Valentina Reports

Hi boys!

I am trying to build a report using Valentina Reports, and I’ve got a few problems:

  1. in Page Footer and Report Footer region I can’t put a database field
  2. I don’t know how to preview/print the report from my Realbasic (Xojo) application.

I hope there is someone who can take me out of troubles!

Best regards!

Had some problem to with V Reports, now i’m switching to BKeeney Shorts, very nice reporting tool.
Take a look ! http://www.bkeeney.com/allproducts/bkeeney-shorts/

Hi Matteo,
I see that with BKeeney Short you have to code everything: don’t you think it’s a return to the past?

A little, but this way you can have full control on your output !
In Shorts groups and styles speed up a lot designing your report and if you have MBS PDF plugs you can print directly to a PDF file (ok even Valentina does this if i remember well)

Thanks for the plug. Banded reporting tools such as Valentina have their place. What they do, they do well. However, once you need to do something they don’t do you are typically out of luck.

BKS Shorts came into being because we do a lot of reporting and while banded reports fill 95% of our needs, the other 5% were simply impossible to do. The great thing about Shorts is that you can code it to do anything. The bad thing about Shorts is that you have to code it to anything.

With that said, we’re hoping to add new features to it this summer. Suggestions are always welcome!

Sorry, but this is what I did about 15 years ago, and in the actual visual world this doesn’t seem to me a logical solution: it is a wasting time method of printing reports. I come from Windows world, and Visual BASIC reality; I use Crystal Reports to set up my reports, so I am looking for a similar solution in Xojo world, but till now I haven’t found yet. Hope in the near future…

I believe that @Ruslan Zasukhin should comment about the footer problem.

How can I get into touch with Ruslan?

Click his name and then click “Start a private conversation with Ruslan Zasukhin”.

Ruslan is going to pop on shortly.

Reporting with RAD tools tend to follow one of two paths -

  • Build with native controls, which result is nice, native looking reports but also limits of the native controls
  • Build with an independent reports system, which result in a less native look but potentially provide features not limited by native controls

Valentina Reports is the latter. Even though we have our own advanced, object-relational database system Valentina DB, we recognize that companies require the flexibility to use different database systems as well as different heavy or thin client dev tools. Likewise, Valentina DB isn’t locked into any one dev tool but available on all major development environments on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows (also a free xCode library for iOS). We have implementations of Valentina Reports that work with all of them, and Reports projects can even be used with Valentina Server (grab a free copy of the 5 connection version). That way, you can serve reports to your customers who might not be accessible given limitations in the client dev tool you have selected.

I can tell you this is a huge advantage. Think of those sorry devs who are incredibly invested in Adobe Director. While Director sinks into the tarpits, those who moved over to Valentina DB and Valentina Reports for those in app functions have a lot less work to do when they move over to a forward moving developer solution like Xojo.

Hi Nedi,

I already answered few hours ago couple of your questions in Valentina tickets.
But I did not see post here. After forum change URL I have stop get email notifications from Christian mechanism. I will try resign again.

I have asked two our developers to check this issue with footer. I will response when will get some answers from them.

For archive purpose I will copy paste here answers to your other questions:

Q: how can I condition some items? (i.e.: I have a label and a field that must disappear if the value of the field is zero)

[quote]please check this page

http://www.valentina-db.com/docs/dokuwiki/v5/doku.php?id=valentina:products:vstudio:help:report_editor:toolbar:common
Here note Conditional Style

Another way is to use print_if property of each control, in the inspector on the right side.
here you can define some SQL valid expression.
[/quote]

Q: how can I preview/print a report within a RealBasic application?

[quote]in Valentina Studio you make new Valentina Project file .vsp
you save here one or few reports.

Then in RB you open this .vsp file,
you load report into RAM using VProject.MakeNewReport()
and then you can

  • make preview PICTURE of some Nth page
  • or generate report in required format to disk or RMA buffer.

you can see how to work with reports in
HOME/My Documents/V4RB/Examples/VReport folder.[/quote]

Hi Nedi,

both developers cannot reproduce problem that you describe with footer.
They have try simple report and with sub-reports.
So I need ask you provide us more detailed information about what you want, what you do and how, and other details.

