Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ricardo Araoz]

Don't use Django.


On 13/03/18 13:58, Thierry Nivelet wrote:

Great discussion, thanks for your insights!

So you use Django without doing Web App?
"/Django makes it easier to build better Web apps more quickly and 
with less code./"


Thierry Nivelet
FoxInCloud
Give your VFP app a second life in the cloud
http://foxincloud.com/

Le 13/03/2018 à 17:33, Ricardo Araoz a écrit :

Love Python. Don't do browser apps.


On 13/03/18 13:23, Thierry Nivelet wrote:

Ricardo,

Whatever the language you choose, you'll meet 2 serious obstacles 
down the road to a Web Application:


1. **Write responsive HTML/CSS/JS**: if you want to somehow clone 
the layout of the forms of your VFP desktop application, and render 
it as responsive HTML using - eg. - the Bootstrap framework, it'll 
take you up to 10 levels of nested divs to get a proper layout; no 
GUI editor at the rescue for that: you'll have to hard code using a 
text editor, and choose appropriate class and IDs without getting 
messed up; and it soon becomes very complex and difficult to handle, 
especially because CSS computes the layout for you based on the 
structure and rules you define. If you want a responsive layout, you 
can no longer set .left, .width, etc., you must let the browser 
compute positions and dimensions. Generating HTML is the area where 
your Python code will mostly be used and, strangely, this is only 
the emerged part of the iceberg as point 2. below explains.


2. **Maintain user state**: in your VFP code, each time you write 
'thisForm…' or 'this…' or 'alias.field', or read a public variable, 
you query (without knowing or realizing it) the user state, as it 
results from the succession of user actions applied to some initial 
state. In VFP, as a single instance of the application serves a 
single user, everything can persist in memory: easy and painless. On 
the Web conversely, as the same application can serve any user in 
any sequence, the user state can exist only if you somehow maintain 
it (save and restore). No framework, whether it's Python-based or 
C#-based, will ever do that for you. Then you have roughly 2 options 
to maintain the user state: **on the client or on the server**.


Maintaining the user state on the **client** requires to:

- write a lot of JavaScript, probably with some client-side 
framework such as jQuery, Angular or Ember (be aware that these 
frameworks are pretty conceptual and difficult to master properly; 
they at least require that you are very proficient in HTML/CSS/JS as 
they add several layers above these technologies). Whatever your 
choice, you write no Python here, just HTML, CSS and JS.


- use client side storage to create on the client something similar 
to a view that you'll submit to the server once user decides to 
save. This requires a good knowledge of web storage API, another 
JavaScript-centric technology


- expose all your business and presentation layer code to the 
outside world; just like you would expose all the VFP code you have 
in *.scx and *.vcx, except queries. You can only obfuscate this code 
(eg. minify renames variables in alpha sequence such as "a", "b", 
"c", "d", etc.), concealing it is impossible as the browser must 
read it.


This is the solution that most developers use nowadays; exchange 
with the server are merely data conveyed in the JSON format.


Maintaining the user state on the **server** requires to:

- write double code: client side code altering the user interface is 
almost the same, except it must query the user state from the server 
to take proper action; the amount of code is much higher, and client 
and server must somehow understand each other, this generally 
requires either being a 'full stack developer' or defining tight 
rules (eg. naming) between client and server.


- store user state on a server disk so that any web server can 
retrieve the state for any user at any time (forget about assigning 
server instances to specific users like in the desktop world, it 
just does not work for high user counts; a typical web app serves 
200 users and this figure can go up to several thousands)


- choose or define a format to store user state: could be a simple 
JSON string that the client JavaScript provides after each action 
(then you need to choose a scalable structure), or a table that you 
can easily query to, eg., find differences between states before / 
after user action.


FoxInCloud helps you dramatically in these 2 critical areas:

- **generate responsive HTML/CSS/JS code** from your VFP forms: 
FoxInCloud understand how controls are aligned and grouped on the 
page and builds the corresponding groupings (row, column, *-group) 
in the Bootstrap CSS system


- **automatically maintains user state**: because FoxInCloud runs 
your VFP forms on the server and these forms are object oriented, 
FoxInCloud is able to detect what the user actions change on the 
form and save these changes in a structured way; the same for the 
dataSession (views, 

Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Thierry Nivelet]

Great discussion, thanks for your insights!

