[Mono-devel-list] Printing status and reporting engine

[Rafael Teixeira]

Well thanks for your project it is surely needed...

<cry>
Nowadays I'm using specific code over iTextSharp to generate PDF files
and then exec'ing lpr on them, as my reporting solution.
</cry>

I don't think anything is actively being developed in the printing classes. 
Neither Gnome-printing is correctly supported by GTK#. 

So that lots of work in the printing support subject is awaiting for
enterprising volunteers...

Could you help us? At least by pointing at bugzilla the not what is
missing (maybe just a task reminding case on the whole subject) but on
how it should be working (some small pieces of code that exercise
things and that work attached to specific cases) so that we can
implement missing things correctly?

Thank you, again 

On 7/30/05, Toni Martir <toni at pala.com> wrote:
> Resume:
> 
> 1. Time line for printing implementation classes (StandardPrintController
> mainly)
> 2. Your preferences,opinions,use of reporting engine for your applications.
>  
> Hello,
> 
> I'm the main developer of an opensource reporting engine:
> 
> http://reportman.sourceforge.net
> 
> I'm in the process of testing a possible port to c#, Mono and Microsoft.Net.
> I implemented few required classes with success:
> - Variant class:with operator overload implemeted (why is it not on standard
> runtime classes?)

In truth there is but it is tyed to specific languages (and their
additional runtime libraries): VB.NET and JScript.NET that has
late-binding and Boo that has duck-typing allow for some
"Variant"-type functionality. C# is a strict-typing language...

> - Expression evaluator:exp.parser+exp.evaluator with access to dataset
> fields, that is to provide runtime expression evaluation like
> ((PRODUCT.PRICE*(100-ORDER.DISCOUNT)/100*ORDER.QUANTITY))

Cool. AFAIK, JScript.NET also has such embedded evaluator. The BOOI
interpreter for the boo language has some pieces that could have been
reused...
 
> I'm on the process of printing tests, I see status of printing classes is
> about 50%, I tested simple printouts on Linux without success (message
> Document 001.jpg is shown on console and nothing print).

Yes, I think things are mostly stubbed, not really implemented in that space.

> I want to know about implementation plans (timeline?) for printing classes:
> StandardPrintControler....
> PrintPreviewDialog (in Winforms).
> I have no information about status of important functions like
> MeasureCharacterRanges.
> 
> I'm also interested about mono developers tools, I'm new to mono and don't
> know which reporting engine you use actually, or plans to implement a
> similar tool. I know really few developers using Mono or .Net for desktop
> applications.

As I said, I know no Report Generating tool for Mono. Some people
already expressed the need in the list, but some want a gigantic first
step, like if a tool as-fully-featured-as Crystal Reports or Microsoft
SQL Server Reporting Services, could be built from scratch in some few
weeks.

> Note that some parts of the engine are not really dificult to port, like PDF
> output generation (once I find correct functions for text measurement), and
> maybe really useful for server side applications.

Well I generate PDFs with iTextSharp that is a port of java's iText
(by one of the it's main mantainers). I think it is far from perfect,
but it certainly works.

:)

-- 
Rafael "Monoman" Teixeira
---------------------------------------
I'm trying to become a "Rosh Gadol" before my own eyes. 
See http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2004/12/06.html for enlightment.
It hurts!