Arctic reports (reporting system - Windows)

[Marco2007]

Thanks!

Interesting, how something gets better and better...

[srod]

Thanks!

Interesting, how something gets better and better...

Ah, still early days yet!

Considering that the company behind one long standing reporting system against which I am measuring the performance and functions of Arctic Reports employs more than 800 people, and I am working alone, I am not doing so bad!

[srod]

9th September 2010.

Pyrex 1.4.4 / nxReport 1.8.

Hi,

this is what I would term a 'maintenance' release; of which there are likely to be a couple of these whilst I continue working on the Arctic Reports documentation, tutorials and so on.

Aside from a few bugs being fixed (details in the relevant history files) the biggest changes are as follows :

• Altered the ordering of some subreport events and adjusted some internal values related to current record numbers etc. The consequences of these changes are :
  
  • The standard expression function CurrentRecordNumber() will return zero when the relevant subreport footer is about to be rendered. This of course indicates that all subreport records have been processed etc. Previously, this standard function would return the number of records.
    
    A similar statement holds for CurrentGroupRecordNumber().
  • A subreport which has a data-connection defined and which returns zero records will now render during a preview/print etc. In such cases we will typically see rendered the various header sections and a single detail section etc. which may of course contain empty (or invalid) controls.
    
    Previously, a data driven subreport returning no records would be skipped entirely.
    
    You can, however, arrange for such subreports (or individual sections) to be skipped by employing suitable event expressions as discussed below.
    
    This was done to give more flexibility to the rendering of subreports which yield, for whatever reason, zero records.

• Added a new return value for event expressions : #nxReport_SKIPREMAINDEROFSECTION. When returned from an event expression, the remainder of the section being rendered will be skipped.
  
  The complete list of possible return values from event expressions are :
  
  • #nxReport_OKAY which means no action is taken
  • #nxReport_FORCEPAGEBREAK to force a page break
  • #nxReport_SKIPREMAINDEROFSECTION as described above
  • #nxReport_SKIPREMAINDEROFSUBREPORT to skip the remainder of the subreport.
  (You cannot combine these values at present and they apply to all events except for #nxReport_EVENT_BEFOREPROCESSINGSUBREPORTDATASOURCE).
  
  You can of course use suitable event expressions to affect a 'print condition' for individual report sections. Only page-headers and page-footers offer explicit print conditions.

Regards.

Stephen.

[srod]

20th October 2010.

Hi,

this is a relatively minor update.

The biggest changes are as follows :

• (nxReport and Pyrex) Added the ability for line controls to utilise arrows etc. At present the size of the arrowhead(s) are set automatically by nxReport depending on the thickness of the line etc.

• (nxReport and Pyrex) Modified the Now() standard expression function to take an additional optional parameter; 'offsetSeconds'. This value (seconds) is added to the current date. Useful for referencing future or past dates etc.

• (Pyrex) Line controls no longer show an option for setting the border-style to 'solid inside rectangle' etc.

• (Pyrex) Left and right margins now directly affect the width of the design canvas.

If using the nxReport core module directly in your applications, then make sure you use the latest version of the nxReport 'header file' with your program. For Powerbasic users this is the "nxReport.inc" file. For Purebasic users this is the "nxReport_HeaderFile.pbi" file. Both are available in the appropriate 'Wrapper files' download.

Regards.

Stephen.

[le_magn]

Thank you for the update!!!

[javabean]

Arctic Reports is a great reporting system - I like it very much

Just one question. In my next project I will need to display RTF text (which is stored as a string in the database) in a report.
But I really don't know how one could do this. Any hints or ideas?
Thanks in advance,
javabean

[srod]

Hi,

afraid that is not possible in Arctic Reports. The closest you would be able to get is to use a custom control and draw to it yourself via the nxReport core module. This would of course require you to create an RTF parser along the way, and a text formatting engine!

[javabean]

Thanks srod!
As you have mentioned the custom controls (I haven't used them so far), I'm wondering if I could go over EMF as intermediate step?
Some time ago I played around with rendering RTF text to EMF-files (I think I posted it somewhere in the Tips 'n Tricks section)...maybe this could be an approach?

[srod]

When rendering to a custom control you are in fact rendering to an EMF (or a part of one). Your existing work should therefore carry over to such controls.

Beware, however, that the Pyrex designer will allow you to create such controls and set a few properties (such as clipping etc.) but it cannot assist you with the rendering of the control's content. You need to use the nxReport core module for this from your own application and set-up a report callback function.

Unfortunately I have no demos for using custom controls. I did have one just to test that it all worked, but it was not appropriate for use as a full demo etc.

[IdeasVacuum]

Hi srod

Would really like to use Arctic Reports but access to the download published on your website does not work

[Zach]

srod has been gone from the community for a while now. I think he left to deal with some health issues.

[IdeasVacuum]

...oh, I thought he had started a new business (outside of the software industry).

Edit: spotted on the forum August 27th http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... 01#p360001

[srod]

Health fine and I pass through the forums at least once every couple of days or so - just no time for coding these days.

@Ideas : if you'd like to try Arctic Reports (knowing that I will not be updating it any time soon) then e-mail me via the nxSoftware site and I'll see what I can do.

[sphinx]

Health fine and I pass through the forums at least once every couple of days or so - just no time for coding these days.

Nice to hear from you though I think you do not pass through your email or may be my email did not reach you!
I wish you all the best.

[srod]

Health fine and I pass through the forums at least once every couple of days or so - just no time for coding these days.

Nice to hear from you though I think you do not pass through your email or may be my email did not reach you!
I wish you all the best.

No e-mails received that I am aware of no. I go days sometimes without checking my mail.