So you use Django without doing Web App?
"/Django makes it easier to build better Web apps more quickly and with 
less code./"


Thierry Nivelet
FoxInCloud
Give your VFP app a second life in the cloud
http://foxincloud.com/

Le 13/03/2018 à 17:33, Ricardo Araoz a écrit :

Love Python. Don't do browser apps.


On 13/03/18 13:23, Thierry Nivelet wrote:

Ricardo,

Whatever the language you choose, you'll meet 2 serious obstacles 
down the road to a Web Application:


1. **Write responsive HTML/CSS/JS**: if you want to somehow clone the 
layout of the forms of your VFP desktop application, and render it as 
responsive HTML using - eg. - the Bootstrap framework, it'll take you 
up to 10 levels of nested divs to get a proper layout; no GUI editor 
at the rescue for that: you'll have to hard code using a text editor, 
and choose appropriate class and IDs without getting messed up; and 
it soon becomes very complex and difficult to handle, especially 
because CSS computes the layout for you based on the structure and 
rules you define. If you want a responsive layout, you can no longer 
set .left, .width, etc., you must let the browser compute positions 
and dimensions. Generating HTML is the area where your Python code 
will mostly be used and, strangely, this is only the emerged part of 
the iceberg as point 2. below explains.


2. **Maintain user state**: in your VFP code, each time you write 
'thisForm…' or 'this…' or 'alias.field', or read a public variable, 
you query (without knowing or realizing it) the user state, as it 
results from the succession of user actions applied to some initial 
state. In VFP, as a single instance of the application serves a 
single user, everything can persist in memory: easy and painless. On 
the Web conversely, as the same application can serve any user in any 
sequence, the user state can exist only if you somehow maintain it 
(save and restore). No framework, whether it's Python-based or 
C#-based, will ever do that for you. Then you have roughly 2 options 
to maintain the user state: **on the client or on the server**.


Maintaining the user state on the **client** requires to:

- write a lot of JavaScript, probably with some client-side framework 
such as jQuery, Angular or Ember (be aware that these frameworks are 
pretty conceptual and difficult to master properly; they at least 
require that you are very proficient in HTML/CSS/JS as they add 
several layers above these technologies). Whatever your choice, you 
write no Python here, just HTML, CSS and JS.


- use client side storage to create on the client something similar 
to a view that you'll submit to the server once user decides to save. 
This requires a good knowledge of web storage API, another 
JavaScript-centric technology


- expose all your business and presentation layer code to the outside 
world; just like you would expose all the VFP code you have in *.scx 
and *.vcx, except queries. You can only obfuscate this code (eg. 
minify renames variables in alpha sequence such as "a", "b", "c", 
"d", etc.), concealing it is impossible as the browser must read it.


This is the solution that most developers use nowadays; exchange with 
the server are merely data conveyed in the JSON format.


Maintaining the user state on the **server** requires to:

- write double code: client side code altering the user interface is 
almost the same, except it must query the user state from the server 
to take proper action; the amount of code is much higher, and client 
and server must somehow understand each other, this generally 
requires either being a 'full stack developer' or defining tight 
rules (eg. naming) between client and server.


- store user state on a server disk so that any web server can 
retrieve the state for any user at any time (forget about assigning 
server instances to specific users like in the desktop world, it just 
does not work for high user counts; a typical web app serves 200 
users and this figure can go up to several thousands)


- choose or define a format to store user state: could be a simple 
JSON string that the client JavaScript provides after each action 
(then you need to choose a scalable structure), or a table that you 
can easily query to, eg., find differences between states before / 
after user action.


FoxInCloud helps you dramatically in these 2 critical areas:

- **generate responsive HTML/CSS/JS code** from your VFP forms: 
FoxInCloud understand how controls are aligned and grouped on the 
page and builds the corresponding groupings (row, column, *-group) in 
the Bootstrap CSS system


- **automatically maintains user state**: because FoxInCloud runs 
your VFP forms on the server and these forms are object oriented, 
FoxInCloud is able to detect what the user actions change on the form 
and save these changes in a structured way; the same for the 
dataSession (views, cursors, table states) and the general 
environment (public 

Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ricardo Araoz]

Love Python. Don't do browser apps.


