Analysis of the domestic report designer

I am interested in the report designer, so I collected information everywhere and wrote some analysis about the domestic report designer.

First, we will analyze the domestic print report market in China. Someone has studied the market capacity of domestic reporting tools (see http://runqian.blog.com.cn/archives/2005/164956.shtml for details) and should have $2 billion. It's just that the competition for developers is fierce. Many core technologies without independent development, and China's informatization level is not high. The actual market has shrunk, but demand has always existed. In the very long future, the paperless office work will not be popularized, printing time will be carried out, and the workload is not small. The printing template occupies a large part of the entire information system, and is even a key module, in addition, the domestic printing format is millions, and user requirements are constantly changing. Therefore, if there is no good printing template tool, it is more difficult to implement the printing module than imagined, therefore, information system developers need good printing tools.

There are already many printing tool providers in China, and several of their major manufacturers are analyzed here

Crystal Reports is a report analysis and generation software developed by Crystal Decisions, Canada. It has a long history and is widely used. It was originally bound to VB as a Microsoft OEM, but now Microsoft has abandoned her binding, and its products are a little behind the times, so some people think that she is a little bit difficult.

Style Report (Chinese Web site http://www.inetsoft.com.cn/), derived from foreign pure JAVA reporting system, Report designer operation demonstration did not see, in her learning center only see a few blurred pictures, her designer is the design mode of drag-and-drop controls. The definition of the data source is based on SQL statements to query the database, which is essentially different from other designers. The HTML output of her reports is of good quality and is very suitable for the Web environment.

Developer Express Company (web site http://www.devexpress.com), is a very famous third-party software manufacturer, manufacturing a large number of excellent graphical software, specifically for printing XtraReports controls, this includes a print template designer. Based on the introduction on its official website and the user's experience of downloading it for trial use, the following is an overview of its print controls:

1. Powerful functions, not many supported report element types, and good report style Control

2. professional designer Interface

3. A problem exists in most report tools. The data source design is not complete. You also need to write a program to provide data to the print control.

4. the print elements in the meter are all Windows controls. Therefore, when the report contains many elements and the structure is complex, designing or running the report consumes a lot of computer system resources, the running speed is also affected because a single Windows control occupies a large amount of system resources.

5. This report tool is rarely used in China.

FastReport (web site http://www.fast-report.com), is a report system developed by Russians, the graphical user interface of the report designer is very exquisite, she is a typical control drag-and-drop design mode. A report is divided into several segments, which are divided into headers, table bodies, and footers. There is only one header and footer, and multiple table bodies can be created. All report elements are distributed on these blocks. Therefore, the page model of such reports is two layers, which may be too simple for complicated reports. She supports many page element types, and the report data source is a common two-dimensional table method based on SQL query.

FastReport provides FreeReport, an old and low-level version of FastReport, but provides all source code. Therefore, many companies use it to develop Web reports. The general practice is to first use the report designer to design a report, save the file to the Web server, and then query the database for data on the background page program (such as ASP or JSP, the client script code text, such as JavaScript or VBScript, is sent to the client along with the HTML code. The IE page of the client is embedded with the FreeReport control, and the client script code fills the control with data and controls it to print. This report development mode is very troublesome. When user requirements change frequently, programmers only struggle to modify background programs.

Domestic relatively advanced report system, personal think is runqian report, she is Beijing runqian Software Technology Co., Ltd. (web site http://www.runqian.com.cn) Development of the report system, all using Java Development, her designer adopts a table design method similar to Excel Style. Her report model is advanced, including the report layout model, report parameters and macro definition. The demo works well. Her data source definition includes a built-in dataset, which is equivalent to creating a small relational database in the report system to save the table structure and data. The report style designer is good and has rich style controls. It is not easy to develop independently to achieve this level.

