> Yup, I have talked to Rich before and he's on top of his game but, he doesn't have tool that provides
> the ability to design as well as print preview at this point.

> There is a strong need for a tool that will provide end-user reporting. This will do that.

> Regards,
> Paul

Hi Paul,

I wouldn't leave the VFP Community having to suffer with our Designer and not make one myself! <bg> I have to use it too.

I guess you didn't get to see one of my personal demos in my booth at Whilfest when I had time to show some of the other stuff I've already been working on which I had done before Devcon. I just didn't have time to finish the Designer before Devcon nor Whilfest. I only gave myself 2 weeks in order to do it before Devcon. So, I stopped working on the Designer in order to get the Engine and Preview Control done. Also, the control was getting a little heavy with all of that code contained in one OCX control. So, I decided that I am going to create a separate control for Designing Reports. I just haven't taken all the code back out of the current Report Engine OCX Control. About 2 1/2 years ago, I wrote a complete VFP GUI Report Designer in Pure VFP Code. It was not a trivial project. However, due to technical limitations of speed, labels only sizing up to 72 points and wanting to do rotated text, etc. I didn't release it. I did start on an OCX then but I got hired as a contractor on a project that was nearly full time for the next 1 1/2 years so I didn't have time to work on it with all my other products that I have to work on. To see that OCX you can go to: http://www.mindseyeinc.com/VFPTools/RW/index.htm . This control was done real quick as a test and was never finished due to the project I was contracted on.

Mark did not get to see my Control nor the Designer because he had to leave Whilfest early and I never told him how to get to it since it is being removed from the current control and being made into a separate component. I have a ton of ideas as to what I want the Designer to do in the future and will probably extend the FRX structure to eventually do all that I want it to do. Currently, you cannot extend the FRX as you can with a DBC. If you do, the VFP Report Writer chokes. So for now I didn't mess with the FRX. I also knew that as VFP Developers we don't spend as much time in our Report Designing as our clients do with running reports out in the field and so that is why I decided to finish the Report Engine and Preview Control first because more of our customer's are exposed to it than the Report Designer. Even so, giving Report Designing capabilities to an End User is somewhat of a nightmare since "most" End Users have no idea what a JOIN or RELATION is to begin with, much less knowing how to format the different field types etc. I can go on and on about this problem because I have been attempting to teach end users for over 7 years how to design reports with VFP and they usually say, "No you do it!", after I show them how to do SQL Queries of their data and then format the Detail Band, etc, etc. That is why there are products like Stonefield Query and FoxFire just to name a few and I know that they still have to expose the current VFP Report Writer tool to their end user's if they want to change things over and above what they automatically generate and then it becomes another End User Nightmare!

This is why I want to add abilities like being able to restrict if objects can be Moved, Edited, Deleted etc while in the Report Designer which could all be easily controlled through Properties and Events. That is what I am looking for plus the ability to ZOOM the Report Designer so I can work on really small font stuff when necessary. This all started because I had a customer who wanted 300+ objects on a single Report page. I even bought a bigger monitor because I was going blind working on the report for him. That's when I wrote the Pure VFP Code Designer.


So here is a list of some of the Features in my Designer so far:

Double Clicking on a Label let's you edit the Text of the Label!

The Report Expression Dialog Box is much cleaner and doesn't have all those popup windows.

Alignment controls are there just like in VFP.

The ability to see the position of the controls as you move them on the Desgin Surface with a Label Showing X,Y right by the Mouse Pointer.

There is an Event for capturing when the Expression Builder is Ellipses is clicked on so you can display your own builder in VFP Code.

When moving Labels and Fields you can actually see the Text as you are moving the object and not just the Outline Box.

When you set the Text Properties such as Size, Font and Color they are applied when you add new objects.

This one really bugs me in VFP so I changed it. When you add Shapes, etc. the Pen Size, Color, Fill Style, etc. always revert back to a single line. Not in mine. Try setting the Pen Size and Colors from the Toolbar and try it out!

In VFP it has always bugged me what a pain it was to change the Fonts of labels etc. too so that is why there is a Toolbar for it.

The Toolbars can be turned on or off.

I already wrote in Pure Delphi code my own DBF Engine so I would have the ability to Read and Write an FRX without VFP. However, the current control is not using this code. I have it in there and have tested it though.

So, if you want to see my vision of the VFP Report Designer you can use the following code with my current control from the COMMAND WINDOW:

SET CLASSLIB TO MindsEyeReportEngine
o = CREATEOBJECT('MindsEyeReportPreviewForm')
o.Width = _Screen.Width - 14
o.Height = _Screen.Height - 40
o.Resize()
o.oReportEngine.DisplayMode = 0
o.Show()

Please realize that I haven't worked on this code since before Devcon and it is not near done. But I did only spend about 2 weeks on this portion of the control so far. So after trying out the code above and playing around with the control please give me your feedback, I am really committed to completely replacing the VFP Report Writer both the Engine/Preview and the Designer as we know it and creating something we can all love and want to use rather than struggle with. Believe me, that is why I've spent well over 2000 hours writing this stuff so far.

Althouh most of the code is Delphi, my software is being written by a VFPer for VFP people. However, my Report Engine Control can be used by other tools such as VB, Delphi, C++, etc for programatically creating reports. I just did things special for my VFP needs. That is why you see all those special FRX Methods in my OCX that other languages like VB and C++ guys will probably never use. I wanted as much speed as possible in my control which is why a lot of VFP code has been rewritten in Delphi into the control. Looping in VFP will never be as fast as looping in Delphi. Just the other day I added JUSTIFY text to STRETCH WITH OVERFLOW Report Expression since someone was trying to do it in VFP and couldn't, at least not easily. It only took about an hour to do in Delphi with what I already had written.

After 16 years of using Fox software I'm pretty familiar with what is Awesome and what is Frustrating about using VFP! <bg>