Popup windows & printing
Mike Dee
reports need to be printed and that is what I'm trying to figure out.
I'm porting an older app - that is more of traditional web app.
Reports are displayed in a page - with a UI wrapped around them. When
a user wants to print a report, he clicks a "print" link, which pops
up a window with a printer friendly version (no UI elements). He can
then selects the browser's print command. Works nicely.
I'm trying to figure out how to do that in GWT. I can display a
report. Printing doesn't work well, because it prints all the UI
stuff too.
I've looked into separate popup windows. Most of the messages here
recommend against doing it. Instead they suggest using a Dialog box.
I've tried it and created a Dialog with simply an HTMLPanel. However,
selecting File->Print (in the browser) prints the entire page (the
entire window).
Any suggestions on a way to do this?
Jeffrey Chimene
Here's one idea I've implemented. It's amenable to arbitrary levels of
complexity.
Your UI posts a request to your server on user action (e.g. a button
click event), and opens the result in a new window:
<button type="submit">
<form action="printTheCurrentReport" _target="_blank" method="get">
<!-- Depending on how you manage sessions, you might want a session ID
token in a hidden field -->
</button>
Reminder: you should have css for print media.
Mike Dee
windows this is seen as a negative because it is tricky to setup
communications between the main window and the popup. But there
really is no communication needed in this case.
Do you see the popup window as a GWT window or just a straight HTML
window?
Jeff Chimene
> I was thinking about something like that. In the posts about popup
> windows this is seen as a negative because it is tricky to setup
> communications between the main window and the popup. But there
> really is no communication needed in this case.
>
> Do you see the popup window as a GWT window or just a straight HTML
> window?
The latter. This is one of those cases where I think that using GWT to
create the child window doesn't get you anything except a "problem
solved!" endorphin rush. As I said earlier, the solution can be made
arbitrarily complex, so I'm sure that someone will chime in with a
reason to implement the popup using GWT methods.
To follow-up on the CSS: I've noticed that when there's a reference to a
CSS with media type "print", then FF opens a print dialog automatically.
I think Chrome does this too.
Mike Dee
HTML into it. If Window.open would return a reference to the window,
I could see a way to do it.
Here is another idea. I can create another module to the GWT app.
It's sole purpose is to handle printing.
The GWT app I'm working on is based on Activities and Places. The
layout is based on a DockLayoutPanel, which contains a bunch of UI
stuff (that appears when printing and is not wanted). The new module
will simply contain an HTML panel.
So the benefits of a new module are: works in standard GWT environment
(without much hacking) and allows a different layout from main app.
Fabricio Pizzichillo
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Jeffrey Chimene
> It seems easy to popup a new window, but I'm not sure how to stick the
> HTML into it.
That's the purpose of the _target attribute in the <form> element.
> If Window.open would return a reference to the window,
> I could see a way to do it.
Create a JSNI routine that creates a window and returns the handle.
> Here is another idea. I can create another module to the GWT app.
> It's sole purpose is to handle printing.
Whatever.
Bueno Suerte,
jec
Mike Dee
users had problems with it. Don't know if it is supported either.
On Oct 27, 3:03 am, Fabricio Pizzichillo <fpizzichi...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I found this thread, maybe can help you.http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thread/threa...
>
> regards
>
> 2011/10/27 Mike Dee <mdichiapp...@gmail.com>
Mike Dee
Experimenting now with using separate module.
On Oct 27, 6:55 am, Jeffrey Chimene <jchim...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/26/2011 9:02 PM, Mike Dee wrote:
>
Mike Dee
feeding it HTML. In this case it works nicely because the main page
has HTML in it and the popup simply shows the same HTML but without
the UI.
However, I can think of situations where there is a celltable with
data and I want to print the celltable contents - in a printer
friendly format. Now, there is no HTML (that could be fed into a
popup). That HTML would have to be created. Remember I want to
leverage the browser's ability to print HTML.
I guess there are two options:
1) Clicking a button (to popup the printer friendly window) would have
to create roughly equivalent HTML (as in the celltable) and feed it
into the popup window.
OR
2) Have the popup window do that logic. This where I was thinking of
using another module. But I'm not sure how to do that. Another idea
is to simply put the logic in a JSP. Then I'd need to check on how
session sharing works between JSP and GWT.
Jeffrey Chimene
> I really don't like the idea of popping up a new window and then
> feeding it HTML. In this case it works nicely because the main page
> has HTML in it and the popup simply shows the same HTML but without
> the UI.
>
> However, I can think of situations where there is a celltable with
> data and I want to print the celltable contents - in a printer
> friendly format. Now, there is no HTML (that could be fed into a
> popup). That HTML would have to be created. Remember I want to
> leverage the browser's ability to print HTML.
>
> I guess there are two options:
>
> 1) Clicking a button (to popup the printer friendly window) would have
> to create roughly equivalent HTML (as in the celltable) and feed it
> into the popup window.
>
> OR
>
> 2) Have the popup window do that logic. This where I was thinking of
> using another module. But I'm not sure how to do that. Another idea
> is to simply put the logic in a JSP. Then I'd need to check on how
> session sharing works between JSP and GWT.
equivalent of a "Print Screen" or formatted to the dimensions of a piece
of paper.
The problem isn't new, I've seen it in multiple reincarnations over the
years. The inevitable result is basically your 3rd option. The client
sends the appropriate key information to the server which responds with
the formatted data. The idea is that the server renders the data in a
format that is substantially different from what's displayed on the
screen. The server's advantage is that it's in a position to include
information (perhaps it augments the session data with other database
queries) that is not present on the client.
Marcin Biegan
media=print and display:none should do the job, just hide everything
except the stuff to print. You can do it dynamically in case you need
to allow to print various regions of the application.