Jichuang Network report is the main product of Hangzhou jichuang software Co., Ltd. (http://www.jatools.com), it is generally referred to as jichuang. It is advanced in technology, fully implemented in Java and compatible with the j2ee platform. Its report designer is written in Java. Its design mode is generally based on drag-and-drop controls. It does not have the concept of Band. The report design interface is directly divided into headers, subjects, and footers, you can drag and drop a table control on the interface, but the table control is similar to the workbook design mode in Excel, therefore, the design pattern of its designer is actually the combination of drag-and-drop controls and workbooks. As a Web Report, Jie table can output better HTML pages. Its chart output is displayed in Flash, it also implements data drilling (click a link in the report to display another report ).

In the software (web site http://www.inforbus.com), is a Middleware vendor, the report tool is an important product. She is a report tool in the B/S environment. Let's take a look at some demos of report template preparation. She adopts a typographical method similar to Excel. The data source definition uses a common dataset and SQL statements to query the database to obtain a two-dimensional table. For multiple data sources, some fields are associated.

Grid ++ Report designer is developed by renlong (http://www.rubylong.cn/index.asp. Her designer is a traditional bar report designer. The data source is obtained by querying data through ADO using an SQL statement. Therefore, the data source is only a two-dimensional table. The GUI designer is more professional, there are not many supported report element types. The designer provides a complete programming model, which looks pretty good.

The core report designer is based on Russian FastReport open source version FressReport, the data source definition is based on the SQL query two-dimensional table, there is no essential difference with other vendors.

Shenzhen mingyu Technology (web site http://www.soft2web.com) under the Ruyi report, and Yan Ding's massive report homogeneity seriously, because the two of their core design is based on the Russian FastReport, when running the report designer and FastReport report designer at the same time, you can find that both the user interface and operation method are surprisingly similar. The definition and running environment of data sources are essentially different from those of giant reports.

Microsoft's report service is a new product, backed by powerful Microsoft and SQL Server servers. It is surging in the report market. First, I went to the MSDN Library> Servers and Enterprise Development> SQL Server> Reporting Services Directory of Microsoft's MSDN network Library. This is the report service user manual. I am not good at English, I barely read several of its articles, but I won't be able to read them in the future. I also downloaded the report service evaluation version and downloaded and installed the client. Because its server needs SQLServer2000Spa, my host only has MSDE2000 and cannot be installed on the server. Besides, I am currently interested in the report designer and report principles, so I have not installed the server program.

The entire report service concept is huge, covering the entire report lifecycle, including report design, security, management, and operation. Here, we will focus on the running principle of the Report and the report designer.

In actual production, the report service system needs to configure a report Web server to set up the report definition file and configure the database connection, then, you can enter the report page URL in the IE Address Bar of the client to access the report. Therefore, the report service is a pure Web Report solution, ideal for B/S systems. However, I do not know how to use the report service in the C/S system.

The report definition file is an XML file with the RDL extension. It stores the style definition of the report and the definition of the data source. It is an XML document defined by Microsoft to describe the definition of the report. Its structure is public, therefore, a third-party vendor can compile a report designer compatible with the report service. Microsoft uses its VS. NET integrated development environment to design reports. I believe most people still use VS. NET to design reports.

The report designer provided by Microsoft is based on VS. NET. Therefore, to design a report, you must install an expensive VS. NET integrated development environment, which limits the wide application of the report designer. In fact, using piracy in private is no risk. If the company uses piracy in large quantities, Microsoft will come to the door sooner or later. Microsoft's software has always been easy to use, and its report designer is also quite professional. It adopts the drag-and-drop design mode for controls, but the internal form adopts the editing method similar to Excel. The report designer currently supports text boxes, lines, tables, matrices, rectangles, lists, images, subreports, and charts. It seems that bar code is not supported. The text box does not support line spacing or Character spacing. However, all attributes of a report Element support expressions. A matrix is actually a cross Report, which is the basis for processing complex Chinese-style reports, but it is unclear how to use it.

