Congrats on the release of Pharo 1.4!! Very exciting. Also, Nautilus looks nice -- in my first few minutes of using it. - One of my goals is to generate PDF reports. From Pharo, it appears that Pango/Cairo may give me a solution. And then I saw Athens, and thought it might be helpful. I used the configuration tool to load Athens, but then realized that I need to load Cairo first -- I thought maybe it would be picked up as a dependency... i am not very familiar with these configurations yet, and it appears that it did not install it. As I look around, I am having troubles finding a description of the optimal loading process for Pango & Cairo, for Pharo. My searches keep giving me very old/sub-optimal references on the forums. Nothing that works when i "do it" -- so I am obviously missing something. *Can someone please direct me to web pages describing the optimal loading technique for Pango & Cairo, or provide the Gofer lines here? Thanks in advance!* Thanks in advance! Cam
On 24 April 2012 01:01, Cameron Sanders <camsanders@aol.com> wrote:
Congrats on the release of Pharo 1.4!! Very exciting. Also, Nautilus looks nice -- in my first few minutes of using it.
- One of my goals is to generate PDF reports. From Pharo, it appears that Pango/Cairo may give me a solution. And then I saw Athens, and thought it might be helpful.
I used the configuration tool to load Athens, but then realized that I need to load Cairo first -- I thought maybe it would be picked up as a dependency... i am not very familiar with these configurations yet, and it appears that it did not install it.
As I look around, I am having troubles finding a description of the optimal loading process for Pango & Cairo, for Pharo. My searches keep giving me very old/sub-optimal references on the forums. Nothing that works when i "do it" -- so I am obviously missing something.
Can someone please direct me to web pages describing the optimal loading technique for Pango & Cairo, or provide the Gofer lines here? Thanks in advance!
Gofer it squeaksource: 'Athens'; package: 'ConfigurationOfAthens'; load. Then. (ConfigurationOfAthens project version: '1.0') load. (and of course you need to use Cog VM with NativeBoost and Cairo library installed on your OS). Now about your goals: yes, it should be fairly possible to generate PDFs using cairo. But more work is needed: this functionality are not exposed by Athens directly. The pango stuff is mostly done by Fernando, so i think he can tell you more. Anyways, if you don't fear to make your hands a bit dirty, we can make it, for sure. P.S. Now i felt for real, what is non-linear progress: this is when more than a single men contributing to project :) Together we are strong. I cannot even tell, where Athens would be, if not Fernando.
Thanks in advance! Cam
-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.
Igor, & others, Thanks for the info/links/leads. To be honest, I would rather just use a toolkit than create one. That is not accurate, more accurately: I would rather *create* the toolkit than use it ...* if I had the time*. Unfortunately for me, I do not have the time. So, if there is *only a possibility* that I can generate PDFs that meet my standards with pango/athens/cairo, then I should probably redirect my efforts. Previously I used ReportLab in Python to generate my reports. See the following sample that was generated by code crafted back around 2002/2003: http://ac.functional-analyst.com/fa-reports.php?table=2003-02-28/fa_reports&.... ReportLab allowed for simple mark-ups in the text (e.g. <b> ... </b>) and for that version of report, I wrote code that allowed me to use XMLs to define my document components & flow ordering/control. I guess ReportLab's new PLUS version uses XML to give one full control of the document layout. Of course, I want something more attractive than that sample, in this day and age. Color, floating text & image boxes. The reports must meet the standards of today. Perhaps something more like http://debrispublishing.com/images/stories/Reports/2011/06-2011/ECA_2011-06-.... But going further than that, in terms of charts, color usage, footnoting the tables, etc. See Standard & Poor's stock reports -- at that quality. The ideal toolkit would have some nice chart making abilities so that we don't have to invest 2 man months in creating a chart-making suite. These reports will be generated weekly for about 9000 companies/funds. The process must be automated. Ideally the report generation would be integrated with my data processing engine, which is in Pharo. Perhaps I will check out PDF4smalltalk. Once I can get my software talking to my DB (soon i hope), I can push my data into the DB and use Python or any other toolset for report generation... *if* I cannot do it in smalltalk. Any leads that anyone can offer are greatly appreciated! (and of course you need to use Cog VM with NativeBoost and Cairo
library installed on your OS).
I will have to poke around and learn what NativeBoost is... and which VMs were built with it. The pango stuff is mostly done by Fernando, so i think he can tell you more.
Anyways, if you don't fear to make your hands a bit dirty, we can make it, for sure.