Best of all if you open issue in our Mantis bug tracker: http://www.valentina-db.com/bt/
Here you will be specify OS, version, db which you using.
Will be good if you attach zipped your vsp file, may be db.
And please tell us exact steps how to reproduce …

I agree with Matteo and Bob about Shorts ( is true … you have to code anything … but we can copy and past from a project to another !!!).
So, Bob we are waiting the possibility to create a pdf without Dynapdf plugin (is too expensive).
Thanks

Hi Nedi,

issue was that each your record have special column with same value, which you was going to display in footer of page. But report engine did think that all records are done in body of report.

This is improved, to allow the footer region to see the last used record on this page.

A new build of VStudio is uploaded to http://www.valentina-db.com/download/beta/5.3b3/

To guys who advocate here about “printing in code” :slight_smile:

With all respect, this is anything, but NOT a report tool.
A Report Tool is intended to REMOVE / EXCLUDE need in coding !!

Reports should be designed visually, in many case-sensitive by designers.
Reports should not be compiled INTO application.
Users should be able change your “reports” later, again easy and visually, without any coding.

REALbasic developers already have play with few such “code-reports”. Some of them already are dead.
Right?

Interesting how you going to re-use such “reports” in case if tomorrow you will need that your solution worked also with PHP? or other languages?

Ok Ruslan: now it’s all fine. Well done.

As a new user to Valentina Reports with Omegabundle I am trying to get to grips with reporting. I use mySQL database. I seem to be able to connect to my server but something is wrong with my connection string. Any clues?

mReport = mProject.MakeNewReport(1, "mysql://host=192.168.0.100,port=3306,user=username,passw=password,databasename=name" , "select * from invoices")

I don’t really want the sql at the end but “” appears to throw an error.

Any useful valentina reports demo with mySQL?

The ,vsp file is being picked up fine by the rest of my code but the error I get is no database selected.

The connection string should be:

"mysql://host=192.168.0.100,port=3306,user=username,password=password,dbname=name"

i trait Valentina but have same Bug of Xojo Reports

Report lines do not have the ability to auto grow in height when i add data with TextArea using the return key for each line enter on the textarea

Hi Guys,

I was going to make this NEWS post in 1-2 days. But something I will show today.

  1. We have spend already 2 weeks developing new ONLINE examples of Valentina Reports
  • Examples are described in WIKI, then you can see a link to open an online generated report

  • Each example contains on top of the page links to database and project file with reports. So you can download and see how it is made.

  • BENCH example demonstrates that Valentina Server, working as REPORT SERVER, can produce 4-12 millions 1-page PDF reports in one day working on Mac Mini/i7

  • CONTROL_ALL example includes many simple reports, each tend to demonstrate one control and how its parameters change render.

  • UNIVERSAL_REPORT example demonstrates how the same report is generated agains mySQL / PostgreSQL / VSERVER. Yes we have setup on that online server these 3 DB servers, we have load into them the same Sakila database. THIS example is implemented on both PHP and Xojo Web Edition. You can download archives of both. And in few days we will add implementation via Java + Tomcat.

ANNOUNCES

2.1) next 5.5b15 build of Valentina products, will include Microsoft MS SQL as datasource using native protocol (i.e. without ODBC). Important to note, that Mac and Linux also will be able connect to MS SQL server directly.

2.2) We develop right now Oracle as datasource to Valentina Reports. It already works on Macs, todo integrate on Win and Linux… We not sure if it will go to 5.5. May be into 5.6. We need decide yet how to pack HUGE Oracle Client libs …

2.3) Valentina for Java ADK – opens Valentina Reports and Valentina DB to Java developers. As told above we already have working example. Now we finishing build scripts of archives. In 1-2 days we should produce 5.5b15 build where VJAVA will be included also for all OS.

2.4) We have assigned developer to implement MS SQL and Oracle plugins for Valentina Studio. It should take 2-3 months if all right.