Hey all,
Just announcing a new project. I've talked before about the power
of PHP and SimpleXML and PHP 5.2.x Well I've had some experience
trying to build some web reporting software, and I'm hoping I have an
idea for yet another killer Drupal app. So I'm just starting to
launch project Forena (based on the Swedish verb meaning "to
connect") which I am hoping will be a direct competitor to other
"enterprise reporting engines" that typically charge $100k US or
more per site.
The college/university that I work at has been generous enough to
allow me to launch this into the world of open source software, and
I'm excited about the opportunity. So here's to announcing the
launch of Forena Reports will (I hope) revolutionize web based
enterprise reporting. (Ok, I admit that it's an ambitious goal)
I'm actively seeking co-maintainers who have a passion for enterprise
reporting and are tired of the likes of Crystal Reports (et. al)
dominating the market
I've got what I think is a strong proof of concept module up at
http://drupal.org/project/forena and I hope that you'll join me in
kicking a tire or two. The report engine is extremely pluggable, and
although it currently only has support for PDO supported databases,
drupal and Oracle, I'm hoping will have support for many other
databases in the future.
Some things that might spark interest among the developers:
* I'm using a plugin registration technique inspired by drupal's
hook_technique that leverages OO programming.. I think it's what
drupal core developers might have thought of if PHP 4 hadn't have
messed with their OO paradigm, but it is an intersting approach to
dealing with the ubiquitious drupal funtion namespace problem.
* PDO connections to ANY PDO supported database.
* Native support for Oracle and (eventually) Postgres XML.
give
* An intersting theme engine that allows users to specify report
templates with frx:foreach tags. I think this will be really easy
for theme developers to wrap their heads around.
Anyway, it's a bit early for this announcement, but if you've been
thinking about purchasing a large scale enterprise reporting
solution, I'd hope you'd consider contributing to Forena Reports
instead. If you have any more questions about this module, please
feel free to ask. I'd really like to be part of a larger group in
this.
Thanks for the time,
Dave