How dirty? Thanks again for all of the responses. -Cam
Hi, If you have that kind of request and don't think about getting sick if looking at java :)) (after looking at pdf4smalltalk), there can be an interesting different possibility . You write reporting logic in st and write on some db table the data , then you can use jasper report for printing. There is a designer for it and you can do a small java web server for printing the generated report. If you think this can be interesting, I can eventually send you the java server and some Smalltalk code to call it. Jasper is really powerful. Look at the doc. It's open source but you can only learn the design tool, because running the report is not a big java work. I could not use pdf4smalltalk on the application i'm working on because it miss at the moment the possibility to Include colored images. I wanted to use it but no time to help people to adding that functionality. Ciao Giorgio Ferraris Sent from my iPhone On Apr 24, 2012, at 6:38 PM, Cameron Sanders <camsanders@aol.com> wrote:
Igor, & others,
Thanks for the info/links/leads.
To be honest, I would rather just use a toolkit than create one. That is not accurate, more accurately: I would rather create the toolkit than use it ... if I had the time. Unfortunately for me, I do not have the time. So, if there is only a possibility that I can generate PDFs that meet my standards with pango/athens/cairo, then I should probably redirect my efforts.
Previously I used ReportLab in Python to generate my reports. See the following sample that was generated by code crafted back around 2002/2003: http://ac.functional-analyst.com/fa-reports.php?table=2003-02-28/fa_reports&.... ReportLab allowed for simple mark-ups in the text (e.g. <b> ... </b>) and for that version of report, I wrote code that allowed me to use XMLs to define my document components & flow ordering/control. I guess ReportLab's new PLUS version uses XML to give one full control of the document layout.
Of course, I want something more attractive than that sample, in this day and age. Color, floating text & image boxes. The reports must meet the standards of today. Perhaps something more like http://debrispublishing.com/images/stories/Reports/2011/06-2011/ECA_2011-06-.... But going further than that, in terms of charts, color usage, footnoting the tables, etc. See Standard & Poor's stock reports -- at that quality. The ideal toolkit would have some nice chart making abilities so that we don't have to invest 2 man months in creating a chart-making suite.
These reports will be generated weekly for about 9000 companies/funds. The process must be automated.
Ideally the report generation would be integrated with my data processing engine, which is in Pharo. Perhaps I will check out PDF4smalltalk. Once I can get my software talking to my DB (soon i hope), I can push my data into the DB and use Python or any other toolset for report generation... *if* I cannot do it in smalltalk.
Any leads that anyone can offer are greatly appreciated!
(and of course you need to use Cog VM with NativeBoost and Cairo library installed on your OS).
I will have to poke around and learn what NativeBoost is... and which VMs were built with it.
The pango stuff is mostly done by Fernando, so i think he can tell you more. Anyways, if you don't fear to make your hands a bit dirty, we can make it, for sure.
How dirty?
Thanks again for all of the responses.
-Cam
On 24 April 2012 18:38, Cameron Sanders <camsanders@aol.com> wrote:
 Igor, & others,
Thanks for the info/links/leads.
To be honest, I would rather just use a toolkit than create one. That is not accurate, more accurately: I would rather create the toolkit than use it ... if I had the time. Unfortunately for me, I do not have the time. So, if there is only a possibility that I can generate PDFs that meet my standards with pango/athens/cairo, then I should probably redirect my efforts.
I will try to look what needs to be done, and if it can be done fast.
Previously I used ReportLab in Python to generate my reports. See the following sample that was generated by code crafted back around 2002/2003:Â http://ac.functional-analyst.com/fa-reports.php?table=2003-02-28/fa_reports&.... ReportLab allowed for simple mark-ups in the text (e.g. <b> ... </b>) and for that version of report, I wrote code that allowed me to use XMLs to define my document components & flow ordering/control. I guess ReportLab's new PLUS version uses XML to give one full control of the document layout.
Of course, I want something more attractive than that sample, in this day and age. Color, floating text & image boxes. The reports must meet the standards of today. Perhaps something more like http://debrispublishing.com/images/stories/Reports/2011/06-2011/ECA_2011-06-.... But going further than that, in terms of charts, color usage, footnoting the tables, etc. See Standard & Poor's stock reports -- at that quality. The ideal toolkit would have some nice chart making abilities so that we don't have to invest 2 man months in creating a chart-making suite.
These reports will be generated weekly for about 9000 companies/funds. The process must be automated.
Ideally the report generation would be integrated with my data processing engine, which is in Pharo. Perhaps I will check out PDF4smalltalk. Once I can get my software talking to my DB (soon i hope), I can push my data into the DB and use Python or any other toolset for report generation... *if* I cannot do it in smalltalk.
Any leads that anyone can offer are greatly appreciated!
(and of course you need to use Cog VM with NativeBoost and Cairo library installed on your OS).
I will have to poke around and learn what NativeBoost is... and which VMs were built with it.
Feel free to ask questions.
The pango stuff is mostly done by Fernando, so i think he can tell you more. Anyways, if you don't fear to make your hands a bit dirty, we can make it, for sure.