The Program file of the Report Designer is installed in C: \ Program Files \ Microsoft SQL Server \ 80 \ Tools \ Report Designer, where Microsoft. reportingServices. designer. dll is the main program of the report designer. Use Reflector to view its decompilation code. In fact, all report elements are Windows controls, which is the same as XtraReports of Alibaba Express. Using Windows controls in the report designer to implement page elements has some performance problems. As we all know, Windows controls consume a lot of system resources, because they involve heavyweight handles such as form handles. When the report is complex and contains hundreds of page elements, the report designer needs to dynamically load hundreds of controls, so the start and operation are slow, it also occupies a large amount of memory (I have done this before and have some experience ). Similar report tools such as FastReport in Russia draw report elements by themselves. Therefore, without such problems, loading and editing complex reports will not be slow.

In terms of data source definition, according to the XML style definition of RDL provided by Microsoft, a report has several DataSet nodes, and the DataSet node provides a Query, which defines an SQL statement, dataSet also provides several fields that correspond to the Query SQL Query results. In my opinion, DataSet actually only defines a two-dimensional table from the database. Multiple DataSet can be defined in a report, I can't guess how to deal with these two-dimensional tables when they are associated. I think the report service is similar to other reporting tools and is based on SQL queries. The data source structure is two layers. This is reflected in the data source design operations of the report designer. Its data source design interface is actually an SQL query designer. No matter how you operate it, the final result is an SQL query statement, including common SQL query statements, table queries, and stored procedures. The SQL query statement execution result must be a two-dimensional table.

The report designer uses drag-and-drop operations to simplify data source binding. Generally, a field form is next to it, listing all DataSet fields. Drag a field to a report page element. If the page element is a text box, set its text value to bind it to the specified field, otherwise, a text box is added at the drag position and bound to the specified field.

In addition, some other report vendors do not describe them here because they are not widely used or do not understand them.

These vendors are classified into foreign and domestic vendors. The two types have their own characteristics. Foreign manufacturers are powerful, advanced, and mature. They all have their own intellectual property rights. However, in some cases, foreign manufacturers will solve this problem sooner or later. Domestic manufacturers are weak, and their technologies are relatively backward. vendors without proprietary intellectual property rights are considered as grass-roots companies. As a result, foreign manufacturers are in a strong position in the market, occupying most of the market. Domestic manufacturers urgently need development and advanced proprietary intellectual property rights.

The report designer provided by the above vendors can be divided into two types according to the operation mode: The drag-and-drop design mode based on controls and the design mode based on similar Excel workbooks. The drag-and-drop control-based design mode is easy to implement, and the technology is mature, but it is not suitable for complicated reports similar to Chinese, because it requires fine alignment, it is difficult to process the generated report output as an HTML or Excel document. The design mode of Excel workbooks is complicated, but it can process Chinese-style complex reports, generate HTML or Excel documents conveniently, and exchange data directly with Excel. Therefore, it is generally considered that the report designer similar to an Excel worksheet is relatively advanced and conforms to China's national conditions.

Some report designer's

Http://www.rubylong.cn/Download/Grid++Report3.6cn.zip
Http://www.rubylong.cn/Download/grdesigner.zip
Http://www.ccsw.com.cn/download/MaxReports_Flash.rar
Http://www.ccsw.com.cn/download/MaxreportsV2.0.chm
Http://www.ccsw.com.cn/download/MaxWebReport2.0Trial.zip
Ruyi Report 2006 evaluation edition http://www.soft2web.com/Download/openfile.asp? Id=109&filename=RooyeeReport2006Eval.zip
Http://www.fast-report.com/pbc_download/fr_studio_demo.exe
Http://www.fast-report.com/pbc_download/fr233.zip

Jie Table Designer:
China Telecom download: http: // 211.155.224.10/jatools/xzdown/jrd_4.0.eval.zip
Download: http: // 211.155.234.10/jatools/xzdown/jrd_4.0.eval.zip