Hi Rich:

Thanks for all of this information. I'm not sure that I need Word ouput but it would sure be nice to have. MindsEye has a lot of extras that are not in the other products. I suppose its just a case of whether the requirement can utilise the extra-goodies and make the purchase price worth it.

I'll take a look at the demo and see how it goes.

-=Gary

>Gary,
>
>It really depends on if you need to have a Report Preview integrated into the product. eReports doesn't have a previewer at the moment, but Bo Durbin has done a really good job at mimicking the FRX Output in PDF documents. Also, eReports and XFRX and FRX2ANY, output to RTF or HTML that I have not implemented yet. The problem with RTF/WORD or HTML output, is that you really can't get WYSIWYG as well as you can with PDF. I also built my tool to allow for the mixing of different Page Sizes and Orientations within a single report and the ability to combine multiple VFP Reports into a Single document and Preview them in one Preview Window. I have been making a lot of improvements to the Mind's Eye Report Engine over the last couple of months and am getting ready to post an updated BETA of the next release soon. Most of the improvements were made to the handling of VFP FRX Reports in matching the VFP Report Writer's output, with the exception of the bugs that are in the VFP native output. I
> left those out. <bg> I have recently redesigned the Report Engine so that any band will be printable any time so in the future it will make it easy to support Multiple Detail Band reports. At the moment, the VFP Native RW does not allow it but I am working on ideas on how to implement this. So stay tuned for that.
>
>As far as other advantages to the MERE, it has a Charting Engine and a Barcode Engine built in that allows you to very easily create charts and print barcodes without any other 3rd party charting tools or requiring any barcode fonts whatsoever on your PC. You can even change the Chart Type by simply setting a Property while Previewing the Report. Barcodes are painted directly into PDF documents as groups of polygons and they can even be Rotated to any angle.
>
>Here is an example of Barcodes and a chart in a PDF document: http://www.mindseyeinc.com/ReportEngine/BarcodesandChartSample.PDF
>
>As far as a new Report Design Canvas, I actually created one back in 2000 in pure VFP but scrapped it due to problems and limitations in the VFP UI. So, I built an ActiveX component that works as a design surface that will be usable within a VFP Form. It's main advantage is that it is programmable so you can move objects around programmatically like you can with the FORM Designer. However, I haven't gotten back to finishing it yet, since I have been adding new features and making improvements to the Report Engine output.
>
>As far as Europa goes, I don't know. Some of the Europa Reporting enhancements were mentioned at Devcon 2003. However, nothing was talked about in much detail. When VFP 8 mentioned that there were improvements in the Report Writer I was concerned that it might kill my product, until I actually used it. <g> Since the Mind's Eye Report Engine is an ActiveX control, it can be used outside of VFP and used with other languages such as VB or VB.NET or Delphi or even on a web page to programmatically create reports using it's Methods and Properties. So, even if Europa came along with a new VFP RW, MERE can still be used to do a lot of difficult things very easily, that most likely won't show up in native Europa like Graphing and Barcoding.
>
>You can always download a fully functioning demo copy from my website: http://www.mindseyeinc.com/ReportEngine
>
>There are some issues with the current BETA when printing images and a couple of other issues that have already been addressed in the next BETA update. You can also download the current production release of the Report Engine which doesn't have support for the OnEntry/OnExit in all bands like the new version will. If you have anymore questions you can always email me directly.
>
>Rich
>
>
>I am just about starting to have a requirement <s> to create a report using the relative simplicity of the VFP report writer but output it to something other than paper. Maybe to a Word document or PDF and, additionally, give instructions to the job to e-mail itself someplace.
>
>I think this can be done "out of the box" with MindsEye. I know nothing of eReports but have seen some good comments on it. Also, XFRX appears to have its fans too. I also would like to take advantage of multiple (child) report bands in a single report. It would be nice to have a more OOP method of developing the report and possibly a superior design "canvas" as well.
>
>Bearing in mind I have got this far without these tools (using Codemine's Visual Documents tool for anything more demanding than the VFP report writer offers), is now a good time to consider such third party reporting tools given the fact that Europa appears to promise some of these features? What happens to these tools when their current "killer" features are available in the VFP report writer itself?
>
>I would be very interested to get any views/recommendations on this subject.
>
>Thanks!
>