Crystal Reports and Dolphin?

Does anyone actually use Crystal Reports and Dolphin together?  Do you
report on objects or from a database?  How do you like Crystal Reports as
used with Dolphin?

I am considering using Crystal Reports with Dolphin, it sounds like I can
report from a database, or from objects (I need to understand this better).
I could also write my own reporting framework, I just wonder if it would be
easier to use Crystal Reports.  I currently use an RTFStream to generate
reports, but I find the RTF standard a bit limited (I need visible tables,
etc...).

Any thoughts?

Chris

A couple thoughts -

I use CR with IBM Smalltalk quite successfully.  However, you deal with the
db and not with objects.

There may be a way to create your own "data source" and feed in your
objects, but I don't know how much access you will get to your object's
behavior.  Therein is the limitation - with a Smalltalk Solution you have
access to all your object behavior.

How about streaming out HTML?  Pagination is the main drawback here, but it
can be a very flexible way to get data out.

jlo

"Christopher J. Demers" <[hidden email]> wrote in
message news:9j2tsl$lglv2$[hidden email]...
> Does anyone actually use Crystal Reports and Dolphin together?  Do you
> report on objects or from a database?  How do you like Crystal Reports as
> used with Dolphin?
>
> I am considering using Crystal Reports with Dolphin, it sounds like I can
> report from a database, or from objects (I need to understand this
better).
> I could also write my own reporting framework, I just wonder if it would
be
> easier to use Crystal Reports.  I currently use an RTFStream to generate
> reports, but I find the RTF standard a bit limited (I need visible tables,
> etc...).
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Chris
>
>

Hi there!

Jeffrey Odell schrieb:
>
> A couple thoughts -
>
...
>
> How about streaming out HTML?  Pagination is the main drawback here, but it
> can be a very flexible way to get data out.


Or better XML? You could convert it to whatever you want (e.g. PDF)
using an XSL processor...


>
> jlo
>

Joe

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel             mailto:[hidden email]
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D-71642 Ludwigsburg
Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0            Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1

Can you point to some resources re: XSL and PDF?  I have been looking at
XSLT also, but was unaware the XSL had that much power.

We have an XML export framework - this could become quite useful -

jlo

"Joachim Tuchel" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...
> Hi there!
>
> Jeffrey Odell schrieb:
> >
> > A couple thoughts -
> >
> ...
> >
> > How about streaming out HTML?  Pagination is the main drawback here, but
it

Jeffrey Odell <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:3b552f0d$[hidden email]...
> There may be a way to create your own "data source" and feed in your
> objects, but I don't know how much access you will get to your object's
> behavior.  Therein is the limitation - with a Smalltalk Solution you have
> access to all your object behavior.

I finally found some information on CDO (Crystal Data Objects), via ActiveX
I could create a pseudo table based on an array of arrays.  I suspect this
would not be a good idea for large amounts of data, so I may end up dumping
to a database and reporting off of that.

> How about streaming out HTML?  Pagination is the main drawback here, but
it
> can be a very flexible way to get data out.

Yes, pagination would be a problem with HTML.  This report system would
probably be replacing an MS Access report, so I want to provide a similar
interface and level of features.  It looks like Crystal reports might
facilitate this.

Thanks for the feedback,

Chris

We integrated the CR Preview Pane into IBM Smalltalk and WindowBuilder and
use it to preview, export to multiple formats (Excel for example) and e-mail
via std MAPI.  You get that all for free once you get this widget going.
With Dolphin's superior COM wrapping capabilities, I'm sure you could do
this in Dolphin also.

I'd be very interested if you made progress with the CDO - please let us
know how it goes on all fronts.

jlo

"Christopher J. Demers" <[hidden email]> wrote in
message news:9j5af2$m4oms$[hidden email]...
> Jeffrey Odell <[hidden email]> wrote in message
> news:3b552f0d$[hidden email]...
> > There may be a way to create your own "data source" and feed in your
> > objects, but I don't know how much access you will get to your object's
> > behavior.  Therein is the limitation - with a Smalltalk Solution you
have
> > access to all your object behavior.
>
> I finally found some information on CDO (Crystal Data Objects), via
ActiveX
> I could create a pseudo table based on an array of arrays.  I suspect this
> would not be a good idea for large amounts of data, so I may end up
dumping

Jeff,

Take

http://xml.apache.org/fop/index.html

as a starting point. You should find whatever you need there.

Joachim


Jeffrey Odell schrieb:
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel             mailto:[hidden email]
Häslenweg 28                            http://www.objektfabrik.de
D-71642 Ludwigsburg
Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0            Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1