Printing custom reports from iPad (and others)

[BHousset]

Dave,

in the forum somewhere you were talking about expanding the ability to create custom reports. It would be a great feature. Just now you have to synchronize with the Desktop version and to print the report from the computer. It would be a lot easier to print a custom report directly from the iPad (or iPhone and even android device as i am also using this kind of device).
Is it planned ? If yes any idea on the timing ?
This is really a great app. Thanks for your work.
Sincerely yours

Bruno

[dhaupert]

Hi Bruno,

Thanks for the encouragement on this feature! It's something I want to offer this year (and it may be an additional in-app purchase when it comes) but it's behind a few other initiatives like cloud syncing and the Forms designer on Android (both of which I'm working on now). Hopefully we'll see it before the year's end!

[BHousset]

Hi Dave,

Any idea on the schedule of custom reports from the device ?
Thanks again for the quality of your work. Great app !
Regards

Bruno

[dhaupert]

Hi Bruno,

Thanks for your post and for checking in! As I mentioned above, I had it placed behind Forms for Android (still in development) and Cloud Syncing (which was pushed back due to the amount of work for iOS7). But the good news is that in doing the HanDBase for Education app (an iPad version of HanDBase optimized for educational settings) I decided to add the ability to print or export (to PDF or send via email) any custom form. This feature will be coming to HanDBase for iPad (and the iPhone version as well) when we release our update for iOS7. I think this is one of the most exciting new features in some time- I am finding many ways to put it to use already!

Hope this feature (due out before the iOS7 update comes from Apple this fall) will fulfill any needs you have for reports printing!

[BHousset]

Dear Dave,

Thanks for your answer.
I already bought the new education version to test this function.
It works but :
- it is clearly less flexible thna the "HTML" reporting I use on a PC...
- it is difficult to align perfectly labels and data control items on a form. It may look perfect when bulding the form but when using it (viewing on the screen or printing) there is some "non-alignment" between labels and data.
- therefore I was interested in concatenating some fields to workaround this problem. However, to my knowledge, there is no way to do that on a iOS device. The "unplugged ideas" modules are for Palm and Pocket PC but not for iOS or Android devices, aren't they ?
Do you have any advice/suggestion to get "perfect" printed reports ?
Best regards

Bruno

[dhaupert]

Hi Bruno,

Thanks for purchasing it and for your feedback. I agree in some ways it's not as flexible as the HTML style reports can expand or contract sections as necessary to display all the text. But of course there are many advantages to this type of report as well- it's more visual in design, allows for exact/precise formatting of the screen, etc.

Regarding your issues with aligning in forms, I'm trying to figure out where you're having a problem- obviously as you can see from the forms that are included we don't have that issue!

Wondering if you could send me the forms you can't get to align (with their associated databases) so I could take a look? My email is listed in my signature below..

Regarding the concatenate field, first the bad news - unfortunately on iOS, Apple would not allow 3rd part extension of a program, which is why you won't see Unplugged Ideas or other companies making plugins for HanDBase. Here's the good news- we already have External field types included with the app and a Combine Text field one is built in, so no additional purchase necessary! Just create an external field type and the settings should be pretty straightforward..

[BHousset]

Hi Dave,

Working this afternoon on the « report form »
Not easy for various reasons.
First I need to take into account line returns and that is really difficult when using long text fields.
Still problems with alignment but getting better by selecting only and then going to the lay-out screen. Not doing it by eye with the finger !
Finally my strategy was to build concatenated fields, thanks to the "external field" because I have not to worry anymore about line return and alignment. However for the unchanging part of the report I was trying to use default text values. The problem is that the length of the default value string is limited (around 30 characters for text and note field). The longest is for the popup field that I finally used but this is a limitation that may be you could change.
Then I went to my “report form” and tried to use labels using the value of the concatenated field. But here again the label field has a very limited length that makes it unusable for my purpose. Then I have to use a text box and that is working fine to get all the text on the screen but there is also a line around the control that I do not want to print but no way to get rid of it…
Any suggestion ?
Thanks for your help and your reactivity
Regards

Bruno

[dhaupert]

Hi Bruno,

What are the actual reports you are making? The form report was designed to provide a way to print out something as it would look on a printed form. It sounds like you are trying to build a narrative of sorts and display it like flowing text? Definitely a different scenario than it was designed for, and the Desktop reports are a much better match for you there - at least until it's implemented on the device in that manner. The majority of people don't use the Desktop reports feature because the design of them is really difficult currently. Until I can develop a wysiwyg report designer it won't ever really be used by many people and this PDF option will be more useful by the majority of users.

There is no more room the field settings to store any more than 30 characters, so we're boxed in by the format itself. In order to change that we'd need to change the database format, and thereby update every one of the 15+ versions of HanDBase that rely on the format being a certain way. I've seen people use relationship fields to work around this and grab longer values to display in a form.

The label itself on a form does have a 128 character limit so the text box is the way to go. To turn off the border, go to the attributes and uncheck the 'Show Border' option for it!

[BHousset]

Thanks Dave for this info.
The HTML Desktop report is no hard to use...
I am working on a report for patients suffering from lung cancer, giving them information on their treatment planning. It should be one page only but clearly written... I am persisting and will let you know.
Regards

Bruno

[margyandtom1]

Hi,
I don't see how to find the Concatenate or combine text external app. You said in this stream that it is built in and easy to use, but you did not say what name to enter in the "Application Name" field when creating a field for this in your database. Please help. I have been waiting since 2013 for this function to be available, and it appears it has been for a long long time, but I still cannot get to it. I have HanDBase on Apple IPad now also.