Best report for Delphi 5 - follow up

[Alex Suhov]

Hello,

I posted recently a message about the best report tool, but after reading
the answers, I found that I omitted the important thing: what is criteria
for comparision. Ok, correcting myself. First of all, the following
parameters are interesting:

1. Flexibility: must be able to build any complex and exhaustive report as
needed; must not limit developer to the built-in abilities only.
2. Customizability: developer (or even end user) can add new reports or
modify existing ones without recompiling the program.
3. Convenience in use (both for developer and user; including convenient
user interface, export to other formats, etc.)
4. Expandability, high level of code reuse.

Of course, it must be stable and reliable and have no bugs (as far as it is
possible).

I used QuickReports before, and now thinking what to use next, as QR a)
limits user to the pre-compiled reports; QR Design is not so convenient and
flexible as compiled QR reports b) difficult to develop complex reports c)
does not allow to reuse code.

IMHO, ReportBuilder seems to meet all the above requirements and has a
well-thought architecture. I did not use it at all, just read the
documentation and saw demos.

Thanks
Alex

[==- siang chuen -==]

you r right... quick report not that good....
i'm thinking of using Crystal Report now....

[Chris Davis]

I have been using RB for the last 4 months and it is great.
Much better than QR. I have used CR and it was OK, but not as good as RB

==- siang chuen -== <scp...@tm.net.my> wrote in message
news:38FEAAF4...@tm.net.my...

[L. S. Lichtmann]

I think you will find that ReportPrinter Pro (more specifically, its visual
report design tool, RAVE) has the greatest flexibility, customizability and
expandability amont available reporting tools. RAVE is singular in that it
is page-oriented, rather than band-oriented, meaning that print jobs which
can be accomplished only with great difficulty, if at all, in other tools
are trivial exercises in RAVE. RAVE supports mirroring of report sections.
This means, for instance, that it is possible to design a page header and
propagate that header design across an entire set of reports. Later changes
to the design are automatically reflected in the client reports.

RAVE uses an external definition file, which means that reports can be
modified, additional reports can be created, etc., without requiring
recompilation of of the client application. (Although, as the reports
require a Delphi or BCB application to provide data, reports requiring
datasets not currently extant would require changes to the client program.)
Note that the definition file is also specifically self-documenting -- the
list of available reports can be read out of the defiiniton file and
displayed, so that the addition of reports can be automatically reflected in
the client application. On the other hand, it is also possible to compile
the definition file into the client program.

I personally find the RAVE designer the best layout tool I've ever used .

Alex Suhov <alex...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8dm8p6$ns...@bornews.borland.com...

[Marco Menardi]

Try FastREPORT (http://www.fr.hotmail.ru). It's cheap (99$), prompt
respons from the developer if you find any bug, you can download an
evaluation version with most of the source included. For instance,
QuickDesk (Interbase databases management tool) uses it and they claimed
it's very good (http://ems-hitech.com/quickdesk/)
The *author* claims (from the readme.txt file):
1. INTRODUCTION
FastReport is reporting tool component. It consists of report engine,
designer and preview. Its capabilities comparable with in ReportBuilder
4.xx.
It written on 100% Object Pascal and can be installed in Delphi 2/3/4/5
and C++Builder 1/3/4.
FastReport 2.4 is SHAREWARE. See "Ordering" topic for details.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. CAPABILITIES
- Band-oriented report generator.
- Build-in powerful designer, also available in run-time.
- Preview like in MS Word.
- Fast like QuickReport.
- Compact code - w/o designer smaller than QR2.
- Unlimited number of pages in prepared report.
- Multi-page reports; composite reports; subreports; groups;
multi-column reports; master-detail-detail reports;
cross-tab reports; two-pass reports; "live" reports.
- Full control over printing process; support all paper sizes.
- Set of most useful components: Text, Line, Picture, Shape, OLE object,
RichText, RX Rich 2.0, Chart, Barcode.
- TXT, RTF, CSV, HTML export (RTF and HTML - with pictures).
- Text search in prepared report.
- Add-in component TfrDataStorage intended for creating tables and
queries
in run-time like QRDesigner does. Especially for end-user reports.
Supports
Interbase Express (IBX) and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO).
- Editing pages of prepared report.
- Built-in Pascal-like interpreter for handling of building process.
- Report form can store in DFM resources, external file, BLOb field
of DB table, or in stream.
- Ability of expanding functionality by own report components, wizards,
function libraries.