Re: When will the IBM i community adopt HTML for reporting?

Jon,

It sounds like you may be suggesting taking existing printer files and
transforming them to HTML - similar to how the OA vendors take existing
display files and transform them to HTML.

I'd rather suggest just starting fresh with HTML templates and generating
stream files from them. Actually, I have never considered the idea of
preserving an investment in existing printer files.

Develop a standard style sheet - using colors, fonts, and other style
elements compatible with a company theme, and reference the style sheet
from HTML templates. Don't put logic in RPG programs to modify styling,
except perhaps if a need arises to output to different page sizes from a
single program.

It seems to me that HTML and CSS offer capabilities that exceed what might
be achieved via overlays and AFP elements.

Nathan.


On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 6:12 PM, Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have already published a basic OA Handler for print files - but for
handling literally anything that DDS could throw at it presents a similar
situation to 5250 - there’s too much “stuff” going on that RPG doesn’t know
about. Conditional fields for example - the old “print twice for bold face”
type of thing etc. That needs a Profound/Asna/look/Rocket/… handler to deal
with it all and nobody as yet has one as far as I know. been telling them
all for years tat they are missing an opportunity but …


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Jan 21, 2015, at 7:09 PM, Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Not so much a question of whether reports are output to paper, or stored
for viewing, but whether to continue use traditional spool files and
overlays, or to switch to HTML.

A generic open access handler might frame the question for some. I don't
remember if open access supports printer files. One could write a utility
that generates DDS and printer files from HTML, and a generic OA handler

to

generate stream files in HTML or PDF formats.

h dftactgrp(*no) option(*nodebugio : *srcstmt)

freport o e printer handler('OA_REPORTS': parms)
f usropn
finventory if e k disk
d today s
/copy src,rptparms
/free
parms.fileName = '/inventory/status.pdf';
open report;
read inventoryr;
dow not %eof(inventory);
write reportr;
read inventoryr;
enddo;
*inlr = *on;
/end-free


On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 4:30 PM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 1/21/2015 5:25 PM, Alan Campin wrote:

Anybody ever do the little exercise of just stopping printing a report

and

see who yells?

Business rules change, and the reports that were vital in ye olde dayes
may well be irrelevant now. But that wasn't Nathan's question. He was
asking why any people in 2015 want relevant information in paper form
rather than electronic form.

--
--buck

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