[Gnue-dev] forms/reports inconsistency

[Bajusz Tamas]

Hi all!

I feel some forms/reports inconsistency.

In forms there was a decision that official
gnue forms are char based and fixed positional.
The main reasons was easy code maintenance,
no complexity and support for char based terminals.

On other side reports are nor char based nor
fixed positional.(layout based)
But the same arguments for forms are applicable for reports too.
Especially  dot matrix printers in raw text mode
are analogous to terminals. And there are many of them
are widely used in business. Not just for preprinted forms!

So why not start with a char based and fixed positioning
reports (similar to forms)? The infrastructure in designer is ready
to support this.

I'm not against layout based reports, but i think
developing layout based reports (and designer) renderers
is a very  big and long time job. And the same arguments
(pros/cons) applicable as for forms.

So why this form/report asymmetry?

Bajusz Tamás (btami)

p.s.: another, but technical question is: why not separate logic/layout in
reports?