Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Got a LiveCode personal license? Are you a beginner, hobbyist or educator that's new to LiveCode? This forum is the place to go for help getting started. Welcome!

Moderators: FourthWorld, heatherlaine, Klaus, kevinmiller

Post Reply
YogiYang
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:09 am

Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by YogiYang » Thu Apr 05, 2018 6:08 am

Hello,

I am searching for way by which I can design reports in LC (running in windows) and print using the designed reports in Mac OS X.

Is there any tutorial or blog article regarding this feature?

TIA
--
Yogi Yang

Mikey
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 755
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:00 pm

Re: Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by Mikey » Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:50 pm

There's a chapter in the LiveCode Manual, and if you attend LiveCode Global, there just might be a session in May on it.

dunbarx
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9578
Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 2:28 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by dunbarx » Thu Apr 05, 2018 5:22 pm

Hi.

Reports are usually generated by building a card or cards with a layout of controls of your choice. DataGrids, table fields and graphics are all available, in all colors.

I am working on a project now where the "report" is essentially a CAD-like drawing, printed to both pdf and paper. It looks pretty close to a drawing made in SolidWorks or AutoCad.

Was there something beyond those capabilities that you had in mind?

Craig Newman

YogiYang
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:09 am

Re: Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by YogiYang » Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:11 am

dunbarx wrote:
Thu Apr 05, 2018 5:22 pm
Hi.

Reports are usually generated by building a card or cards with a layout of controls of your choice. DataGrids, table fields and graphics are all available, in all colors.

I am working on a project now where the "report" is essentially a CAD-like drawing, printed to both pdf and paper. It looks pretty close to a drawing made in SolidWorks or AutoCad.

Was there something beyond those capabilities that you had in mind?

Craig Newman
Hello Craig,

Actually I don't know anything about printing in LC. I have a need to write a small billing software that should run on Mac OS X as well as Linux.

I have already developed the originally in Xojo but the printing quality from Xojo is now acceptable so I came searching for a cross platform tool that has robust reporting capabilities.

Are there any tutorials that contains step by step instructions as to how to develop reports and print them directly to printer or PDF?

TIA
--
Yogi Yang

bogs
Posts: 5435
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2017 10:45 pm

Re: Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by bogs » Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:50 am

Well, from what I remember of Rb, you 'printed' by literally creating graphics and drawing the pages. Not sure if that changed during the move to Xojo or not.

In Lc, you would create a report style card, with fields and whatnot, then print the card or cards. Some of the terms you'd want to look up would be print, pretty-print, etc.

Some previous conversations here that are worth looking at :
http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?t=11965
http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?t=24673

I don't know which version of Lc your using, but 7.x back had a stack called 'revreportsetup.rev' (mentioned in that last link, as well as elsewhere) which you can drop into your plugins folder and use to setup a report print out as well. I think most believe that just setting up a card the way you want the report to go is the best way though, and use 'print card'.

*Edit - this lesson goes into the basics pretty well.
Image

dunbarx
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9578
Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 2:28 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by dunbarx » Fri Apr 06, 2018 6:05 am

I have a need to write a small billing software that should run on Mac OS X as well as Linux.
A form as you describe is basic and straightforward. Do you need a head start in creating a page that looks like an invoice or something similar? Can you place controls like fields graphics on a card?

Why not sketch a page and submit it here? This is easy stuff.

Craig

YogiYang
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:09 am

Re: Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by YogiYang » Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:03 am

Hello,

Sorry for delay in reply.

Please find attached a sample output that I want to achieve in printing.
2018-04-17_133123.png
TIA
--
Yogi Yang

dunbarx
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
VIP Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9578
Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 2:28 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Designing Reports and printing them on Mac OS X

Post by dunbarx » Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:13 pm

This is simple with a dataGrid, but that is not for new users.

But you can lay out fields on the card as you need, even table fields if you have experience with those, modify textStyles, and print either to paper or to pdf directly. Add a few graphic objects for pizzazz. Do you need advice on this?

I bet Richmond will send you an actual template in about an hour or so. He does that sort of thing.

But I really think you should get started laying out those fields. Oh, name them appropriately.

Craig

Post Reply

Return to “Getting Started with LiveCode - Complete Beginners”