>>>>>Hi all:
>>>>>
>>>>>Does anyone know a report designer alternative?
>>>>>
>>>>>I wanted to build my one report designer, but its becoming to slow (and with some bugs), its becoming also to much time consuming.
>>>>>
>>>>>Some ask why to build a diferent one, my answer is : its not open to changes and its in English.
>>>>>
>>>>>any sugestion is most welcome. thanks!
>>>>
>>>>Nowadays I do most of my reports to Excel. If this is an option for you, I made an older version of my reporting class available as download #
9991.
>>>
>>>That download9991 is not 'to Excel'. Can you elaborate on how you do that?
>>
>>
>>Hi Peter,
>>
>>If you are interested in automated reporting to excel, you might want to have look at Rep2Excel and CodeRep downloads as well.
>>
>>Nowdays I do most of my excel reports very simillar to old DOS style (?/??) reporting via excel automation class published there.
>>
>>Instead of 'set device to print'
>>you would simply do do
>>
>>oXL=createobject...
>>and then do normal old style 'print as you go' report
>>
>>with oXL
>>.ln()
>>.write_at(1,'Written in 1st column')
>>*Writes value in desired row simillar to '?? at ...'
>>.write_at(2,'Written in 2nd')
>>.write_at(4,nMyVal)
>>scan
>>.ln()
>>.write_at(1,nMyVal)
>>endscan
>>
>>.etc
>>.
>>.
>>
>>
>>
>>endwith
>>
>>
>>It uses Excel OLE, therfore it not so fast as other excel writing tecniques, but it is very easy/flexible for shorter but complex reports. Source is there so you can add more class methods next to already existing ones.
>
>That's essentially what I already do IF some functionality is present in Excel and absent in VFP. By filling a sheet and then invoking Excel with certain parameters, I can present things like a pivot table and graphs. I also remember thus having fed with data existing sheets that already contained formulas. I wonder how widely used such techniques actually are...
People found one way or another, but I consider writing excel directly
via OLE/Excel relatively complex object/property hierarchy to be rather unpractical.
Well designed wrapper class turns writing to excel into flat set of calls capable of doing certain commonly performed operations really easy.
Unlike those scarry excel code examples/constructions, What remains after 'With oXL' is plain script.
Also, well designed excel template can make same 'miracle reports' to be
as a matter of fact peace of cake ;)
