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Report Generator

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11 Oct 2006Public Domain3 min read 1.7M   69.7K   504   521
A plug-in report generator

Sample Image - ReportCreator.gif

Introduction

Printing is a normal part of most applications, but far too convoluted for many developers. The amount of work necessary to add printing of lists and reports to an application often seems daunting, and there are many pitfalls. Here, I come to the aid, with a package containing a plug-in report generator working with template files, a SDI-demo, a plug-and-play report editor for the template files, as well as a demo of the latter. And documentation! The code is intended either for use as-is in your own applications, or as a CReportEditor as well.

ReportCreator also contains a ruler that can be ripped out and used with other CDiagramEditor-derived works. This is an exercise left to the reader, however.

The documentation contains docs on the package structure.

Using ReportCreator

ReportCreator is an editor for the report generator template files. It's first and foremost a vector editor, letting you draw fields on screen with all the features of CDiagramEditor, such as panning, zoom, multiple selects, and much, much more.

It allows you to work in pixels, centimeters or inches as is befitting for a printer-oriented application. The documentation contains detailed information.

Licenses

If you want to add the package(s) or parts of them into your own code - commercial or not, you are completely free to do so. The code comes with the TISATAAFL-license, There Is Such A Thing As A Free Lunch, and you are free to modify, rewrite, resell or do whatever you feel like with the code. You are explicitly allowed to remove my comments in the source and headers, replacing them with your own. You don't have to acknowledge me, neither in code, nor in documentation or the finished application if you should use the code in a commercial application.

History

6/5/2005

  • Initial version

28/5/2005

First of all, a few bug corrections:

  • Fixed resource leak in CCornerBox::OnPaint in the report creator (alex_br).
  • Fixed silly line-thickness bug in draw object line thickness/brush creation (lordly).

As well as a few others that was removed as a spin-off from other modifications.

There are also quite a few changes:

  • Multi-template reports. A report can be composed from several templates, for example, a title page, several sections and a summary (Carsten Bøgh Poulsen).
  • Dynamic object access. Objects can be accessed at runtime, so attributes can be inspected and modified. Objects can also be added at runtime (Håkan Nilsson).
  • More special markers for fields and cells. [%bold%] and [%italic%] will make the field/cell bold or italic respectively. [%separator%], [%bold-separator%], [%double-separator%] will draw a thin line, a thick line or a double line across a row in a grid instead of data (Carsten Bøgh Poulsen).
  • Images can not only be set from files, but also from HBITMAPs and handles to DIBs (Alex Evans).
  • Templates can not only be added from file, but also with data from a CStringArray, a LPCTSTR, a CFile or even from the application resources (DaberElay, Carsten Bøgh Poulsen).

1/10/2006

This project has been neglected for some time, but now it's time for an update! This time, we have:

  • Returning TRUE from Add when adding data as per documentation
  • Added support for font charset. (Vladimir Svrkota, J Bartkowiak).
  • Added locale-handling (J Bartkowiak).
  • Added [%pagebreak%]-command for grids. This works as the other commands, when putting this text in a cell, the grid will break and continue on the next page. (Charlie Curry, Carsten B Poulsen)
  • Added a function call ReplaceCell to set cell data in a grid. This call replaces the data in a specific cell with new data. (Carsten B Poulsen)

And a big thanks for all the help, feedback and support for this project!

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under A Public Domain dedication


Written By
Software Developer (Senior) Abstrakt Mekanik AB
Sweden Sweden
45 years old, married, three kids.

Started with computers more than 20 years ago on a CBM-64.

Read Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Lund.

Working as a C++ consultant developer.

Science-fiction freak. Enjoy vintage punkrock.

