Extending Report Generation Toolkit 8.6

[gleichman]

Who's bright idea was it to update the Report Generation Toolkit to LVOOP?

To extend the old toolkit, I could grab a reference to the report (Generate Report Get Data to Modify.vi) and call whatever MS-Office methods and properties I needed. How do I add features to the new toolkit without changing vi.lib?

[george seifert]

QUOTE (gleichman @ Sep 16 2008, 02:22 PM)

Who's bright idea was it to update the Report Generation Toolkit to LVOOP?

To extend the old toolkit, I could grab a reference to the report (Generate Report Get Data to Modify.vi) and call whatever MS-Office methods and properties I needed. How do I add features to the new toolkit without changing vi.lib?

I just went through this. I don't know how to send you to the thread but look for this title

Can't get Word.Tables in Report Generation Toolkit in LV 8.6

George

[PJM_labview]

Look Here: Can't get Word.Tables in Report Generation Toolkit in LV 8.6

[gleichman]

QUOTE (george seifert @ Sep 16 2008, 03:00 PM)

I just went through this. I don't know how to send you to the thread but look for this title

Can't get Word.Tables in Report Generation Toolkit in LV 8.6

George

Are you refering to http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/8D2F46628809472F862574B000534AF5' target="_blank">Getting References in Report Generation Toolkit 1.1.3 with LabVIEW 8.6? This set of VIs give access to the report reference through a hack of "Get Report Type". There are a two problems with this solution: non-standard update of the toolkit/vi.lib and it only works for Word reports. I am using Excel and I don't want to have to worry about LabVIEW updates.

[george seifert]

QUOTE (gleichman @ Sep 16 2008, 03:21 PM)

Are you refering to http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/8D2F46628809472F862574B000534AF5' target="_blank">Getting References in Report Generation Toolkit 1.1.3 with LabVIEW 8.6? This set of VIs give access to the report reference through a hack of "Get Report Type". There are a two problems with this solution: non-standard update of the toolkit/vi.lib and it only works for Word reports. I am using Excel and I don't want to have to worry about LabVIEW updates.

That's what I meant. I believe it works for things other than Word, but I understand not wanting to use non-standard updates. I don't know of another good way to get around it. I agree that NI didn't handle this update right.

George

[gleichman]

QUOTE (george seifert @ Sep 17 2008, 08:31 AM)

That's what I meant. I believe it works for things other than Word, but I understand not wanting to use non-standard updates. I don't know of another good way to get around it. I agree that NI didn't handle this update right.

George

As written the hacked "Get Report Type.vi" outputs a "Word._Document" reference. It is relativily simple to update the 5 VIs to an Excel reference (hack the hack!).

[rkanders]

QUOTE (george seifert @ Sep 17 2008, 09:31 AM)

That's what I meant. I believe it works for things other than Word, but I understand not wanting to use non-standard updates. I don't know of another good way to get around it. I agree that NI didn't handle this update right.

George

Yeah, broke lot of my stuff. Report toolkit has always been annoying, especially when installing for different LV versions or different office versions.

Reinis

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (gleichman @ Sep 16 2008, 12:22 PM)

Who's bright idea was it to update the Report Generation Toolkit to LVOOP?

You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until you try to build an executable. I just got off the phone with customer support call which included remote assistance via copilot for about an hour. The customer was trying to figure out what these extra folders were in his build output. NI_Report, NI_HTML etc etc. Each folder was full of dozens of VI's. His quote: "I never saw these before in LabVIEW 8.5"

[rkanders]

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ Sep 18 2008, 05:48 PM)

You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until you try to build an executable. I just got off the phone with customer support call which included remote assistance via copilot for about an hour. The customer was trying to figure out what these extra folders were in his build output. NI_Report, NI_HTML etc etc. Each folder was full of dozens of VI's. His quote: "I never saw these before in LabVIEW 8.5"

Exactly! What a nightmare! :headbang: I just spent three hours on this trying to stuf everything into one executable. :thumbdown: Executable went from 2MB to about 10MB and it would not work on one PC with more or less similar setup. I think NI rushed this version of the toolkit without thinking through the implications. In my app all I was doing with the toolkit was open excel and put arrays in named ranges.

Does anyone have any good news about the new version of toolkit. Has anyone tried getting the old version working in LV 8.6?

Thanks,

Reinis

[Dirk J.]

Who's bright idea was it to update the Report Generation Toolkit to LVOOP?

To extend the old toolkit, I could grab a reference to the report (Generate Report Get Data to Modify.vi) and call whatever MS-Office methods and properties I needed. How do I add features to the new toolkit without changing vi.lib?

There is another workaround hack, without modifying VI lib to get the reference.

1) create a child class of NI_Standard Report.lvclass (or whichever one you're interested in). Create a NIReports.Report ActiveX reference in the private data

2) override the 'new report subVI.vi'

3) in this overide VI, first call the parent method. Flatten the class to an XML string. Using pattern matching, find the (hex) string value of the reference). Typecast into the activeX reference.

Both parent and child class now operate on the same reference.

See the attached image of 'new report subVI.vi.

/dirk

[Dirk J.]

Here are the files.

1) create a child class of NI_Standard Report.lvclass (or whichever one you're interested in). Create a NIReports.Report ActiveX reference in the private data

2) override the 'new report subVI.vi'

3) in this overide VI, first call the parent method. Flatten the class to an XML string. Using pattern matching, find the (hex) string value of the reference). Typecast into the activeX reference.

NI_Report.zip

[Aristos Queue]

Exactly! What a nightmare! :headbang: I just spent three hours on this trying to stuf everything into one executable.

Good news! LV 2009 fixes the issue. LVClasses can now build all their files into the executable.