How dirty?
You tell me. :) I don't know what extra bindings is needed to use Cairo for PDF generation. But since you started this topic, i assumed you know. We can help with making it comply with Athens protocols., so then anyone could use it as another backend.
Thanks again for all of the responses.
-Cam
-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.
On Apr 24, 2012, at 12:01 AM, Cameron Sanders wrote:
Congrats on the release of Pharo 1.4!! Very exciting. Also, Nautilus looks nice -- in my first few minutes of using it.
- One of my goals is to generate PDF reports. From Pharo, it appears that Pango/Cairo may give me a solution. And then I saw Athens, and thought it might be helpful.
Olivier Auverlot who worked with several pdf libraries (he was working for an administration) is building a PDF generator library. He showed us some results and this is promising. Ask him. :)
I used the configuration tool to load Athens, but then realized that I need to load Cairo first -- I thought maybe it would be picked up as a dependency... i am not very familiar with these configurations yet, and it appears that it did not install it.
On which platform are you? because you should install the libraries first. Then watch the video on athens that igor sent around last week. Stef
As I look around, I am having troubles finding a description of the optimal loading process for Pango & Cairo, for Pharo. My searches keep giving me very old/sub-optimal references on the forums. Nothing that works when i "do it" -- so I am obviously missing something.
Can someone please direct me to web pages describing the optimal loading technique for Pango & Cairo, or provide the Gofer lines here? Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance! Cam
Step grane, Did you know of the PDF4smalltalk project in vw. It's quite ahead and there is also a reporting infrastructure built and guys are willing to port to other dialect Ciao Giorgio Ferraris Sent from my iPhone On Apr 24, 2012, at 7:15 AM, Stéphane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse@inria.fr> wrote:
On Apr 24, 2012, at 12:01 AM, Cameron Sanders wrote:
Congrats on the release of Pharo 1.4!! Very exciting. Also, Nautilus looks nice -- in my first few minutes of using it.
- One of my goals is to generate PDF reports. From Pharo, it appears that Pango/Cairo may give me a solution. And then I saw Athens, and thought it might be helpful.
Olivier Auverlot who worked with several pdf libraries (he was working for an administration) is building a PDF generator library. He showed us some results and this is promising. Ask him. :)
I used the configuration tool to load Athens, but then realized that I need to load Cairo first -- I thought maybe it would be picked up as a dependency... i am not very familiar with these configurations yet, and it appears that it did not install it.
On which platform are you? because you should install the libraries first. Then watch the video on athens that igor sent around last week.
Stef
As I look around, I am having troubles finding a description of the optimal loading process for Pango & Cairo, for Pharo. My searches keep giving me very old/sub-optimal references on the forums. Nothing that works when i "do it" -- so I am obviously missing something.
Can someone please direct me to web pages describing the optimal loading technique for Pango & Cairo, or provide the Gofer lines here? Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance! Cam
On Apr 24, 2012, at 9:51 AM, Giorgio Ferraris wrote:
Step grane,
Did you know of the PDF4smalltalk project in vw.
Yes
It's quite ahead and there is also a reporting infrastructure built and guys are willing to port to other dialect
I mentioned that to olivier when he started but he wanted to do its own lib. ;)
Seems that people like to reinvent the wheel :( Ciao Giorgio Ferraris Sent from my iPhone On Apr 24, 2012, at 10:49 AM, Stéphane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse@inria.fr> wrote:
On Apr 24, 2012, at 9:51 AM, Giorgio Ferraris wrote:
Step grane,
Did you know of the PDF4smalltalk project in vw.
Yes
It's quite ahead and there is also a reporting infrastructure built and guys are willing to port to other dialect
I mentioned that to olivier when he started but he wanted to do its own lib.
;)
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Giorgio Ferraris <giorgio.ferraris@gmail.com> wrote:
Seems that people like to reinvent the wheel :( Ciao
and pdf is quite a big wheel if I may say. Like the ones used on bigfoot cars. Davorin Rusevljan http://www.cloud208.com/
we will see. :) I did my part to avoid it. Stef
Seems that people like to reinvent the wheel :( Ciao
Giorgio Ferraris Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 24, 2012, at 10:49 AM, Stéphane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse@inria.fr> wrote:
On Apr 24, 2012, at 9:51 AM, Giorgio Ferraris wrote:
Step grane,
Did you know of the PDF4smalltalk project in vw.
Yes
It's quite ahead and there is also a reporting infrastructure built and guys are willing to port to other dialect
I mentioned that to olivier when he started but he wanted to do its own lib.
;)
participants (5)
-
Cameron Sanders -
Davorin Rusevljan -
Giorgio Ferraris -
Igor Stasenko -
Stéphane Ducasse