Allerup Report Designer - by Allerup EDB

by Shawn Mason

Published 1998-09-01    Printer-friendly version

The most drudging part of any complete program without question is the reports. It can be so time consuming and nit-picky that, of late, I have included in my quotes a flat fee for the product and up to 5 reports. Each report after that is on a "per report" basis. Nothing can suck the profits out of a project faster then having to make a million small changes on 25 reports.

So, to avoid this problem, you have heavyweight report designers out there like Seagate Software's Crystal Reports. I have used, and continue to use, Crystal Reports. But with the immense flexibility of Crystal Reports comes yet another layer of sophistication, which can (and usually does) come back to bite you in the form of a higher degree of tech support (which, if not stated up front, can also tear a chunk out of your profits).

This problem became critical with several products I have that are for the mass market (that means low priced). If I use Crystal Reports and give my users the ultimate flexibility, I am going to have a lot of tech support calls that the users did not pay for. But, if I hard code all the reports, then the product will not do as well, because the reports will not meet everyone's needs. What to do, what to do?

As I am sure you know, all great products come from a need like this one or a void in something (we'll wax philosophical later). It was because of this particular problem, I believe, that Allerup Report Designer came into existence. To use the words of Report Designer's help file:

• "The new Allerup Report Designer was designed to make designing reports in Clarion for Windows easier for the end-user as well as the developer. The developer can design the reports, but if he so chooses, he can also allow his end-users to change the reports or add new designs. This way, the developer can provide standard reports with his program, and the user can add or change the report design if they have need for it. The developer determines which data fields are available for individual reports, so the end-user doesn't have access to add other fields to the report, than it was originally designed for."

Well, then. Let us embark on this adventuresome middle ground.

Installation

The installation came in a large zip file. The file contained four other zipped files that can be unzipped either onto separate floppies for installation, or placed into a single directory and installed. This part was easily the most overlooked. I would have preferred a little more hand holding and some better explanations for the screens. The online help for installation also had no reference to C4, only to CW20. If you have installed several third party templates, then you will pretty much be able to whiz through it; otherwise, this part may be a bit of a struggle for you. Once installed, the template(s) have to be manually registered. There are two templates for C4, one for the Clarion template set and the other for the ABC (OOP) template set.

Overview

The template consists of three main sections. The templates themselves constitute one major part; these allow your program to interact with the other two main sections. The second major component is the Report Designer Program. It is this section that the programmer uses to define the reports and the various layouts. This section, which is actually a stand-alone program, is designed for the programmer only. The third and final section is the end user's Report Designer. It looks very similar to the programmer's Report Designer, but it does not have all the necessary programming mumbo-jumbo. It is contained within a DLL or LIB, and is called directly from your program (and it even nicely integrates itself into your program's frame so as to appear to be part of your program).

These three sections must be used in conjunction with each other to give you and your users the ability to create and modify the reports within your program. You create the procedure within your program, design it with the programmer's Report Designer, and then the end user can easily make modifications to the report to suit their own tastes.

Preparing Your Reports

To have access to the features of Report Designer, you must first include the Global Extension template. There is also a Procedure Extension template for each report you wish to use Report Designer with. If you choose to allow your end abusers (oops, sorry, I meant end users) to modify the reports then you must also allow them to call the Report Designer procedure. This procedure is prototyped in the Global extension template. For your convenience, a control template is also provided for this. The only remaining thing you must do is to import the two Report Designer files from the included demo. Your program is now ready to use Report Designer.

Procedure Extension

This is probably the most complex and important template. It is here that you define exactly how your program and Report Designer will interact.

Extension Template)

The Report Type is a name that must match a like name in the Report Designer Setup Program. This is the link between the procedure in your program and Report Designer. If you do not have this link setup properly, you get the nice message you put under the next entry control. You, the programmer, have the choice to use a specific report layout for this report ,or you can use the default. You can even allow the end user to choose which layout s/he wants to use (you're really getting masochistic now, though). If you already have controls on your report (i.e.; it already exists, or you generated it with the report wizard [ugh!]), then you need to check the "Destroy all report controls before printing?" box. This will clean out the report at runtime, and then all the settings created with Report Designer will be dynamically created. The next two buttons define and number the detail bands in your report, and define which fields you allow for this report. Last, but definitely not least, the "Export Fields" check box will allow you to export all the fields you are using on a report to an *.rdf file (which is nothing but a comma-delimited ASCII file). This will allow you to import these fields into the Report Designer Program, thereby saving you from having to do them one at a time.

