Rich:

Thanks for the explanation. Sounds like a major speed boost with Delphi.

I can't make it to LA -- I'm so used to working at home and just riding my bike when I need to get around, that I barely make it to San Francisco most of the time, allthough it is just 25 miles away...


Pertti

>Hi Pertti,
>
>I first render the FRX output into my Report Engine using a combination of VFP and Delphi. The Delphi does a lot of the low-level measuring and looping code in order to improve overall performance of the rendered FRX Output. Delphi is a lot faster at looping code since it is in low-level native machine code and it is optimized in a lot of areas by using the DEC() and INC() command for the fewest clock cycle commands as possible where it can be used. There is a lot more optimization of variable space and stack usage as well due to a strongly typed language. I also just refactored the VCX portion of my Report Engine code that is used for moving through the VFP Records and processing the UDFs and VFP specific calls which has improved my overall performance a factor of 3 to 6 times any previous version I have released. A 121 page report that was taking 58 seconds to render into my report engine is now taking 8 seconds. This report had a UDF on 10 Report Fields in the Detail Band for 1762
>records. The UDF had about 35 lines of code in them with macro substitution to assemble names together from 3 fields checking for spaces in between the words and empty fields. I did not create the report, I was just asked to see if I could make my engine run faster. So, that is what I did.
>
>The speed I get with Word OLE Automation is a simple factor of how many Word Automation calls are being done. I am rendering the whole page as a single object with a simple call to a function I wrote in Delphi which paints an entire Report Page to a single Metafile object and then pastes that Metafile Image of the page into MS Word from the Clipboard. Therefore, I am only make about 8 to 10 OLE Automation calls Per Page when using OLE Automation to achieve MS Word output which includes creating a new section and setting the PageSize for the section, collapsing the section and then inserting the entire Report Page from the clipboard.
>
>If you compare my method of automating Word to output Reports by placing the entire Report Page as a single object, to using OLE Automation commands to place each and every text, shape and image object into individual Frames positioned all over the page on each Page, I am saving a lot of time by not making 100's or 1000's of OLE Automation calls per page. Therefore, it is possible to output a lot faster to MS Word than the previous methods used by the other products. When I get around to building an RTF export, the speed should be nearly comparable to my PDF engine since I am using the same technology in the design for RTF output.
>
>I can send you a copy of the latest build which has the new SaveToWord() Method built into the OCX control so you can test it out for a speed comparison. I'll be in California next week speaking at the 3 LA area VFP User Groups and the San Diego User Group as well about my Report Engine and using Delphi to build components for VFP. I'll also be stopping by Phoenix on Friday and speaking to their UG as well. So, if you can make it down to the LA area to one of the meetings I'd be glad to show you in person. I realize that Fairfax is north of San Francisco, so that would probably be a bit of a drive for CA highways.
>
>> Russell:
>
>> I think it is next to impossible for a tool like this to provide source with their demo, because that would give away the store.
>
>> I'm wondering how could MindsEye Word output be "much, much faster than FRX2Any",
>> since I suppose they both use Office Automation. Does MindsEye actually claim this in their literature?
>
>> In any case, I imagine they are both very good products -- I just
>> liked frx2any better at the time I needed to make the choice, about 8 months ago, and it has served me very well.
>
>> Pertti