On 13/03/18 13:23, Thierry Nivelet wrote:

Ricardo,

Whatever the language you choose, you'll meet 2 serious obstacles down 
the road to a Web Application:


1. **Write responsive HTML/CSS/JS**: if you want to somehow clone the 
layout of the forms of your VFP desktop application, and render it as 
responsive HTML using - eg. - the Bootstrap framework, it'll take you 
up to 10 levels of nested divs to get a proper layout; no GUI editor 
at the rescue for that: you'll have to hard code using a text editor, 
and choose appropriate class and IDs without getting messed up; and it 
soon becomes very complex and difficult to handle, especially because 
CSS computes the layout for you based on the structure and rules you 
define. If you want a responsive layout, you can no longer set .left, 
.width, etc., you must let the browser compute positions and 
dimensions. Generating HTML is the area where your Python code will 
mostly be used and, strangely, this is only the emerged part of the 
iceberg as point 2. below explains.


2. **Maintain user state**: in your VFP code, each time you write 
'thisForm…' or 'this…' or 'alias.field', or read a public variable, 
you query (without knowing or realizing it) the user state, as it 
results from the succession of user actions applied to some initial 
state. In VFP, as a single instance of the application serves a single 
user, everything can persist in memory: easy and painless. On the Web 
conversely, as the same application can serve any user in any 
sequence, the user state can exist only if you somehow maintain it 
(save and restore). No framework, whether it's Python-based or 
C#-based, will ever do that for you. Then you have roughly 2 options 
to maintain the user state: **on the client or on the server**.


Maintaining the user state on the **client** requires to:

- write a lot of JavaScript, probably with some client-side framework 
such as jQuery, Angular or Ember (be aware that these frameworks are 
pretty conceptual and difficult to master properly; they at least 
require that you are very proficient in HTML/CSS/JS as they add 
several layers above these technologies). Whatever your choice, you 
write no Python here, just HTML, CSS and JS.


- use client side storage to create on the client something similar to 
a view that you'll submit to the server once user decides to save. 
This requires a good knowledge of web storage API, another 
JavaScript-centric technology


- expose all your business and presentation layer code to the outside 
world; just like you would expose all the VFP code you have in *.scx 
and *.vcx, except queries. You can only obfuscate this code (eg. 
minify renames variables in alpha sequence such as "a", "b", "c", "d", 
etc.), concealing it is impossible as the browser must read it.


This is the solution that most developers use nowadays; exchange with 
the server are merely data conveyed in the JSON format.


Maintaining the user state on the **server** requires to:

- write double code: client side code altering the user interface is 
almost the same, except it must query the user state from the server 
to take proper action; the amount of code is much higher, and client 
and server must somehow understand each other, this generally requires 
either being a 'full stack developer' or defining tight rules (eg. 
naming) between client and server.


- store user state on a server disk so that any web server can 
retrieve the state for any user at any time (forget about assigning 
server instances to specific users like in the desktop world, it just 
does not work for high user counts; a typical web app serves 200 users 
and this figure can go up to several thousands)


- choose or define a format to store user state: could be a simple 
JSON string that the client JavaScript provides after each action 
(then you need to choose a scalable structure), or a table that you 
can easily query to, eg., find differences between states before / 
after user action.


FoxInCloud helps you dramatically in these 2 critical areas:

- **generate responsive HTML/CSS/JS code** from your VFP forms: 
FoxInCloud understand how controls are aligned and grouped on the page 
and builds the corresponding groupings (row, column, *-group) in the 
Bootstrap CSS system


- **automatically maintains user state**: because FoxInCloud runs your 
VFP forms on the server and these forms are object oriented, 
FoxInCloud is able to detect what the user actions change on the form 
and save these changes in a structured way; the same for the 
dataSession (views, cursors, table states) and the general environment 
(public variables, _Screen and _VFP custom properties, aliases in the 
default datasession). FoxInCloud maintains the user state on server 
side, in tables using a naming convention (user\form_[ante/post].dbf). 
The only thing you need to do is: declare the native properties (eg. 
'visible', 'enabled') that the user action can 

Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Thierry Nivelet]

Ricardo,

Whatever the language you choose, you'll meet 2 serious obstacles down 
the road to a Web Application:


