Re: report engine

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo linuxave net>]

Hi Karl,

> > 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.
> 
> incorporating gnome-print seems reasonable for that issue, do you intend
> so or 
> do you want to brew your own stuff?
> gnome-print can already, as you know, generate ps and pdf, i think it
> would be quite easy 
> to implement a lib which draws xml-layouted queries on a gnome-print
> widget.
>
the problem here is that we want the report engine to be totally GNOME-
independent. So, the best solution I can see here is to talk with the
gnome-print people to see if it's possible to remove their GNOME
dependencies.
  
> > 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.
> 
> as it seems, a frontend is the thing i could start work on, because of
> my lack of
> corba knowledge. i think, the designer could easily be implemented stand 
> alone in the first place, with a corba layer added by someone later on.
> are there any plans on this for now? if not, i´d gladly start to 
> work on a core concept for this one.
> 
it's perfect for me you starting on this. The only thing I disagree is on the
"stand alone" stuff. The fact is that we agreed on having the report XML
format management stuff on the CORBA level, so this designer should be
implemented at the same time as those IDL methods for doing so are added.

Carlos had a suggestion about these IDL interfaces, so Carlos, show them
to us again, please.

cheers