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Nick
23-Apr-2009, 05:51 PM
After the webinar on Visual Report Writer Bob, Tom, Dave and Garett posted questions.I distinct two main topics:

- Sub-reports! Ok, we hear you. Sub-reports and RDS (Runtime Data Source) are two features scheduled soon after the V1.0 release. We think they're important, too. At DAE we believe in a development methodology called "XP". Relevant in this case is that we set a dead-line and to meet that, we're willing to drop features to meet it, rather than push the dead-line. And there is so much to cover for a V1.0 release, even without sub-reports and RDS. If progress allows for it, we will do our best to get sub-reports in.

- Visual Report Writer looks a lot like Crystal Report Writer. One important factor is that we use Codejock, making it easy to let products look alike. Another good example: Compare Visual Studio with Visual DataFlex Studio. Another factor is simply that a report-writer is well... a report-writer.

Already in its first version a more "DataFlex-friendly report writer" should emerge from the project, especially for end-users. At Synergy we tried to provide a general road-map of where we want the product to move to. This takes time, more information will become available in due course.

During the webinar there was no time to answer all questions. In the coming days, we'll work out a way to repeat those questions and answer them in this forum. Keep an eye on it!

Last but not least: Alpha I is released. Download it, test, and help us move the project forward. On behalf of the team: We look forward to your help in testing it and thank you in advance!

Nick

Garret Mott
23-Apr-2009, 06:03 PM
Thanks Nick -

All your work is appreciated! The comments on subreports were simply to let you know how important they are to us - not to give you a hard time. Same idea with the look&feel comments - speaking for myself & Bob - we were concerned for your sake - not ours!

Both Bob & I are looking forward to testing it -

Tom Murphy
23-Apr-2009, 08:22 PM
Hi Nick

Downloading it now and looking forwards to playing around with it. Glad to hear sub reports are high on the agenda, and whilst not in v1.0 won't be to far away.

Thanks.

Bob Cergol
24-Apr-2009, 12:01 PM
I'll just add my name to Garret's post.
Thanks,
Bob

Garret Mott
24-Apr-2009, 02:38 PM
I'll just add my name to Garret's post.
Thanks,
Bob

All done! (take a look;-)

Focus
27-Apr-2009, 11:43 AM
Hi all

Does anyone know when a downloadable version of this webinar is likely to be available ? I was not around when these were broadcast

I've have a 10 minute look at the Alpha and overall I would say it looks promising

I maybe doing something wrong here but I can connect to an SQL database using the connection string and can see the tables but it does not seem to pick up the indexes ? I get errors when trying to run the report. If I try to use the 'dataflex' option and choose the filelist.cfg that contains the sql tables although I can pick the fields etc and it does see the indexs etc

In the future are there plans to allow programatic changing of the layouts via code ?

At the moment i'm not quite sure how best to hide the table/relationships from the end user so that they stand a reasonable chance of being able to pick the correct tables/fields for a given report. Looking at other threads people seem to use store procedures / views ?

Thanks

Andrew

Nick
27-Apr-2009, 06:17 PM
Hi Andrew,
This is an emberrasing moment for me; while I did the webinar, I forgot to record the session. What it means is that I have to do it again, and record it. I will make sure to do that as soon as possible, so that it will be available with the other webinar session, hopefully.

Connecting to SQL: I usually make a file DSN and base my report on that, by choosing the ODBC option. It works fine. ODBC doesn't give good handles to detect indexes, or filelist relationships.We're looking into that for future. While connection via filelist will work, you many not benefit from some planned performance enhancements (off-loading to server) - just a heads up.

Programmatic change of layout via code. One side is to do this in VRW self. For instance, use formula's to control sections (in Section Expert) font, etc. For future the points at which you can control things by formula's will be extended. If you mean coding as in "VDF coding", a VDF Integration API is available, but it focuses mostly on control of the report, data-source, selections and progress-interface. We do not plan to manipulate 'report design' as such out of VDF code.

At this time, if you would be on the embedded (DataFlex) database and maintain relationships in filelist, it's easy. Relationships can be automatically generated. Another way, is that you define a so-called "repository".

Here's what you do: Use the wizard for a New Report, select data-source, create relationships etc. and at the end the wizard allows you to create a repository. Start the wizard again and choose "repository" instead of DataFlex or ODBC, andyou'll see that the pre-defined data selection, plus relations are stored. It does not hide it, though.

Once you made a repository, View the Repository Explorer, to see details.

I guess that one could do it as well by defining a (database) view and open that. I quickly tried it on a simple database View in Access,it seems to work fine.

Regards,
Nick

Focus
28-Apr-2009, 03:40 AM
Nick

We've all set the video .... gone away for a few days ... only to come back and find we have taped over .... :D

Thanks for the interesting points. I will certainly watch the webinar if you manage to retape again.

I'm just trying work out the best way to approach this to integrate it with our app in the future

It obviously makes sense tou use 'your' designer but we just need to hide as much of the table normalisation complexity as possible from the user so they don't have to understand complex stuctures just to add what to them seems like a simple column

Cheers

Andrew

Bob Cergol
28-Apr-2009, 12:52 PM
Now how did you do that?
I'd of thought posted messages are read-only.

Garret Mott
28-Apr-2009, 02:15 PM
Now how did you do that?
I'd of thought posted messages are read-only.

Maybe I've got super powers? :D

I believe you can always edit your own msg's. Just click the Edit button.