Re: Reporting Module - Part 1

["Adam \"Tauvix\" Debus" <northstar@delsol.net>]

My intention is to give the user a choice, to generate in HTML or PDF (or
whatever), and then different logic will be used to generate the report at
that point. It will increase the amount of code that will have to be writen,
probably by an order of magnitude, but in the end will make sure that we
don't have the problem of trying to render from one display format to
another.

I'm about to post a patch that will include the beginnings of the module
code. It doesn't really do anything at this point, I've hit a snag, and I'm
not sure what's causing it, so I'm posting it in the hopes that Hitesh will
easily be able to see what my problem is ;)

Adam

----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon White" <simon@mtds.com>
To: "Adam "Tauvix" Debus" <northstar@delsol.net>
Cc: <northstar-devel@brownkid.net>
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: Reporting Module - Part 1


> On Fri, 17 May 2002, Adam  "Tauvix" Debus wrote:
>
> >     You are correct, every system with a browser can read HTML. The
problem
> > is because it's an interpreted "language" it doesn't always look the
same.
> > When we are talking about reports that are, most likely, going to be
shown
> > to someone in Management, to describe why we now need to go spend
another
> > $2500+ a year on IP space...Looking good printed, or at least the same
every
> > time, is going to be a bonus. And as we all know no browser displays web
> > pages the same as any other. Not even between versions of the same
broswer.
> > Adobe supplies Acrobat Reader for 23 different Operating Systems at this
> > exact moment in time, including Linux and Solaris. I'm not sold on PDF
> > format, but it's the only one that I can think of that is going to look
the
> > same no matter what browser/OS you are using that I can think of. Not
only
> > that but nearly everyone in corporate america has a copy of some PDF
reader
> > installed, Adobe's or not. No, PDF/Adobe isn't open source, but it is a
> > defacto standard.
>
> You're right. But you need therefore to come up with a reporting in XML or
> something rather than HTML to begin with, since converting to PDF from
> HTML will be as bad as rendering on different browser flavours anyway.
> However, html2pdf may at least give a standard format to the HTML
> rendering which may make things easier.
>
> --
> Simon White
>
>
>