1. **Write responsive HTML/CSS/JS**: if you want to somehow clone the 
layout of the forms of your VFP desktop application, and render it as 
responsive HTML using - eg. - the Bootstrap framework, it'll take you up 
to 10 levels of nested divs to get a proper layout; no GUI editor at the 
rescue for that: you'll have to hard code using a text editor, and 
choose appropriate class and IDs without getting messed up; and it soon 
becomes very complex and difficult to handle, especially because CSS 
computes the layout for you based on the structure and rules you define. 
If you want a responsive layout, you can no longer set .left, .width, 
etc., you must let the browser compute positions and dimensions. 
Generating HTML is the area where your Python code will mostly be used 
and, strangely, this is only the emerged part of the iceberg as point 2. 
below explains.


2. **Maintain user state**: in your VFP code, each time you write 
'thisForm…' or 'this…' or 'alias.field', or read a public variable, you 
query (without knowing or realizing it) the user state, as it results 
from the succession of user actions applied to some initial state. In 
VFP, as a single instance of the application serves a single user, 
everything can persist in memory: easy and painless. On the Web 
conversely, as the same application can serve any user in any sequence, 
the user state can exist only if you somehow maintain it (save and 
restore). No framework, whether it's Python-based or C#-based, will ever 
do that for you. Then you have roughly 2 options to maintain the user 
state: **on the client or on the server**.


Maintaining the user state on the **client** requires to:

- write a lot of JavaScript, probably with some client-side framework 
such as jQuery, Angular or Ember (be aware that these frameworks are 
pretty conceptual and difficult to master properly; they at least 
require that you are very proficient in HTML/CSS/JS as they add several 
layers above these technologies). Whatever your choice, you write no 
Python here, just HTML, CSS and JS.


- use client side storage to create on the client something similar to a 
view that you'll submit to the server once user decides to save. This 
requires a good knowledge of web storage API, another JavaScript-centric 
technology


- expose all your business and presentation layer code to the outside 
world; just like you would expose all the VFP code you have in *.scx and 
*.vcx, except queries. You can only obfuscate this code (eg. minify 
renames variables in alpha sequence such as "a", "b", "c", "d", etc.), 
concealing it is impossible as the browser must read it.


This is the solution that most developers use nowadays; exchange with 
the server are merely data conveyed in the JSON format.


Maintaining the user state on the **server** requires to:

- write double code: client side code altering the user interface is 
almost the same, except it must query the user state from the server to 
take proper action; the amount of code is much higher, and client and 
server must somehow understand each other, this generally requires 
either being a 'full stack developer' or defining tight rules (eg. 
naming) between client and server.


- store user state on a server disk so that any web server can retrieve 
the state for any user at any time (forget about assigning server 
instances to specific users like in the desktop world, it just does not 
work for high user counts; a typical web app serves 200 users and this 
figure can go up to several thousands)


- choose or define a format to store user state: could be a simple JSON 
string that the client JavaScript provides after each action (then you 
need to choose a scalable structure), or a table that you can easily 
query to, eg., find differences between states before / after user action.


FoxInCloud helps you dramatically in these 2 critical areas:

- **generate responsive HTML/CSS/JS code** from your VFP forms: 
FoxInCloud understand how controls are aligned and grouped on the page 
and builds the corresponding groupings (row, column, *-group) in the 
Bootstrap CSS system


- **automatically maintains user state**: because FoxInCloud runs your 
VFP forms on the server and these forms are object oriented, FoxInCloud 
is able to detect what the user actions change on the form and save 
these changes in a structured way; the same for the dataSession (views, 
cursors, table states) and the general environment (public variables, 
_Screen and _VFP custom properties, aliases in the default datasession). 
FoxInCloud maintains the user state on server side, in tables using a 
naming convention (user\form_[ante/post].dbf). The only thing you need 
to do is: declare the native properties (eg. 'visible', 'enabled') that 
the user action can affect (custom properties being saved by default); 
FoxInCloud compares the state 

Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ricardo Araoz]

Thanks Thierry, but I've gone over to Python, love the language and 
libraries, gives me pleasure to write it. As for the 10x times, it might 
be true if you are left to your own devices. But thankfully it has loads 
of beautiful and useful libraries which allow me to keep writing a 
language I've come to love.


