[lazarus] Postscript based report generation tools

[Tony Maro]

I'm also about to start working on a report generation control set.  My
thought is to make them initially pretty primitive so that anyone can
come along and hook a database control to it.

So basically, I've got the postscript controls and the general idea of
how to do a reporting system (I used the built-in reports with Delphi 4
C/S considerably.)  I'm positive I could write a reports system for what
I need to do, but keeping it generic is another story.

So here's some thoughts out loud:

Report header stripe
  static text labels
  special text labels (such as doc name, p#, date, time, etc.)
page header stripe
  static text labels
  special text labels
detail stripe
  field label ** Changes according to data position pointer, 
		 keep running totals for fields per page and per doc
  static text label
  special text labels
page footer stripe
  sum field label  ** sum of field for this page
  avg field label  ** avg of field for this page
  count field label ** displays number of fields on page
  special text labels
  static text label
document footer stripe
  special text labels
  static text labels
  sum field label  ** sum of a given field for entire report
  avg field label  ** avg of field for entire report
  count field label

Note the absence of a function field and multiple detail layers - I'm
keeping the idea simple and can later build on that.

My thought is to have a single "detail" object that anyone can come
along behind me and write a database connector for.  The database
component developer would provide callbacks for "initialize" "next
record" "first record" "jump to record" sort of functions and then
populate the detail object with the proper data.  I could provide a
primitive data connector object that someone else could then build on
top of to implement the full connection.

Does this sound feasible?  Anyone have a better method or suggestions?

Thanks,

Tony Maro

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