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralRe: Attributes for a cell of a grid Pin
Johan Rosengren20-Dec-08 4:11
Johan Rosengren20-Dec-08 4:11 
GeneralAbout eport Generator Pin
Member 27319143-Oct-08 16:55
Member 27319143-Oct-08 16:55 
GeneralRe: About eport Generator Pin
Johan Rosengren5-Oct-08 7:30
Johan Rosengren5-Oct-08 7:30 
QuestionAbout CReportEntityGrid Pin
monrad13-Sep-08 7:24
monrad13-Sep-08 7:24 
AnswerRe: About CReportEntityGrid Pin
Johan Rosengren13-Sep-08 20:31
Johan Rosengren13-Sep-08 20:31 
QuestionCan you help me? Pin
Xiaoming Huang11-Sep-08 11:35
Xiaoming Huang11-Sep-08 11:35 
AnswerRe: Can you help me? Pin
Johan Rosengren13-Sep-08 2:43
Johan Rosengren13-Sep-08 2:43 
GeneralGrid Problem With Release Mode of VS-2008 SP1 Pin
Scott Moss10-Sep-08 4:36
Scott Moss10-Sep-08 4:36 
I have used the Report Generator in my application for several years and appreciate the work you have done on this.

After upgrading my compiler to Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (from Visual Studio 2008), my application now bombs when trying to print or print preview from release mode if the the page includes a grid of any kind (empty/full, with or without lines, etc.). The problem only seems to occur on Vista Machines, not on XP machines. The application does not fail in debug mode.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Scott Moss

GeneralRe: Grid Problem With Release Mode of VS-2008 SP1 Pin
Johan Rosengren13-Sep-08 2:47
Johan Rosengren13-Sep-08 2:47 
GeneralRe: Grid Problem With Release Mode of VS-2008 SP1 Pin
Scott Moss14-Sep-08 16:44
Scott Moss14-Sep-08 16:44 
GeneralRe: Grid Problem With Release Mode of VS-2008 SP1 Pin
Scott Moss20-Oct-08 1:57
Scott Moss20-Oct-08 1:57 
GeneralRe: Grid Problem With Release Mode of VS-2008 SP1 Pin
Johan Rosengren21-Oct-08 7:02
Johan Rosengren21-Oct-08 7:02 
GeneralRe: Grid Problem With Release Mode of VS-2008 SP1 Pin
Scott Moss27-May-09 2:02
Scott Moss27-May-09 2:02 
QuestionAdding menu items? Pin
Xiaoming Huang7-Sep-08 11:23
Xiaoming Huang7-Sep-08 11:23 
GeneralBugfix: loading from resources in unicode build Pin
roel_3-Aug-08 6:16
roel_3-Aug-08 6:16 
GeneralRe: Bugfix: loading from resources in unicode build Pin
Johan Rosengren9-Aug-08 20:37
Johan Rosengren9-Aug-08 20:37 
QuestionDo do people deal with different paper sizes? Pin
roel_2-Aug-08 11:38
roel_2-Aug-08 11:38 
AnswerRe: Do do people deal with different paper sizes? Pin
Johan Rosengren2-Aug-08 20:15
Johan Rosengren2-Aug-08 20:15 
GeneralRe: Do do people deal with different paper sizes? Pin
roel_3-Aug-08 2:17
roel_3-Aug-08 2:17 
GeneralRe: Do do people deal with different paper sizes? Pin
donghaitad8-Aug-08 6:26
donghaitad8-Aug-08 6:26 
GeneralRe: Do do people deal with different paper sizes? Pin
Johan Rosengren9-Aug-08 20:42
Johan Rosengren9-Aug-08 20:42 
GeneralRe: Do do people deal with different paper sizes? Pin
Johan Rosengren9-Aug-08 20:36
Johan Rosengren9-Aug-08 20:36 
GeneralGreat work Pin
donghaitad13-Jul-08 8:03
donghaitad13-Jul-08 8:03 
QuestionRe: Great work Pin
donghaitad13-Jul-08 22:31
donghaitad13-Jul-08 22:31 
AnswerRe: Great work Pin
Johan Rosengren14-Jul-08 6:45
Johan Rosengren14-Jul-08 6:45 

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