Report Wizard v1.15 - by Nice Touch Solutions

by Mike Lawson

Published 1998-10-01    Printer-friendly version

Lately, I’m beginning to feel like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. After reviewing Query Wizard in June (now also supported by Nice Touch) and seeing the new Wizatrons in EE5, these things are everywhere. Well, if you don’t know what a wizard is by now I have no idea what you’ve been programming in (and why are you reading this!). This particular wizard relieves the Clarion programmer of what I think is one of our most grueling tasks, designing simple reports. This process can be one of the most mind numbing experiences in any development cycle.

Nice Touch Solutions, which now has a full line of Wizard Products, recently released version 1.15 of Report Wizard. Report Wizard allows users to create simple on-demand reports based on any pre-defined reports or browses already in your application.

Major Features

While this product isn’t billed as a full-fledged report writer, it sure does a good job of pretending to be one. It produces an array of neat and clean columnar reports with totals and groups that most of us need in any application.

Reports are usually what our users ask for most. Due to the amount of work it takes to produce a good report we usually only have a few embedded in the application itself. We then rely on either exporting text to various query tools, spreadsheets and other high end report writer products or worse, MS Access. While Clarion’s Report Writer does a good job for Clarion programmers, it is not at all intuitive for an end-user.

Most of our time spent on reports is trying to figure out which users want what information displayed in what format. The Report Wizard allows you to design one or two template reports and then lets the end-user control the output. One of the nicer features in Report Wizard is that it can produce a report based on the fields and sort order that already exist in a browse window. Since this is usually good enough for the user to work with on a day-to-day basis, and we put a lot of work as developers into this aspect of our applications, I find it makes perfect sense to have a report based on this view.

Wizards lend a professional look to any program written in Windows. All the Microsoft products usually contain a lot of good ones that make end-user's life easier (when they work). By hiding the complexity of a task you make any process seem easier to manage, and this produces happy and more productive customers. This, in turn, makes them buy more products from you or recommend you to their friends.

Below is a screen shot of what the end user would see when selecting a report written with Report Wizard.

Selecting a Report Wizard report

The intelligence that went into designing Report Wizard is even more evident when you get into grouping, sorting and totaling. Users can select the sort order by either default, predefined or a custom sort. The predefined ones use keys and are programmed in at development time. Obviously, you wouldn’t want this option turned on in a multi-gigabyte database so you may disable this feature. Since grouping is usually based on sort order a few rather complex functions can be performed by the user in the Group Heading and Footing Option Screen pictured below:

Report Wizard Group Heading and Footing options

As you can see, a lot of different options are available to create many variations of a single report just from this screen. One of the more interesting features here is the Suppress Report Detail Rows check box that basically produces a summary report based on what is in the group header and footer sections. This is great for managers who only want to see a one page total.

One final feature that I can’t fail to mention is the automatic switch to Landscape mode. Since this is inevitable if an end-user selects too many things to print on a page, it is a great feature. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent on the phone trying to explain to a user how to change their printer to Landscape. The template even warns the user when they have exceeded Landscape and tries to gracefully truncate the report.

The combination of all these features allows for many variations, and I’m sure I’ve not tapped into all of them. Along with Query Wizard what would take normally 5 or 6 browses with 20 or more reports could be done with one of each. Built-in support for RPM also means that a powerful preview engine will make it look like you spent a lot more time in designing your application.

[Review Editor's Note: Query Wizard is a separate product from Nice Touch Solutions. RPM (Report Presentation Manager) is another CW add-on from Lodestar Software. Reviews of both products are available in back issues of Clarion Online.]

Installation

Well, I received my download instructions forwarded from Clarion Online that included a URL and my registration information. I then proceeded to www.nicetouch.com and was pleasantly surprised at how well their site was organized and how nice it looked (if you haven’t been there yet I highly recommend it!). In fact, it was so interesting I spent some time looking around. Finally, I entered in my information and downloaded a self-extracting and self-installing template. The install went without a hitch and took less than a minute.

