Reporting options for web-based app

[dee-u]

I have only tried tcpdf but it is somewhat slow in generating the reports, and I am not sure if it is robust enough (can handle subreports, etc). Any alternatives you can recommend?

[sapator]

Depends. We are using Crystal Reports here but is relatively slow and is asp.net.
Haven't used something for pure HTML as I only used reporting on companies I work and is mostly winforms based.
We are also using telerik but not their reporting tool. Seem interesting but you have to pay for the full features. I would not recommend any Devexpress web.Correction, I would not recommend Devexpress until their 2015 release, after that I haven't been using anything web based by them.

[dee-u]

Thanks, I'm hoping others would chime in, I am seriously considering moving into web-based apps but I am reluctant due to the lack of robust and fast reporting tool available.

[szlamany]

I've had my own home grown solution for report generation even prior to VB6. That report generator got super feature rich during the decade I had of VB6 coding.

When I first went web-based I initially had this VB6 report generator run via .Bat files created via back-end services that watched for requests from my web app to produce a report. And I used garbage like CutePDF to render output to a .PDF file on the web server.

Now I've actually ported the report generator from VB6 to .Net and it runs right on the web server - I get a "POST" for a report and just start creating it. I use the PDFSharp library to directly create the .PDF instead of a printer-driver like CutePDF. And it's really fast.

I've often thought about sharing that report generator code. Maybe it's time to start an open-source project.

Below is basically the language that drives the report generation. I had at one time, over a decade ago, thought of writing a .Net WYSIWYG editor for this - so you could live in a Crystal-like UI creating the reports. I've become so fluent in report creation that I never finished that project. Would be nice to do it in a web app now! Maybe it's time to open source this. Do you want to see some of the more complicated possibilities? It does IF statements - sub-reports - labels - side-by-side stuff. Draws lines and boxes - does color and shading.

[{"What": "Landscape"}
,{"What": "Font", "Setting": "Times New Roman"}
,{"What": "FontBold", "Setting": true}
,{"What": "Fontsize", "Value": 10}
,{"What": "Date"}
,{"What": "Fontsize", "Value": 17}
,{"What": "Column without CR", "XPos": 5300, "Column": 10}
,{"What": "Fontsize", "Value": 10}
,{"What": "Page", "XPos": 14000}
,{"What": "Skip to line", "Value": 2}
,{"What": "Item without CR", "XPos": 6800, "Item": "Town of xxxxxxxx"}
,{"What": "Skip to line", "Value": 4}
,{"What": "Query line"}
,{"What": "Skip to line", "Value": 6}
,{"What": "FontBold", "Setting": false}
,{"What": "Item without CR", "XPos": 0, "Item": "Account"}
,{"What": "Item without CR", "XPos": 1500, "Item": "Account / Transaction Description"}
,{"What": "Item without CR", "XPos": 10000, "Item": "Trans Date"}
,{"What": "Item without CR", "XPos": 11200, "Item": "Ref #"}
,{"What": "Item without CR", "XPos": 12500, "Item": "Debit Amt"}
,{"What": "Item with CR", "XPos": 13800, "Item": "Credit Amt"}
,{"What": "Skip to line", "Value": 9}
,{"What": "Draw line"}
,{"What": "Header Control", "Size": 47}
,{"What": "Column without CR", "XPos": 0, "Column": 7}
,{"What": "Column without CR", "XPos": 1500, "Column": 1}
,{"What": "Column without CR", "XPos": 10000, "Column": 2}
,{"What": "Column without CR", "XPos": 11200, "Column": 3}
,{"What": "Column (numeric) without CR"}
,{"What": "Column (numeric) with CR"}
]

[szlamany]

I forgot to upload an image of the printed report - here it is

[CrazyDude]

That's awesome! I can't believe no one replied to this. You mentioned open-sourcing it. I say yes, please! I'd especially like to see the VB6 code released. We have some great Classic VB6 coders who could give it a new life.