Re: report engine

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo linuxave net>]

> huh, i finally seem to find some time to investigate (contribute?) in
> the 
> progress of the report engine.
> 
> where is all the actual status information + latest dtd proposals?
> gnome-cvs?
> 
> thx, Karl.
> 
Hi Karl,

things have changed a bit from last time we talked with you. The report format
(and so also the DTD) is mainly the same than before, but with some additions.

What has changed is the architecture, which is now CORBA-based. There is an
IDL file (in gnome-db/libgda/report/idl) which contains all interfaces for
the report engine.

So, what must be done? First, please take a look at the IDL, and tell us if
you want to change/remove/add something. Then, a client wrapper for the
CORBA stuff, on which Carlos is working, and the implementation of the CORBA
server part.
Then, we must also write some sort of plugin system to allow different
converters (to convert from the XML format to PDF, PostScript, etc), and,
of course, write the plugins.

Then, in a more higher level, there is the GNOME frontend to this
architecture, which will be a report designer/viewer. But this will be
on the second stage. For the moment, the CORBA part is what must be done.

so, it would be great if you wanted to work, for example, on the plugin system,
since Carlos is working on the CORBA wrapper, and I'll be doing the CORBA
server part as soon as some issues are fixed.
Also, now that I think, a cache system must also be implemented, to allow
the retrieval of already-executed reports.

cheers