Report writer for Python?

[Adams-Blake Co.]

Andy Robinson wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Oct 2002 22:39:15 -0700, "Adams-Blake Co."
> <aremovethiscanton at adamsremovethis-blake.com> wrote:
> 
>>Besides reportlab.com, what other reporting tools are availabe? I'm
>>especially interested in a GUI-like report writer like Crystal that can
>>generate printed reports. I want to do an application in Python but it has
>>some 40 reports.
>>
>>There are some tools for Java, so I thought there must be some for
>>Python.... but I have not found any via Google searching
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Al
>>
> 
> I do not know of any GUI report creation tools in Python.
> If they did, I'd hope they'd be front ends for us, as making PDF is
> a better cross-platform solution than driving a printer.  I'd LOVE
> to write one in wxPython but haven't the time....
> 
> But let me point one one experience which helped drive me to
> start ReportLab inthe first place.  I worked on a project using a tool
> like Crystal, it too had about 40 reports.  6 developers tried to make
> all the documents consistent with each other and "nearly got there".
> At one point the marketing people changed the company's phone number,
> so someone had to open up all 40 and change them.  They all had
> subtly different visual spacing, row heights etc which took ages
> to track down.  Not to mention performance problems trying to
> do 10,000 customer statements on a Sunday afternoon.
> 
> Visual tools usually don't allow reuse, and have serious limits on
> what you can do.  Controlling it all in Python gives total
> flexibility.
> 
> If you're a programmer, using our code you can create a family of
> 'drawable objects', and reuse them.  You can share and maintain
> styles.  You'll get a long way in 2 days, and will reach a point
> where most of those reports only need slightly different queries
> and definitions.   With our approach, each extra document gets
> cheaper and cheaper. With tools like Crystal, the first one is cheap
> but each extra one probably costs the same forever.
> 
> If-there's-a-better-reporting-solution-for-Python-than-us-I-want
> it-caught-and-shot-ly-yours,
> 
> Andy Robinson
> CEO/Chief Architect, ReportLab Inc.
> 
> p.s you can outsource the project to us if it helps ;-)


I read the docs to ReportLab and I was really impressed by what it could 
do. The problem is that it is really LOW level.... down to the painting of 
the canvas. Also, the docs were written for an experienced Python 
programmer.... which I'm not. And I was not entirely clear exactly how I 
would do the traditional "sort, extract, report" function against a 
table.... with headers, footers, and group breaks with sub totals. This is 
the kind of thing that Crystal does well... and while I really hate Crystal 
I have to admit that it works OK. 

What I'm looing at is moving to Jython. This gives me the advantages of 
Python along with the Java library.... and I found some report generators 
(Datavision, for example) that might get me where I want to go. 

When you're a really small developme team you just don't have the time to 
layout and program 40 or 50 complex reports at the "bit" level. A code 
generator or some kind of report writer is the way to go. 

Oh, and yes, you are absolutely right about sending all reports to PDF and 
letting Adobe deal with the printer drivers. That's exactly what I plan to 
do.

I'm going to continue to study the ReportLab product and maybe a light will 
go off and I can understand how to do what I need to do..... plain old  
text oriented business reports.... the bread and butter of Crystal.

Thanks,

Al Canton
Adams-Blake Company, Inc.
www.adams-blake.com