Sharing a report generating experience - in real time ....

Phil Hepburn · Post by **Phil Hepburn** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 1:00 pm

Hi all Forum guys,

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I realise that I am NOT a guru at making on-screen videos like our friend Paul Piko, but I did wish to share with you a simple X# program, running a WPF form which contains the DevExpress 'Designer' tool. This does all the work and clever stuff.

The 'Designer' also has a Preview tab and that is shown in use to produce the report.

The data for the report is from a SQL server database of mine - which is VERY simple.

I hope to get better as I try to make more video clips - should have some nice ones for Cologne in mid April.

My next video clip offering to you here, will be a double 'Grouped' report - from an in-memory Object, a Collection of 'Person' Types (my Class).

By the way, we get all this functionality from only half a line of XAML script added to the X# template app - dead easy !!!

Hope this interests a few.

Best Regards,
Phil.
Wales, UK.

P.S. - it will be impossible for me to follow-up and explore each of the Third Party offerings for report generation. However, I can find out all that is out there and also provide you with web links to full details of each one. You will have to do some of the research work

robert · Post by **robert** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 5:18 pm

Phil,
The file size was set to 4 Mb. It is now 10 Mb
I will add the video
s.
Robert

Phil Hepburn · Post by **Phil Hepburn** » Fri Jan 19, 2018 5:41 pm

Thanks a lot Robert.

The size is largish for Report design because we have to include such a large screen area for the IDE windows and panes.

I have been playing with 'Infragistic' tools this afternoon, but possibly feel that the reporting system is not quite what I would like to use with X#. It seems to be more a cross-platform dashboard driven system more similar to Reporting Services.

I will continue to research however.

Nice to have you back ;-0)
Phil.

Phil Hepburn · Post by **Phil Hepburn** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 12:10 pm

Okay then Robert and all guys,

I will now try and post you a video clip of creating a report in real time - which takes an in-memory .NET data object and uses this to create and display a 'Grouped' report. The report is actually grouped on both City and Gender.

I like the ability to make such a report as I could see DBFs being easily used to create Collections of business objects - as in this example we have a List<Person> and Person is my Class.

I have tried to show the in-memory stuff at the start, before we use it in the running applet which is the Report Designer from DevExpress. It had to be a quick look at the code since time in this case is file size (not money!).

To my mind this ability to make these sorts of reports is GREAT news for us X# guys.
More later - here is the file :

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Regards,
Phil.
Wales, UK.

Phil Hepburn · Post by **Phil Hepburn** » Sat Jan 20, 2018 1:58 pm

Hi again folks - for the last time this weekend for Reporting,

Now I have to show you not just the power and speed of the Report Designer, but also that which most of you may 'run away from', yes! LINQ.

With just a few lines of X# code we can create a wrapper for the 'GetPersons' static method so that we can find only those with '9' in their address - no grouping this time - here is the code :-

: ObjectAddressWith9_00.jpg (60.69 KiB) Viewed 168 times

Now when we create the report we choose to select this new 'wrapper' to bind to.

Checkout the following before I finish with a couple of static images which show an improved lay-out :-

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The column layout is a bit squashed / messy, up towards the centre of the page, so we can quickly and easily 'ease' the spacing by using the handles on the Label controls on the GUI - this would make the video too large so you need to view the static images :-

: ObjectAddressWith9_02.jpg (30.47 KiB) Viewed 168 times

And now we can see the result when we click the tab to return to the Preview control :-

: ObjectAddressWith9_01.jpg (24.75 KiB) Viewed 168 times

Yes, it really is this simple and straight forward to use the DX Designer to make reports and printed output for us.

Although some of the other third party reporting tools are VERY polished, and powerful, they seem to lack this sort of simple ability to make printed output close to our X# code, and our direct needs.

At the moment I am looking at and researching the Infragistics report 'offering' - BUT - it may be just too wonderful for me to be able to tap into simply. It will be great for others with different needs perhaps - but I am not sure as yet.

I won't give up, I will see what can be done with the other third party offerings. However, at least us X# guys have some choices, without needing to reach out for my personally 'home made' printing class.

Hope this interests a few of you guys - personally, I have been waiting over a decade (ten years) to be able to do stuff like this ;-0)

Cheers, and enjoy the rest of your weekend - some soccer is on my menu right now.
Chelsea and Brighton.

Phil.
Wales, UK.