Cheers



On 12/03/18 15:04, Thierry Nivelet wrote:

Ricardo,

Unless learning Python is for you so important and compelling that you accept 
to spend 10x more time for the same result, did you look at FoxInCloud?

Thierry Nivelet
http://foxincloud.com/
Give your VFP app a second life in the cloud


Le 12 mars 2018 à 18:58, Ricardo Araoz  a écrit :

Ed, never worked with templating systems, but reading the examples I have a few 
doubts regarding their capabilities, maybe you know the answer to them?
In the example they define  items, but will the template generate a new 
title on top of every page?
Can you define page sizes, page footers, group headers and footers, group 
totals, running totals?




On 07/03/18 11:47, Ajit Abraham wrote:
Thanks Ed. I had seen that before - but as there was no GUI, I ignored it.
I need the GUI for absolute positioning of objects - similar to 
VFP/Crystal/Jasper report builders.

Will have another look at it.



While I don’t do much reporting in Python these days, I would recommend a 
simple templating system like Jinja or Mako to create the HTML output, and an 
HTML-PDF converter to create the output. I did a quick google around and found 
this article: http://pbpython.com/pdf-reports.html . It looks pretty 
straightforward.

-- Ed Leafe



[excessive quoting removed by server]

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Thierry Nivelet]

Ricardo,

Unless learning Python is for you so important and compelling that you accept 
to spend 10x more time for the same result, did you look at FoxInCloud?

Thierry Nivelet
http://foxincloud.com/
Give your VFP app a second life in the cloud

> Le 12 mars 2018 à 18:58, Ricardo Araoz  a écrit :
> 
> Ed, never worked with templating systems, but reading the examples I have a 
> few doubts regarding their capabilities, maybe you know the answer to them?
> In the example they define  items, but will the template generate a 
> new title on top of every page?
> Can you define page sizes, page footers, group headers and footers, group 
> totals, running totals?
> 
> 
> 
>> On 07/03/18 11:47, Ajit Abraham wrote:
>> Thanks Ed. I had seen that before - but as there was no GUI, I ignored it.
>> I need the GUI for absolute positioning of objects - similar to 
>> VFP/Crystal/Jasper report builders.
>> 
>> Will have another look at it.
>> 
>> 
>>> While I don’t do much reporting in Python these days, I would recommend a 
>>> simple templating system like Jinja or Mako to create the HTML output, and 
>>> an HTML-PDF converter to create the output. I did a quick google around and 
>>> found this article: http://pbpython.com/pdf-reports.html . It looks pretty 
>>> straightforward.
>>> 
>>> -- Ed Leafe
>> 
>> 
[excessive quoting removed by server]

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ted Roche]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 2:13 PM, Ed Leafe  wrote:
>
> These are HTML generators, so there is just one  per document. Not 
> sure how you would translate that to hard copy page breaks.
>

CSS to the rescue! You can set up a block with @media print { ... }
and include loads of directives to control the appearance and layout
of the printed page.

I have a set of reports for one client where the printed page looks
much different from the visual page, thanks to CSS.

Check out the @page directive and the :first and other pseudo-tags:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Paged_Media

So, you can set up entire blocks within the page"

Your Title here

and the CSS:

div.printonly {display:none}

@media print {
  div.printout {display:inline}
}

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ricardo Araoz]

Thanks Ed, you saved me a few hours of reading.



On 12/03/18 15:13, Ed Leafe wrote:

On Mar 12, 2018, at 12:58 PM, Ricardo Araoz  wrote:

Ed, never worked with templating systems, but reading the examples I have a few 
doubts regarding their capabilities, maybe you know the answer to them?
In the example they define  items, but will the template generate a new 
title on top of every page?

These are HTML generators, so there is just one  per document. Not sure 
how you would translate that to hard copy page breaks.


Can you define page sizes, page footers, group headers and footers, group 
totals, running totals?

Sure, the templates support embedded code, so you would be able to do that, but 
it isn't baked-in as in VFP or Crystal. Remember, they are HTML templates, not 
reporting templates.


-- Ed Leafe







[excessive quoting removed by server]

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ed Leafe]

On Mar 12, 2018, at 12:58 PM, Ricardo Araoz  wrote:
> 
> Ed, never worked with templating systems, but reading the examples I have a 
> few doubts regarding their capabilities, maybe you know the answer to them?
> In the example they define  items, but will the template generate a 
> new title on top of every page?

