Re: Next assignment - Reports

Nathan,

Just curious, but what would be the reason to convert HTML to PDF? You can
print both. Yes, PDF is popular, but HTML can be used to view online and if
done right, will print nice as well.

I've been telling customers for years that creating reports in HTML instead
of spooled files isn't a bad idea. But spooled files still do have their
place. That's what CGIDEV2 and my eRPG SDK and others are all about...
creating dynamic reports, going paperless, etc.

How many times do users run a report, print it out, just to view a small
piece? when it's online you can save paper. :)

The biggest issue with this is rewriting apps to do HTML instead of spooled
files.

Now, converting HTML to a spooled file may be the way to go. :) then write
all your reports in HTML, then when you want to print it convert the HTML to
a spooled file.

Just thinking out loud.. lol.

Bradley V. Stone
BVSTools - www.bvstools.com
eRPG SDK - www.erpgsdk.com

-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Nathan Andelin
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 11:48 AM
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Next assignment - Reports

Aaron Bartell wrote:
I think if you look for one tool to do it all you will end up with
nothing because there just isn't that tool out there.

Agreed. Different tools are needed for different situations. On the
other hand, I'd like to settle on something that I can use myself, and
train a few other developers, perhaps.

Maybe in the end you will have a commercial product like MRC
and one like what we are talking about here, who knows.

My primary focus is developing business applications, for now. I need a
solution for creating reports, myself. It's hard to gain a foot-hold in
the tools market because of big-name brands. Consider that Web Query
from Information Builders is bundled and available with IBM i, for
example.

The HTML to PDF is a cool idea. Here's some open source Java
code to do exactly that:
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-04-2006/jw-0410-html.html

Yes. I read that article this morning. Since you're more adept than I
am at Java, how about you considering a port to IBM i?

Nathan.
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