Writing Reports in LabWindows/CVI

[Adri_K.]

Use this discussion forum to share your ideas, tips and tricks for generating reports in LabWindows/CVI.

[RobertoBozzolo]

At present to generate a report in CVI for our applications we are used to create a hidden panel and transfer all data to this, printing it afterwards. The use of a separate panel permits to format it in a fashion that has better aspect for printing: particularly white background for the panel, transparent background for all controls and labels and so on.

I have found that using a relatvely large panel gives better aspect, probably because the rendering of a large panel to actual sheet dimensions has lower impact on images and text. We are actually using 1400x900 pixels panels with satisfactory results, even when we have complex situations like multi axis graphs created as described in my Multi-axis graph in CVI contribution

In case we have a complicated graph or table to print, like for example those originating from a special data selection the operator has made on test results or so, we simply duplicate the resulting control to the hidden panel customizing it for printing needs.

[RobertoBozzolo]

I have to add that in the past we have used for reporting needs HiQ, a data management product that was present in NI catalog but has been discontinued. This product permitted data management tasks to be integrated in the reports and it was possible to control it with CVI applications so that we were able to perform additional processing to test data and produce consequent reports directly from the application program using HiQ, which had a powerful set of native functions to use.

I suppose such a product has been superseded by the integration of Excel reporting, but it is to be said that an Excel license is not always present on customer machines, especially those dedicate to long lasting tests where the results of several weeks of tests need to be presente in a few sheets of paper: on one hand customers often do not like to spend an additional software licence on such machines, on the other hand we often prefere to have simple machines with little or no additional software in them to prevent operators from doing separate tasks on the PCs such disturbing tests in process. In these cases we often miss a simple reporting facility (it is also true that integrating HiQ was easier than using Excel via ActiveX: better explanations, more described functions, some examples to start with... all that summed up in a better usage of the product).

[wilg]

I hope that we can convince NI to do something about this,... It has been a weak spot in CVI forever.  Here are just some of my comments.

- Any report that is not "saveable" (thus "email-able") is a non-starter.

- It really should be independent of other software on the running machine as per Roberto's comment.

- I rather like those parts of the Activex Word technique which allow freedom to lay out the report format... at least for Fonts, Bold, PageOrientation, etc and other text stuff.  But I have found it to be least painful to save graphs into bitmaps, and then make Tables in Word and drop them in.  This is somewhat ok, but really cumbersome and crude.  Maybe there are better ways which NI could write an App note about.

- I wish that at the very least, NI would put the help files for the Word Object Libraries online and downloadable.  Requiring that the developer find the original CD and install the ActiveX help files is not always possible, AND does not always work.

As I said before ... It is the REPORT that management sees....

"Wow" He/she says.  "How did you get this data?"

     "Its was easy, I used NI's CVI, of course."

"I'm impressed!  Next time, I wouln't give you such a hard time when you ask for an upgrade"