These are HTML generators, so there is just one  per document. Not sure 
how you would translate that to hard copy page breaks.

> Can you define page sizes, page footers, group headers and footers, group 
> totals, running totals?

Sure, the templates support embedded code, so you would be able to do that, but 
it isn't baked-in as in VFP or Crystal. Remember, they are HTML templates, not 
reporting templates.


-- Ed Leafe






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author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added 
to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.

Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ricardo Araoz]

Ed, never worked with templating systems, but reading the examples I 
have a few doubts regarding their capabilities, maybe you know the 
answer to them?
In the example they define  items, but will the template generate 
a new title on top of every page?
Can you define page sizes, page footers, group headers and footers, 
group totals, running totals?




On 07/03/18 11:47, Ajit Abraham wrote:
Thanks Ed. I had seen that before - but as there was no GUI, I ignored 
it.
I need the GUI for absolute positioning of objects - similar to 
VFP/Crystal/Jasper report builders.


Will have another look at it.


While I don’t do much reporting in Python these days, I would 
recommend a simple templating system like Jinja or Mako to create the 
HTML output, and an HTML-PDF converter to create the output. I did a 
quick google around and found this article: 
http://pbpython.com/pdf-reports.html . It looks pretty straightforward.


-- Ed Leafe




[excessive quoting removed by server]

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ajit Abraham]

Thanks Ed. I had seen that before - but as there was no GUI, I ignored it.
I need the GUI for absolute positioning of objects - similar to 
VFP/Crystal/Jasper report builders.


Will have another look at it.



While I don’t do much reporting in Python these days, I would recommend a 
simple templating system like Jinja or Mako to create the HTML output, and an 
HTML-PDF converter to create the output. I did a quick google around and found 
this article: http://pbpython.com/pdf-reports.html . It looks pretty 
straightforward.

-- Ed Leafe



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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ricardo Araoz]

I've checked it out, I can see your point, it's a beautiful tool, but 
too many dependencies and a long product chain.
For simple database reports (that would be 98% of the time) I'll work 
with xlsxwriter and PollyReports which is close to the fox style but 
stays within python and keeps the design of your report and it's 
parameters within the language and will be easily portable.
Regarding the remaining 2% if I can't dodge the bullet I'll probably end 
up doing what you suggest (thanks for the tips Ajit, hadn't heard about 
until you mentioned it)


Cheers


On 08/03/18 12:06, Ajit Abraham wrote:

Thanks Ricardo,

On 08/03/2018 01:39, Ricardo Araoz wrote:
You could also check "relatorio" and "pod" if you are willing to work 
with open office.


Gaetan's Appy Framework does exactly that. It works with odt documents.
For simple reporting, it is ok. But for complex reports(which is easy 
in VFP), I found that had to do too much of tinkering.

Also it needs Libreoffice to run in silent mode to generate the pdf.

check out PollyReports which is not a graphical tool but a python lib 



Simply put, I have been spoilt by VFP. Hence hunting for the GUI

Ok. Seems that I will settle in for JasperReport.
These are the steps:
1. Prepare the data in XML format (Thanks to yattag library)
Along with the table data, I can pass adhoc values like the report 
title etc
2. Design the report through the free JasperStudio (same like VFP 
report design tool)
3. Generate PDF through Jadson Ribeiro's pyreport which is a wrapper 
for JasperStarter command-line tool.
This generates the PDF without any reporting service running in the 
background.


Ajit





[excessive quoting removed by server]

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Stephen Russell]

Happy Happy Joy Joy they say.  Needing 3 server environments to dev, test
as well as prod because one upgrade or update can screw things up.  Been
there and done that.

On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 10:15 AM, Alan Bourke 
wrote:

> I've used JasperStudio alongside Servoy (which is essentially a
> Java/Apache stack) to do this and it was the path of least resistance. Once
> it was up and going it has worked fine creating complicated invoice PDF
> files  on demand from a database.
>
> But as is the way with development nowadays it's adding at least one other
> third-party layer of dependencies into a toolkit that is already a mountain
> of third party dependencies, and you're multiplying the potential points of
> failure all the time. In this particular scenario you could update Java and
> the whole thing might collapse.
>
>
>
> --
>   Alan Bourke
>   alanpbourke (at) fastmail (dot) fm
>
[excessive quoting removed by server]

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Alan Bourke]

I've used JasperStudio alongside Servoy (which is essentially a Java/Apache 
stack) to do this and it was the path of least resistance. Once it was up and 
going it has worked fine creating complicated invoice PDF files  on demand from 
a database.

