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Mimas Prototype Death Star (without the dodgy trench!), the Comet shot is pure Sci-Fi poster stuff 
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I posted a question [^]about WPF reporting.
I got a few answers and I've been looking at them.
1) I've decided against Telerik after their Tech Support told their report suit only works if you purchase their Control suite also.
2) Infragists... NO! Used their crap in the past and I won't go back. Besides, I can't find a demo to try. Not a same to run... a demo I can download and work with.
3) CodeReason[^]... Looks promsing, but I downloaded it and I don't see any kind of designer(????)
4) Crysal Report....20 years ago they were great. $hit now.
This got me thinking... what happened to the days of easy reporting. It used to be simple. Is it just me or has reporting gotten REALLYL complicated?
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Yes... it is horribly complicated, and every choice is a mess.
It really is time for the marketing department (or finance department, or whatever) to learn how to query data for themselves instead of countless iterations of a report that nobody really cares about, and won't be used once the initial person who requested the report leaves the company and no longer has to justify his/her job.
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Kevin Marois wrote: Is it just me or has reporting gotten REALLYL complicated?
..take a text-file, write a method that replaces text, loop the dataset and replace the placeholders in the text-file with values, and you're done. Add some HTML, and presto, reports you can view with any "device". Add your background and all the other markup as CSS.
It does not have to be complicated.
If you are to sell that reporting-solution to someone else, then it has to sound complicated. Otherwise, they would simply take a text-file, write a method..
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: It does not have to be complicated.
Your options I WAY too complicated... and a maintenance nightmare. Not a serious option for anything other than columns of text data.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Kevin Marois wrote: Your options I WAY too complicated
Replacing tokens in a text-file?
Kevin Marois wrote: and a maintenance nightmare.
If it is one already, then indeed, don't go that way.
Kevin Marois wrote: Not a serious option for anything other than columns of text data
Most of the web is built that way; HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Kevin Marois wrote: Your options I WAY too complicated
Not really. I have used this method before and it works very well.
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If all the report contained was columns of raw text, then sure, this would work.
But back to the real world... my report has a lot more content, so no, looping over data and replacing text is not an option.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Ok. Only you can decide what is the correct method for you. Good luck. Report tools all suck at some level.
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Slacker007 wrote: Report tools all suck at some level.
Ain't that the truth.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Can't you just use razor / T4 to generate an html page? you can have anything on that page.
Razor is a bit more complicated to get working out of mvc, but is possible and the templates look nicer than T4, but both work wonders.
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I have done this many times. Good suggestion.
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Or, you could go a bit further and re-use ASP.NET MVC's Razor:
https://github.com/AlexCuse/RazorReport[^]
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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DevExpress? I use them and they are very helpful and have an AWESOME control suite. You can also just buy the reporting stuff, all required dependencies cannot be used in design time, but you don't have to buy the whole control set.
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
---
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
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Kevin Marois wrote: 2) Infragists... NO! Used their crap in the past and I won't go back. Besides, I can't find a demo to try. Not a same to run... a demo I can download and work with.
So if you had a demo, you would use their crap? 
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I dunno. I am not very impressed with them, but at this point I'm open to anything.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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1) Output data to Excel (use ClosedML from codeplex)
2) Tell users to go wild colouring in the resulting spreadsheet however they like
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Duncan Edwards Jones wrote: colouring in the resulting spreadsheet however they like
Because we all know that users just want colorful reports with lots of bling. F*** the data, show me the color.
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If you're generating a new report and don't need any extra formatting, you can just generate the basic xml. Much less painful than even ClosedML, and Excel will open it just fine.
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Excel is what we do now for reporting. Very flexible for the user who has to work with it.
We've used Crystal Reports in the past; it's really no good anymore!
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20 years ago I wrote a report designer/reporting suit in COBOL using Btrieve as database - I can search for the source code and send you if you want!?
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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COBOL? HAHAHA
Thanks, I needed a laugh.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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COBOL lives.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote: COBOL lives.
... in someone's mind.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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