Report Writer to work with Clipper 5.01

[Rahja]

Hi Everyone!

I need to update my Clipper reports to something more than just plain text. I have tried to get my head around Crystal XI and using it with DOS/Clipper app and have just hit a brick wall. Does anyone know of a product that I could use (fairly easily) that would give me some font options and possibly a screen viewer of the report that the user can then send to a printer or return to the Clipper app? I don't need anything real complex, just something to dress up the reports a bit.

Thanking you in advance!

Rahja

 

[GriffMG]

Phew, this is the 'giant leap' for Clipper programmers.

There is a bit of a void from the straight text format of reporting into the world of fonts and the like.

You have a few choices, but very few shortcuts.

You could export your data - away from any 'live' production tables - into extracts and then try and fire up something like R&R Report Writer (you might even be able to use that on your existing data, but I am not sure how good it is at that and wold wnat the security that it isn't going to spoil anything).

Likewise, you could try and fire up a copy of Crystal Reports to run the reports (perhaps on the live data, or perhaps on a copy/extract).

I have seen people run M$ Access against Clipper tables (copied for safety/security) with some success - using the autostart macros to run the report in question.

I, being a luddite, wrote my reports in HP-PCL (the common printer description language) and then output the result to something called Lincoln PageView for printing on any M$ Windows printer... this option takes a bit more setting up and graphics aren't easy, but I made the investment in time to work out character sizes, approximate widths and all the millimeter based positioning nearly 20 years ago and have clients still using it now!

If I were doing it again now, having to keep the Clipper App - but needing posh fonts etc., I would export the extracted data I needed and then fire up a copy of a compiled VFP application to handle the actual reporting.

That might require the minimum in expense (one copy of VFP for the developer - no cost for the client machines) and then I could have nice reports wih reasonable flexibility.

Good luck


Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[JCreamerII]

We have started to use XLT's to get the look and feel of a more polished output. Open the XLT and the underlining data pops into the cells with the VB coding to support the sizzle.

Jim C.

 

[Rahja]

Thanks Griff!

I know this is a big step from the normal clipper reports. My clients do not want to lose the speed and ease of operation that Clipper/DOS provides, however; they would like some better looking reports. Especially when it comes to Invoices and Purchase Orders. I have never used (or even seen) what R&R Report Writer is. I have had no real luck on finding it on the net or even any description of what it is or is not capable of. Do you know of a link as to where I can find it? I do have Crystal Reports but it seems extremely labor intensive to figure it out.

Thanks Again, Rahja!

 

[GriffMG]

R&R Report Writer was the de facto report generator for things like Clipper (20 years ago) - I googled it and found this link:

http://www.incredibleprogram.com/html/report_writer.html

and

http://www.hallogram.com/rr/

The thing is that it isn't exactly cheap!

I would be tempted to go down the firing up a VFP application that just does the reports - copying out the right subsets of the data to temporary tables and reporting on that - it is probably the cheapest route (you would only need VFP 6 or better to get quite nice results - see that VFP9 is available on ebay at about £60 upwards.

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[HotEye]

Hi,
If you still have source code, you could rewrite the print routines to use Abee PageScript. I have used this for a few years now and it can produce some very good reports/forms, but it will need a rewrite for best output.

http://www.abeelabs.com/

There is a similar product, Vouch32, that is free, still needs a rewrite of course. (I think this is no longer being developed but is available for download.)

http://www.vouchcac.com/vouch32/vouch32.htm

Kind regards
Philip