But as is the way with development nowadays it's adding at least one other 
third-party layer of dependencies into a toolkit that is already a mountain of 
third party dependencies, and you're multiplying the potential points of 
failure all the time. In this particular scenario you could update Java and the 
whole thing might collapse.



-- 
  Alan Bourke
  alanpbourke (at) fastmail (dot) fm

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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ajit Abraham]

Thanks Ricardo,

On 08/03/2018 01:39, Ricardo Araoz wrote:
You could also check "relatorio" and "pod" if you are willing to work 
with open office.


Gaetan's Appy Framework does exactly that. It works with odt documents.
For simple reporting, it is ok. But for complex reports(which is easy in 
VFP), I found that had to do too much of tinkering.

Also it needs Libreoffice to run in silent mode to generate the pdf.


check out PollyReports which is not a graphical tool but a python lib 


Simply put, I have been spoilt by VFP. Hence hunting for the GUI

Ok. Seems that I will settle in for JasperReport.
These are the steps:
1. Prepare the data in XML format (Thanks to yattag library)
Along with the table data, I can pass adhoc values like the report title 
etc
2. Design the report through the free JasperStudio (same like VFP report 
design tool)
3. Generate PDF through Jadson Ribeiro's pyreport which is a wrapper for 
JasperStarter command-line tool.
This generates the PDF without any reporting service running in the 
background.


Ajit




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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ricardo Araoz]

I googled a bit. The ideal thing would be something that generates RML 
(ReportLab Markup Language) and then use python's rml2pdf library, but I 
havent found any graphical RML generator. You could also check 
"relatorio" and "pod" if you are willing to work with open office.
For a tool which uses detail bands, and total, subtotal, and group bands 
as well as page headers and footers you could check out PollyReports 
which is not a graphical tool but a python lib which depends on 
ReportLab, but allows good control for database reports, as for accuracy 
it works with points (that would be 72 points to an inch), or you could 
use ReportLab.lib.units which allows you to work in inches, cm, mm and pica.

HTH


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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ed Leafe]

On Mar 7, 2018, at 9:03 AM, Ajit Abraham  wrote:
> 
> Thanks Ed. I had seen that before - but as there was no GUI, I ignored it.
> I need the GUI for absolute positioning of objects - similar to 
> VFP/Crystal/Jasper report builders.

Well, there *is* the Dabo ReportWriter, which has a GUI layout inspired by VFP. 
Not sure how well it runs with modern Python libraries, though, as it really 
hasn’t been actively updated in almost 5 years.

-- Ed Leafe






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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ajit Abraham]

Thanks Ed. I had seen that before - but as there was no GUI, I ignored it.
I need the GUI for absolute positioning of objects - similar to 
VFP/Crystal/Jasper report builders.


Will have another look at it.



While I don’t do much reporting in Python these days, I would recommend a 
simple templating system like Jinja or Mako to create the HTML output, and an 
HTML-PDF converter to create the output. I did a quick google around and found 
this article: http://pbpython.com/pdf-reports.html . It looks pretty 
straightforward.

-- Ed Leafe



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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Ed Leafe]

On Mar 7, 2018, at 4:23 AM, Ajit Abraham  wrote:

> Before I make the final leap to Jasper, I want to ask those who are working 
> with Python - as to what they are using for a GUI reporting tool similar to 
> VFP and that which does not involve a reporting service to be run in the 
> background!

While I don’t do much reporting in Python these days, I would recommend a 
simple templating system like Jinja or Mako to create the HTML output, and an 
HTML-PDF converter to create the output. I did a quick google around and found 
this article: http://pbpython.com/pdf-reports.html . It looks pretty 
straightforward.

-- Ed Leafe






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Re: [NF] Reporting in Python (Django)

[Alan Bourke]

The bottom line is I doubt you'll find anything as simple as the Visual FoxPro 
report writer in the sphere in which you are working. This isn't a 
Django/Python/Windows/Linux thing, it's just how things are now especially in 
the web development world.  


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