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HanDBase Report Editor

Author:Michael Presley [Send Author Email]
Homepage:http://www.michaelpresleyphotography.com
Date
Added:
Updated:

November 27, 2011
December 18, 2011
Description:New Update! - Version 1.03

Version 1.03:

  • Fixed: Strikethrough would be added twice when the toolbar button is clicked.
  • Added new context (right click) menus to the Field List Boxes. These allow for rerodering, inserting, deleteing, and saving the lists to a new file name. See the help file for information on why I added this!
  • Inserting a field from the list now also inserts the field name as a comment along with the field number.
  • Improved the HanDBase tags (condition and follow) dialog. Now, instead of typing a number you choose the field from a list of field names.
Updated Version

  • Version 1.02
    • Fixed: New File command was inserting the default template twice.
    • Fixed: Removed the text folding margin - this wasn't working well at all.
    • Fixed: If a report had been loaded and saved, and then a new file was created using the File|New command, issueing a File|Save command would overwrite the original file.
    • Added a report comment for adding description, date, and author to the default template.
    • Changed the 'Comment' button to a dropdown button with two options: Comment, and Comment Header
    • Added Option|Menu item to open the last edited report when the program opens.
    • Added new File|Menu item to open the most recently opened file.
    • The program now remembers the path to the last report you opened so when you do a File|Open command the dialog opens to that folder.
    • The program now remembers the path to the CSV export you opened so when you click on the "1" or "2" button the dialog opens to that folder.
    • Added a new Format menu item with the basic font style commands - with shortcut keys for bold, italic, and underline.
    • Added a new Format menu item with the basic font color choices.
    • Added a new Format menu item with the basic font size choices.
    • Added a new Insert menu with Table and List options available.

    NOTE: This is not a HanDBase program - this is a Windows program that is designed to facilitate creating report templates - This is not affiliated with or supported by DDH Software.

    Version 1.01 - requires .NET 4.0, available through the Windows update site.

    Simply unzip all of the files into any folder of your choosing.

    HanDBase is a great database program with the ability to use a template with HTML tags to create reports. Information from your database can be displayed in the report by inserting the tage where # is replaced by the physical number of the field you wish to use ( for example).

    There are many HTML editors available - almost all of them more sophisticated than this one. So what does the editor offer? Primarily it's designed for ease of use. Here are the major features:

    There is nothing added to the HTML other than what you enter. A lot of editors are designed to create web pages which is of course what HTML is all about. There are some standard things that are part of a web page that willl cause problems with your HanDbase report. You can manually remove them from the file but doing so may require you openeing the report in Notepad or some other editor. Speaking of Notepad, you can create the entire report template only using notepad - but the reason I don't use it is the same reason I created this editor - I don't remember enough about HTML tags to do it without constantly looking up details about one thing or another. There are some comments added that are there just to explain what is going on - these won't interfere with the report and feel free to remove them.

    Live Preview: There are lot of web page editors available that will let you create web documents just like using a word processor. These are great (I'm using one to create this document). but for the same reasons as stated above - extra things are often added and requires manual cleanup. The preview is a seperate window that is updated as you type.

    Easy acces to the HTML tags. All the tags are only a click away - right on a toolbar that's always visible. There are tools to help build the more complicated tags - tables and lists - Choose Table from the tool bar and you're presented with a new window. Fill in the information for how many rows, columns, the border width, and whether to include headers. Click Insert and nicely formatted HTML code is inserted for you, complete with some comments explaining what you have.

    Publish To Report Folder: If you are using HanDBase 4 then the Report Editor can send the template you are working on directly to the reports folder without you having to browse to it. This is convieniant and very handy if you aren't aware of where the folder is located. ( Location of the Reports Folder )

    Field Browser: This is probably the most useful thing about this program! To use information from your database, fields are inserted into the report like this: When the report is ran from inside of HanDBase these place holder tags are replaced with values from the database table. If you have company names in the first field then the value of the field (the customers name) will be inserted into the report. HanDBase Editor can load a CSV export from your database and display the field names in a list for you. The actual name of the field is shown (Customer for example). If Customer happens to be the 17th field, instead of counting simply double click on the word Customer and will be inserted for you.

    Enhanced Editor: To help visualize and edit your reports, the editor will highlight the HTML tags in color. There is a search and replace function as well as line number displayed on the side of the text.

    Basic Printing: You can print the HTML code to a printer, in color if you have a color printer. A peview screen is also available.

    Spell Checking: Spell check your text while ignoring the HTML code.
    Has Data:No
    Has Forms:No
    Price:FREE
    Version:HanDBase v.4.x Enhanced or greater
    File:handbase_report_writer_v1.03.zip          Downloads: This Month 8 / Total* 3065
    Note:MAC Users will need to enter the filename handbase_report_writer_v1.03.zip when saving this file.
    * since October 1, 2000.

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