Re: [libreoffice-users] Workarounds for multiple problems with the legacy Report Designer-Wizard under LO 3.5

Hi :)
Nice work Fred!  Have you considered joining either the docs team (to help Dan write the guide for 
Base or develop the Faq further) or the devs team to do some "Easy Hacks" and then come back to 
Base?  The docs team could really use the help!
Regards from
Tom :)  


--- On Sat, 5/5/12, frofa <frof07@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

From: frofa <frof07@yahoo.com.au>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Workarounds for multiple problems with the legacy Report 
Designer-Wizard under LO 3.5
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Saturday, 5 May, 2012, 8:07

After doing a bit more investigation recently, this is a summary of what I've
found (so far) regarding the multiple problems with the legacy Report
Designer-Wizard (RDW) under LO 3.5. For convenience and succinctness, I
thought it might be worth SUMMARIZING the situation in this new message. It
seems there are (at least) 3 different problems/bugs with the RDW under LO
3.5.


SUMMARY OF PROBLEMS WITH THE REPORT-DESIGNER-WIZARD (UNDER LO 3.5)

1. All reports of course need to be based on an SQL query (whether
pre-existing, or generated 'on-the-fly' by the RDW)

2. When building a Report using the LRD, there are 2 situations (specified
in the first step of the RDW):
  a.  Select a TABLE from your database
  b.  Select a (pre-existing) QUERY from your database (referencing the
TABLE above)

3. In the first case (2a above), using LO 3.5, the wizard DOES generate the
appropriate query (with the fields and sorting the user has selected), and
stores it in the hidden COMMAND control field. But NOTE, there is still a
PROBLEM in the case where the Report needs to have GROUP HEADERS (i.e.
GROUPED on one of the database fields). In this case, the auto-generated
QUERY is incomplete, and the GROUP BY term is omitted. This can be fixed by
simply editing the QUERY in the COMMAND control field and adding the GROUP
BY term. This is effectively another BUG, in my opinion (the 'Repeated
Headings Bug'). e.g. see here:
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Base-and-new-Report-Builder-in-3-5-td3817159.html#a3835807

4. In the second case (2b above), the wizard either does NOT generate the
query (or does NOT copy it into the COMMAND control field) - leaving it
BLANK. So it has to be entered 'manually'. This is the 'Blank COMMAND field'
bug mentioned elsewhere.
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47473

5. When I use the LRD in OpenOffice v.3.3 to generate the SAME report from
the SAME database, the wizard correctly generates the SQL command, as shown
in the hidden COMMAND control field, with the correct GROUPING term, and so
the report runs properly in OO. (It also also runs properly in LO 3.5 once
the hidden 'SORTING' control is added - that's the OTHER 'Sorting control'
bug!). See here...
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Legacy-Base-reports-won-t-open-in-LibreOffice-3-5-td3916293.html#a3917443
http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/2589
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Report-Builder-td2762261.html#a2762591

6. OO also correctly copies the query code into the COMMAND control field in
the SECOND case (2b) above, so there is no 'blank Command field' BUG in OO -
see point 4 above.

7. There seems to be mounting evidence that these problems affect LO 3.5
user on all platforms. See the links above for more info.

I'm not a programmer, and don't have any deep technical understanding of LO
and BASE, but it looks to me that how the RDW works has been changed
somewhere down the line in LO development, leading to these 'bugs' (which,
from what other users have reported, don't seem to affect LO 3.3 - not sure
about LO 3.4).

I hope this summary helps people using the RDW create properly functioning
reports until the problems are sorted down the track. Despite it's flaws, I
find the Report Designer Wizard a very flexible and useful tool, and hope
that it will continue to be supported by the LO development team.

- Fred

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