More then a few questions.....

English Forum
1

I am a long time Crystal Report user.. Start with maybe the second release so did grow with the product. and the extending features. But after a few sales it ended up with SAP and since then …….it is ………….well does not matter. It is not my choice of reporting for our vertical market application.

So I am looking a a newbee with Fresh eyes to List and label.

I used Dataflex as my development tool. So I am using the DLL interface. I extended the base class of the sample in many ways. Using SQL to get all the data and also column names and type to define the tables for List and label.

I am absolutely impressed and maybe overwhelmed with the debt, functionality, functions and features.

Yes I am one of those who read the manuals. So bigger part of the Programmers Manual for what I needed it and recently the Designer Manual again from start to finish. Which I did a few years back for the first time but was not able to put it to the test at that time.

So I have some, maybe more then a some, questions ; remarks and maybe improvements.

If anyone wants to answer just 1 I am happy.to see the answer.

  1. Numbers columns in a table, why are they by default left aligned, I cannot see that someone wants that. Yes you can change that but to me it looks the wrong default.
  2. Why are totals not have decimals by default, I just see a 0. while the amounts in the detail line are by default 0.00. Yes I can change that but it is just work. The other way around will happen way less. So it will be quicker to create a report.
  3. Why are the labels in a table header used fully with the name of the field
    1. I know most developers use caps to start a word and small letters and and no underscores.
    2. I use underscore. When L&L put them as a header change the underscores for spaces.
    3. Maybe consider add a space before a Caps if not first letter. So “InvoiceTotal” becomes “Invoice Total” in the header line. Just save time if you column labels have proper naming.
    4. I use the Column names of my SQL query as header so can use Alias. But when there is a space in the alias L&L has troubles.
  4. Designer manual
    1. Honestly limited compared to what L&L can do. I am a newby experienced but was not as easy to get a hang of it all.
    2. Screen dump not always good readable.
    3. Think most things you are showing is in the demo reports Add the name of the report at the end of the chapter, so you do not have to search for it and see what i can be.
  5. Checkbox
    1. When I define a field as a LL_BOOLEAN I see true and false in a table and not the checkbox and have to that manually. Is that default behavior or am I doing something wrong. I expect to the checkbox “image”
  6. Programming
    1. Make it possible you can set the colors programmable from my code
    2. Can I add my own color schemes next to defined?
  7. In the sample application there are all kind of extensions used.
    1. Let ; Umf : Inv ; Lab ; Rpt ; Srt
    2. Why so many. None are registered at begin a list and label report.
    3. Yes it is not a standard application. So not an application to open the reports with.
    4. Just looks confusing. Ok maybe it nice to create your own standard.
  8. There more files created when store a report
    1. What are these files (Lsp and Lsv).
      1. What rights are needed?
      2. Do I need to distribute them?
    2. I will not allow at the moment that end users are creating their own report.
    3. I use my own preview

Ok for the time being. the last question but the my show stopper at the moment

  1. Colors
    1. What colors are used for what
      1. It looks like the background colors are used for the table.
        1. Color 0 is the background
        2. Color 1 for the first grid
        3. Color 2 for the child grid
        4. Color 3 I have not found yet? I assume when you have a third level grid. Yes it is.
        5. If It is documented, I have not been able to find.
        6. Why not give them a nice and not 0 to 3,……
      2. Started a new report.
        1. Changed the user defined template to my liking, well testing
        2. Created a report container
          1. Added a table to it
          2. Added a sub table to the table
        3. That shows perfect in the Layout preview
        4. But when I run the preview. I see the default user defined dark colors.
        5. Why is that. If I change the Design Scheme in the project Object to whatever other it shows those colors, but I do not get my modified user defined one.

What am I doing wrong. What did I miss.

Peter

2

Hi Peter,

Wow, this is some feedback! Thank you so much for taking the time to thoroughly test our software and share such detailed thoughts and suggestions in the forum. It’s great to hear that you enjoy our product, and we truly value having “fresh eyes” look at it—your insights are incredibly helpful to us.

