Discussion: (More) Advanced HTML Reporting

[.dan.g.]

Hi All

The prototype can now be accessed in 7.3.DP5 via:

1. 'File > Print Preview > Layout > Other Html Exporter > Report Builder'

2. 'Tools > Export > Format > Report Builder'

Give it a go and give me some feedback!

[Pierre de la Verre]

Great idea, Dan

but sadly no answer since nearly 2 months?

You mentioned "only " design features, but what's about data content? How and where will you draw the line between HTML-export and HTML-transform via XSLT?

Happy Eastern to you (and everybody)

Peter

[Alessandro Verdoni]

Please try to give more flexibility to the tables.

I do not pretend an Excel spreadsheet, but something better than the existing one would be nice.

thanks

 

[.dan.g.]

>> Please try to give more flexibility to the tables.

Are you referring to the tables in the 'Rich Text' comments, or the 'Tablular' print style?

[Alessandro Verdoni]

I'm referring to the rich text comments.

Sorry, I made confusion between  built-in HTML exporter and internal text editor.

[.dan.g.]

In that case, the news is good. The HTML comments plugin in 7.3 will have quite extensive table editing:

[.dan.g.]

Thanks for your comments Peter.

>> but what's about data content

Not sure what you mean by this.

Basically my intention is to provide tools to specify headers, footers, company logos, more elaborate report titles, and then to allow detailed specification of tasks and their attribute formatting and arrangement.

May even integrate information from the time log files.

[.dan.g.]

Hi Peter

I have added a proof-of-concept 'Report Writer' to 'Tools > Export Tasks' so you can see what direction I'm heading in.

I've attached a screenshot too.

Regards

On Tuesday, 16 April 2019 05:04:05 UTC+10, Pierre de la Verre wrote:

[Peter .]

Thanks Dan

 

looks fine.

 

You write „attached ... too“ – should there be another attachment then the screenshot?

 

Peter

[.dan.g.]

I meant 'attached a screenshot as well as including the new module in 7.3.DP2'

[.dan.g.]

The next step is loading/saving report templates after which I'm going to prompt you (and others) for more detailed feedback :)

[mikro]

Hi Dan,

that looks great! This is going to be very usefull!!!

Will it be possible to define Formats for the hierarchical level of tasks?

Like

1. Parent Task, level 1 (bold, underlined)
2. Parent Task, level 2 (bold)
3. Subtask (standard)

 

cheers Mikro

[.dan.g.]

>> Will it be possible to define Formats for the hierarchical level of tasks?

My initial idea would be to allow the user to append an index to the attribute placeholder to indicate the level at which it applies.

ie. '$(title.1)' applies to top-level tasks

     '$(title.2)' applies to 2nd-level tasks

     '$(title.3)' applies to 3rd-level tasks, etc

     '$(title)' applies to everything not previously specified

eg. taking your example you might specify the task title as: '$(title.1)$(title.2)$(title)'

The benefits of this method are:

1. Doesn't make the basic UI any more complicated by adding features that many people might not use (remember you are a power-user!)

2. Allows any attribute to be overridden at any level

3. Allows any font characteristic to be overridden rather than just a select few

4. Fairly straightforward to implement

The downside is that it is not 'discoverable' except via example templates.

I don't have any clear ideas about how to do this (suggestions welcome) but it might be easier if we can restrict this to task titles only...

[BEN]

Hello

I'm also interested in this reporting feature.

I installed the 7.3DP2 version. As soon as I touch the export button, ToDoList crashes.
Anything I can do to help, any idea of the cause?

Ben.

[.dan.g.]

Hi Ben

Currently it crashes if the current Windows regional settings use a comma instead of a period as the decimal separator.

Does that match your setup?

[BEN]

Yes that solved the problem.
Thanks for the hint (well I just saw in the abridged summary that I might have found it myself in the DP1 thread).

Nice work. I will test a bit.

Regards

Ben. 

[.dan.g.]

Crash fixed in 7.3.DP3

On Thursday, 13 June 2019 19:43:00 UTC+10, BEN wrote:

[.dan.g.]

Hierarchical editing fixed in 7.3.DP3: eg. $(title.1) $(title.2) $(title)

No separator required between values.

On Wednesday, 12 June 2019 22:36:35 UTC+10, mikro wrote:

[BEN]

Hi

It seems OK indeed.

It seems however that the "alloc to" doesn't issue a value.

It is really a nice idea because xslt is really hard to master.

Do you have already an idea how far you are going with this hierarchy feature?

I don't think specifying the level is the easiest way. You don't alway know how much you should go down (nested structure).

Perhaps colors could be used from the task coloring scheme (settings/user interface/task coloring/color by).

and regarding the hierarchy perhaps some conditions could be used too? 

I explain:

I structure my TDL like this

1. Project 1
1. task 1
2. task 2
2. Project 2
1. task 1
2. task 2

I use color by status. For a "project" (I use status="project"), I have thus a different color. And ecah task has its color based on the same field (OPEN/ON HOLD/ STARTED/... That's "automatic" with the config options.

But then if in the builder I could perhaps define the fields with something like

if $(status.1) == "Project" then

<TR COLSPAN=3 ><TD>project $(title.1) </TD><TR>

else

<TR><TD>$(risk)</TD><TD>$(dueDate)</TD><TD>$(ver)</TD></TR>

What do you think. Am I dreaming too far? I'm currently using python scripts to do the reports based on the XML but it is less user friendly ;-)

Anyway. Thanks for this tool

Ben

[.dan.g.]

>> Perhaps colors could be used from the task coloring scheme

Absolutely, I just haven't done it yet. I expect that most people will not need to override colours at all since the content will be coloured exactly as it is in the app itself.

>> Am I dreaming too far?

At this stage yes.