Having a good report tool for your projects is very important to many programmers, finding the right report tools is not that easy.
Often you will find on programmers newsgroups many discussions about which report would be the best to use, here we are going to give you some information about a set of components that were created by Julian Ziersch Software, these components were created so that your applications are able to create good quality reports that can be read on almost all pc systems.

WPReporter is an add on for WPTools v3.x, in other words you must have WPTools v3.x to use WPReporter.
In  case  you  don't  know, WPTools is a set of components to help you make  your own word processor projects. Since it has its own RTF engine it is able to offer many features the Win32 Richedit2.dll does not include.

WPReporter is a system used to create master client reports that can be saved in the Rich Text Format (RTF), this is a great advantage to the person reading the report because most (All) of today's word processors can read the Rich Text Format, examples are MS Word and MS Word Pad. Imagine  the simplicity of your program users emailing their latest reports to their clients etc., in the Rich Text Format.
With WPTools you could also create your own RTF report reader to add to your projects saving your customers time because they do not have to open another program to read their reports.
 

The WPReporter Template file is in RTF format and the finished report is in RTF format, you can also export to HTML format.

WPReporter Technical Information

•        WPReporter components are for Delphi 2, 3, 4, 5 and C++ Builder 3, 4 and 5.
•        WPReporter is not compatible with 16 bit Delphi
•        WPReporter Requires WPTools which is also available from Julian Ziersch Software.
•        Support of header and footer text bands.
•        Support of groups.
•        Includes an evaluation engine (you can use formulas in data fields or in WPTools tables).
•        Includes 'WPRTFFiler', a tool to create, view and print read-only files of unlimited size.
•        Database engine independent since it is event driven.
•        Supports all WPTools paragraph and character attributes and tables.
•        No external DLL or OCX are required. Royalty free.

The components are:
 
 

TWPSuperMerge

You connect  to a WPRichText and the WPRichText can display band headers.
WPRichText is used as the editor for the report form while TWPSuperMerge is responsible for the data and text merging process. TWPSuperMerge contains the properties and events needed to control the output of the report file.
 

TWPRTFFiler

This filer object is needed to create an 'indexed RTF file'.  This format combines the versatility of RTF format with the unlimited size of the indexed file.  It allows you to create, preview and print a RTF file with 1000 pages or more using WPTools.
 

TWPEvalEngine

This component is the interface to a formula evaluation engine which can be used not only to find the sum of certain values, but also to create simple scripts.  The properties of this engine include local and global variables, the ability to use loops and conditions and to easily add customized functions.
 

TDBWPEvalEngine

This component has all the properties of TWPEvalEngine, but also includes the ability to access one or more databases (TDataSet).
 

TWPReportBandsDialog

TWPReportBandsDialog makes it easy to provide the user an interface to modify the properties of a band.
 

You create a template which consists of groups, header, footer and data bands.

Using the SuperMrg demonstration project that comes with WPReporter I easily created a Biolife.rtf file which you can download here - download.
The report is very impressive, well organized with full color graphics included (the fish).

Its worth noting here is that WPReporter does not require the BDE, although when used to open a database and make a report of that database, the results are very good..

More about the Groups and bands...

Groups:

The top group bar is the group start and the bottom group bar is the group end. Text can be put between these bars.

Headers and Footers:

You can have a header for the first page and a different header for other pages, headers can also be located inside of a group to display a certain header text at the beginning of the group's data or between rows of data. You can also do the same for the footer bands.

Here is a view of a report template, this is the designing stage of your report, you can see some groups, bands, headers and footers. To set up a report like this is not very hard at all.

You can see in the above image that <VenderName> is in bold, we can do this easily because the report template uses WPRichText, we can also add borders, change the background colors, virtually everything you can normally do with a Rich Text files text. This gives you full control on how the report will look when it is finished.

And here is part of the finished report:

A very good demonstration word processor project is included with WPTools, it is a word processor that has the ability to create reports using WPReporter, the demonstration file is called WPdemo. In the word processor you can open a file called Report.rtf and you can then experiment with adding or deleting headers and footers, using the TWPReportBandsDialog to change the reports band properties. You can also do calculation in the tables.

The Evaluation Engine

The  Evaluation engine can be used to create totals, to execute predefined or custom functions, to read out database values, to set conditions and much more. TWPEvalEngine can be used without WPTools, it is completely independent.

The WPReporter help file is informative and has a tutorial that you will find very helpful to get you started, also an FAQ is included.

Julian Ziersch Software also have their own newsgroups for their products, these are very helpful and Julian is always available to give you help and answer any questions you may want to ask.

You can purchase WPTools and WPReporter as a bundle (together) or if you already have WPTools you can purchase WPReporter as an add-on.

To learn more about WPReporter go to the WPReporter OverView web page on the Julian Ziersch Software web site.