[gnome-db] Papyrus, xml reporting



Thought its about time i start mentoning this on main mailing list.

 
> Hello.
> 
> > 
> > Ok i've started coding but not much coding.  As in only got a small
> > handful of C files and not even in CVS.  Been working on database
stuff
> > with nasty things like sql parses.  We are going for just postgresql
> > direct support initially, just for ease of testing, and then we will
put
> > gnome-db and bonddb support in straight after we got layout sussed.
> > anyway. xml file. I've attached it and it gives a good idea of what
the
> > end thing will look like.  Its slightly different to your xml.  
> > 
> 
> I have seen the .xml file and I want to ask you if could you send us
> patches for our DTD as modifications request to
gnome-db-list gnome org,
> I mean, with a few lines with a description of changes done.
> 
> Also, I want start to implement all this in HEAD branch (GNOME 2.0
> version) so I need to work with you (and you with me) to do all as a
> team work.

Anyway my team (myself, andre (lead), and liam as at the moment) are
working on reporting system in our spare time.  We labeled it papyrus.
If it should be called something else and you have a better suggestion
let me know.  We want this reporting system to work with gnome-db though
still have some backend independent.  

gnome-print is used a lot for the actual printing, previewing etc.
though we ran into a few minor short comings with it which wont take
long to modify gnome-print to resolve these (like not been able to run
reports non-interactively).

libxml is used for rendering xml, langauges can be embedded into the xml
but we are still fussing over python (has advantages for linking data
but disadvanages with its tabbing), slang (its a bit messy) and guile
(well its guile)..  

postitioning is both relative and absolete.  relative been the first
choice.  data is managed in groups, and groups can be sub sets of
groups.  Report generation isn't single parse and the whole thing is
generated in a 2d workspace before been dumped to gnome-print. This
makes it resource hungry but it also gives us the best felixablity.

I'm not worrying about the details of the xml files or the database
intergration at moment as this is easy stuff.  At the moment i'm
concentrating on getting the xml overall structure right and making sure
we can correctly represent 99% of the reports we would write with it.
The embedded langauge wont at the moment let you reorganise the way
layout is provided, most of the time you wont need this as your using
the langauge to work out what values are displayed where like calc
totals.  

what we arn't working on but would be good if we could have is a front
end for generating reports.

In regard to your DTD's your definations of xml tags will remain very
similar, but the structure is different with the use of groups, group
headers etc.  I prefer to leave DTD's till i get the thing generating a
sample report, which it doesn't do at the moment. the state of the code
is that it just parses the xml and greats the nessary layouts and prints
lots of debugging info out.  it'll be another week or 2 at least before
we have it generating simple reports.  though i have a forced deadline
on this one for mid jan. aggrr.

regarding cvs.
i'm running this from my cvs server at the moment but i'm fine with
moving it tsover to the gnome cvs server but i dont have an account
there.  also is there tools for mirroring cvs from servers cause that
could be another option.  i got autoconf, autogen stuff etc already set
up.  


Attachment: papyrus.tar.gz
Description: GNU Zip compressed data



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