Re: The Basic Standard of Excel-like Report IDE

not sure why you posted this in a technical newsgroup devoted to MS Access
relational database software, especially since Access is very different from
Excel, isn't intended to replace - or be interchangeable with - Excel, and
shouldn't be used as a spread***-type program. suggest you repost to an
Excel newsgroup.


"gaby" <kuailewyyun@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:a3677942-8b28-4fe3-b3da-ee202c51bf08@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nowadays, many reporting tools claim that they are Excel-like, and
they support Excel-like report design after improvements. Then, what
is a real Excel-like reporting tool?

Today, we will discuss this problem from two aspects.

1. What are the most basic functions a real Excel-like reporting tool
should have?
2. According to the data characteristics of report, what are the
extended functions a real Excel-like reporting tool should have?

Generally, programmers and end users are familiar with Excel, and
programmers often choose to develop reports in an Excel-like style.
The main purposes are to realize complex report forms and improve
report creation efficiency. For users? convenience, reporting software
companies should provide a report IDE closer to Excel usage pattern as
much as possible. In other words, besides Excel-like appearance, they
need to spend more time on operation details to improve its service
efficiency.

In my opinion, a real Excel-like reporting tool should have the basic
functions below:

Same Cell Naming
Cells in Excel are named according to their horizontal and vertical
positions in the table. If set another naming mechanism, on the one
hand it is very troublesome, on the other hand it will bring some
inconveniences in expression editing.

Cell?s Properties Definition
It should be able to define those most basic properties of a cell:
font, font size, color, border, foreground, background, edit style for
whole row or column or table, and format painter supporting, etc.

Cell Content Editing
The editing method of expression should be the same with that of
Excel. For example, ?=sum(A3+B5)?. When insert or delete a related row
or column, the expression is supposed to transform automatically
without manual updating.
When the content/expression of a cell is too long to display in it,
the entire content/expression should be displayed in the edit box in
the toolbar of the reporting tool.

Custom Functions
It should provides a great number of common functions, and retain some
application programming interfaces for users to add their own custom
functions.

Import and Export Excel files
Commonly, before involving a reporting tool or starting an information
project, users may have had a lot of Excel files. Therefore, it is
requisite to allow users to import and export Excel files.

RAQ Report is a pure Java reporting software. As an enterprise class
Excel-like reporting tool, it inherits all the advantages of Excel. At
the same time, RAQ Report pays great attention to convenience and
practicability in details. Therefore, programmers and end users can
learn to use it freely in a short time.

If you would like to read more articles about reporting tool, you are
also welcome to refer to his blog at http://freezea.blogspot.com/.


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