quickly for you. It seemed to be IE only so you must have browser control in your users.
I suppose you have this product - try this - Make up a script and generate a report on a table that does not exist (not created yet) and then flip to the "Add" screen. after the "Add" then flip back to the report mode. Also try to see how you can handle (expenditure/budget*100) where budget=0 in one fo the record. Display a gif image when the field is 'Null' an ddisplay a different gif wehen the record is 'blank'. Plot a stack chart with all negative values directly from Excel. Do a grid input with validation and calendar. This are examples that falls in the category of Tornado (BTW, ASP-db comes in both ASP and ASP.Net). To summarize, ASP-db starts where the other ends. You might not need that extra power but it can take you a long way if you have that.
Standard features are supported by all browsers. A few special features are supported by IE only.
It supports all the features that you have mentioned (VBScript has been used as the formula language - JavaScript will be supported soon) and even more:
Page/Report-based security, field-level security, record-level security.
You may want to create your query on the fly based on the parameters that user select. It also does charting and even support drill-down on charts.
Finaly it has some add-ons such as Adhoc Report Builder that allows end users to create, save, modify, and run their reports that with either static or dynamic parameters.
Got a call from a very nice engineer to arrange a demo (hold hand type) on Monday. From what I learn from him, there are two modules - end user (adhoc) and developer. The developer version is the real thing and the adhoc is for low level end users like if you got exp/budget and budget=0 then it'll blow up. For AppDev, it is back to square one. If there is interest finding I'll let you know.
>>..it supports all the features that you have mentioned.
Not true, Not even close (without a lot of programming)!!
>>..VBScript...
Better be JS otherwise Netscape browser is not supported. I fit is JS then back to square one again. Programming JS is not a normal job for ASP-db users.
I recieved a demo of the product and it is a Crystal Report type product taking the path of Actuate. It takes a full dose of Microsoft ingrident like XML (report template) and Web Services support etc. These things/approaches has a good and dark side as usual.
The bottom line assessment of this product in the context of an ASP-db product forum is that, when we go to trade shows, we asked customers/audiences to bring their datasource and they call the shot in how to prepare their data "live", screen or report. ASP-db is designed with this in mind and no other products can last for > 2 minutes including LogiXml.
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