We really appreciate all of your suggestions, and we’re happy to go through your list in detail. Please bear with us as we process your feedback; we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

As for the “Color” scheme. I am happy to get back to you on that in thread Design Color Schemes. Could you respond in the linked thread and possibly upload a copy of your project file (.lst or whatever you are using in your example?). In the meantime we will also verify this on our side.

Thanks again for your effort and support!

3

Hi,

Do you need more then only the report. Is that enough or you need to be able to replicate it. In that case I would have to try to make it “working” in the dataflex sample.

That could be a bit harder to do. The report I am creating is fairly complex. If it works in a complex case it all will work in simple cases so trying it all with one of the most complex report first.

Tell me what you need and I see what I can do.

Can I email it all to you? Or post it in an other way?

Peter

4

Hi Peter,

Thanks again for your valuable feedback. Here are the responses to your previous questions. As for all the color related questions we suggest to follow up in the linked thread. We will post some suggestions for the color scheme but if you get stuck it would really be better to follow up in a support case so we can discuss the details. The support case is also the best place to upload/exchange any files. Feel free to mention the “color scheme” thread in your support case. Support, Training and Workshops for List & Label – combit

Our response:

  1. This suggestion makes sense. We have added this to our List & Label 32 wish list.
  2. Is this always the case, even if the final sum has decimals? This should be detected. Feel free to send us an example (best a report based on our Demo Application).
  3. This suggestion makes sense. We have added this to our List & Label 32 wish list.
  1. Designer
    4.2 We had a peek at a bunch of examples in the PDF Version of our Designer Manual and found that they looked crisp. Some are smaller due to the Limitation of the page width but are fine when zooming in. Can you provide some examples so we can specifically address those? We are happy to have another look!
    4.3 We have added your suggestion to the wish list (future, no version targetted yet).
  1. We have added your suggestion to the wish list (future, no version targetted yet).
  2. See follow up in Design Scheme Changes
  3. The idea behind these extension samples is that the file dialog automatically aligns the language and data source to the user language, making it easiert for the user to select the matching report file.
  4. In general the files are documented here:
    https://docu.combit.net/progref/en/#!Documents/listlabelfiles.htm
5

Thanks for the detailed answer.

Give me a day or 2 to make a proper sample. Maybe I have to extend the dataflex sample a bit but will send all source code..

Peter

6

I will follow up with the link you gave in number.6, was reading it quickly but need more time to digest that…

But was trying to replicate my problem in the dataflex sample, but could not replicate it. So started to dig in. In my classes I set the scheme.

In dataflex code I add a property and can set that for every view I create

{ EnumList = "Antarctica, Artichoke, Blue, CityCruiser, Classic, combit, combit2, combit3, combitBlue" }
{ EnumList+= "combitColorWheel, combitGreen, DeciduousTree, DiscoPop, Forester, GrayScale, Green" }
{ EnumList+= "Hibernation, HotAirBalloon, InTheJungle, IntoTheGreen, Oceanographer, OldTimes, Poolside" }
{ EnumList+= "Red, Remix, RetroForever, SandyDesert, SummerDay, Summermist, UnderWater, USERDEFINED" }
Property String  psDefault_Scheme          "USERDEFINED"

So the default is USERDEFINED

    Get psDefault_Scheme to sDefault_Scheme
    If (sDefault_Scheme <> "") Begin
      Get LLSetOptionString of hoListLabelReport LL_OPTIONSTR_DEFAULTSCHEME sDefault_Scheme to iRet 
    End

When I take out the above call it all works properly

My idea was to have default to the USERDEFINED change that one,. But looks like something is working differently that what I expect. If I change the new report start to USERDEFINED and change the colors to what I want, create the report want all is working.. changing design scheme no problem. Going to USERDEFINED work that too.

If I set the scheme before creating the report it does not work for me.

I will try to code that into the dataflex sample so you can look at it.

For the time being I have sort of a solution. Will dig deeper. Will try to do more tomorrow. I can always (well is the intention) to create default templates to select from when I create a new report.

Peter