The Programmer's Report Designer Program

This section is by far the most complex, although once you understand the Report Designer paradigm it becomes much easier. It resembles practically every other report-designing tool I have seen, although it heavily favors TopSpeed's approach. It comes in both a 16 and 32 bit flavor.

ARD Report Designer

Using the layout above, you place the fields, titles, bands, etc. where you want them initially. This information is saved into the Report Designer data files. When the end user chooses a report, the Report Designer pulls up this information and creates the report dynamically. If the end user desires, s/he may use the End-User Report Designer and modify this design by moving fields, changing the headings, etc.

You must define different paper types that the end user can choose from (i.e. letter size, legal size, portrait or landscape, etc.). If you export the fields from your reports and then import them into Report Designer, you can choose which fields are appropriate for each report type. After determining which fields to use for each report type, you then need to define what the default for each type looks like. This is the grunt work. At this point you are actually coding the report.

Performance

Once you have created your report procedures in your application, added the extension templates and created the layouts for your report procedures, you are ready to distribute your program. The end user will call the reports using your program, which will in turn call the Report Designer procedures, which will in turn get the layout information from its data files, and finally, dynamically create the report layout. The report will use the ranges and filters you designed for the procedure, but the actual report layout will be the one created (or modified) from Report Designer. Since the report layout is stored in data files, the end user can easily change the layout (the actual amount of flexibility is up to you, the programmer) using the end user Report Designer from within your program at any time. Neat, huh?

Documentation

Report Designer comes with two help files. The first is for the programmer and gives decent instruction on how to use the templates and accompanying programs. The other is more than wonderful. Yes, it is actually an end user help file! Wow! It contains fairly good information on how to modify existing reports. I strongly believe that more end user help files need to be created for tools like this one (hint). One section in the help file that I appreciated was the Programmer's Consideration section that gave several suggestions about various programming issues. The help file contains plenty of pictures and is fairly complete.

Support

Support is not addressed in the help files (a shortcoming which should be corrected). It took me awhile to find an email address, but I finally found one on the About screen of the Programmer's Report Designer tool. I asked a simple question and received a quick and courteous response within twelve hours (excellent considering the time differences).

[Review Editor's Note: Mitten Software (Allerup's U.S. distributor) also provides frontline support for products purchased through them]

Summary

Even considering the extensive learning curve (especially for a third party template), I was rather impressed with what Report Designer offers to the Clarion community. As with any tool, it becomes easier once you learn the paradigm the tool is coming from. Once I shifted my paradigm, I found that Report Designer is an excellent middle ground between hard coding all reports and using a major report writer (like Crystal Reports). I plan to use it on most future products that will involve mass distribution.

Category	Product Score
Ability to do the task	Very Good
Ease of use	Good
Ease of Installation	Fair
Documentation	Good
Technical Support	Very good
Modifies Shipping Templates	No
Black-Box DLLs/LIBs	Yes

Vendor comments from Allerup EDB

Version 2.0 will among other things be C5 compatible. It will have a more user friendly interface for the Report Designer, with ability to drag fields from a field list in a toolbox directly to the report and change properties in that same toolbox, making it faster and easier to design reports. It will allow copying of controls using normal windows copy/paste (and hot keys) as well as copying of layouts between report types. It will support variable filenames, export of existing reports in Clarion and import directly into the Report Designer and protected fields and layouts. There is a lot more to expect, but these are some of the highlights

The Allerup Report Designer is priced at $299 and is available through Mitten Software (sales: 1-800-825-5461) or directly from Allerup EDB (via fax using a form available on their website). More information and a demo is available from both sources: http://www.mittensoftware.com and the Allerup web site: http://www.allerup.com.

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Clarion Magazine ISSN 1718-9942