Implementation

Installing the template into an existing application only requires you to add the Report Wizard Global Library. This extension only has one option and that is the Saved Report File. The Report Wizard templates ship with a demonstration application called RWDEMO.APP that with only one browse and two reports can produce more reports than I could write in a month. This is one of the better demonstrations of a product that I’ve ever seen in the Clarion world.

To add Report Wizard capabilities to your report, all that is needed is a standard Clarion Report with all the fields that you would ever want displayed dynamically in a single detail band. Additional design considerations include that it must be designed in portrait and contain both a page header and detail body and an optional page footer band. These are the major considerations, and some other minor things must be set for the templates to work correctly.

The only other thing is that a Report Wizard extension must be applied to the report and set up according to your design criteria. Below is a screen shot of General Options dialog that appears in the extension template:

Report Wizard Template general options tab

After that it was as simple as running my application as is and seeing how it had changed.

With most of the NTS products, the first thing you find is that you have to fix the field description titles in the dictionary (they are used by default as the field names seen by the end-user). Since Query Wizard uses the same premise I was prepared for this eventuality. You can override individual Column headings in the Column Overrides Section, but this gets tedious and this product is about saving you some time.

You can also use both Sort Exception and Sort Exclusion logic depending on the runtime options that are chosen.

The Landscape Tab allows you to designate the behavior of individual controls when the Report Wizard prints the report in Landscape. These include center, widen and move right. Now you can get really complicated things happening by playing with the Options for Inheriting List Box format section. This feature changes how and what information is passed to the report from a browse box. This changes the sort and report format based on changes that occur in the browse box.

This is one of those templates that seem to allow the user more choices than the developer. Most of the logic seems to be in the end-user end of things and makes it an easy tool to use and implement. All in all, a very clean implementation of what I would consider a complicated process.

Performance

The documentation warns against using the custom sorting option on a large database and I agree. Since we’re not talking about changing anything with how Clarion works (just how the user interfaces with your application), I couldn’t really notice any change in performance on a simple report with the Report Wizard Template applied. Performance on report printing is usually bottlenecked at the network end or on a directly attached printer anyway.

Documentation

Report Wizard includes a great Windows Help system for both the end-user and the developer. The developer help even includes the documented help links to the end-user documentation.

The NTS web-site is also a great resource and includes tips and an FAQ page. A manual would be nice, but the website is almost as good and should contain the most up-to-date information.

Technical Support

The website provides useful information and e-mail contacts along with the Nice Touch current support policy for each of its products. Report Wizard includes limited technical support via e-mail and paid telephone support at $59/ ½ hour. A $118/hour one-hour charge minimum option is available for application related support problems. Since I only encountered one problem, I only had to use the FAQ page for a well-documented error that was due to an omission on my part.

Summary

Well, if you have no reports in your application don’t buy this product, otherwise pick it up tomorrow. Help relieve the report drudgery in your life, and use the time to enjoy yourself. This product will save you a considerable amount of time, and at $199 it’s a bargain. Nice Touch has lived up to their name, and if you use this product your applications should also have a nice touch.

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

Nice Touch Solutions, Inc. can be contacted via mail at PO Box 1149, Alamo, CA 94507. Tel. (925) 937-3217 Fax. (925) 937-2090. Email is: info@nicetouch.com.

Current pricing is $199 USD for the 1st company license and $169 for any additional, source code is also available for an additional $79. Report Wizard currently works in v2.003, v4.0 and EE5.

Demos and the template help files can be downloaded from their web site at: http://www.nicetouch.com

 

Vendor comments from Steven Stockstill of Nice Touch Software

In addition to the 3rd party products previously mentioned, Report Wizard is also compatible with CPCS and many other Clarion add-ons. For those developers desiring a peak (or tweak) under the hood, source code is available at a very reasonable price. We're glad the reviewer didn't require technical support. However, we provide unlimited email support in a very timely fashion. The Report Wizard documentation may be freely downloaded with the product demo from our web site.

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Clarion Magazine ISSN 1718-9942