Printable Report

Question

I am in the process of evaluating Lightswitch HTML Client for use in an application and would need the ability to create printable reports.  There appears to not be an easy solution to creating and printing reports.  DevExpress appears to have
had a report creator but has been discontinued.  I am experienced in MS Access where reports are easy. :)  
These reports would not have charts, mostly just printable screens really.  Values from the tables and calculated fields.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Voyagr12,
once, when I needed a cheap solution to download simple PDF reports in a VS2012 HTML application, ended up using just RDLC, WebAPI and ServerApplicationContext, here some
details from Joe Binder.
Summirizing, you need to:
design an RDLC in Visual Studio
put the RDLC in a folder on the Server, together with its own ApiController
bind your ApiController in Global.asax
Sub Application_Start(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
RouteTable.Routes.MapHttpRoute( _
name:="ReportsApi", _
routeTemplate:="reports/{controller}/{mailAddress}", _
defaults:=New With {.mailAddress = RouteParameter.Optional})
'optional parm to send PDF via mail'
End Sub
navigate to the correct Server location from your screen javascript code
myapp.BrowseCustomers.PrintList_execute = function (screen) {
window.location.href = "../reports/Report";
Your ApiController GET function:
uses ServerApplicationContext to load data into RDLC
Using ctx As ServerApplicationContext = ServerApplicationContext.CreateContext()
Dim list = ctx.DataWorkspace.ApplicationData.Customers.GetQuery.Execute.ToList
Dim rpt As LocalReport
Try
rpt = New LocalReport
rpt.ReportPath = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/bin/YourAppName.Server/Reports/Report1.rdlc")
rpt.DataSources.Add(New ReportDataSource("Customers", list))
Catch ex As Exception
Dim err As New HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError)
Throw New HttpResponseException(err)
End Try
renders the report data into PDF memory stream
Dim deviceInfo As String = _
"<DeviceInfo>" + _
" <OutputFormat>PDF</OutputFormat>" + _
" <PageWidth>21cm</PageWidth>" + _
" <PageHeight>29.7cm</PageHeight>" + _
" <MarginTop>1cm</MarginTop>" + _
" <MarginLeft>2cm</MarginLeft>" + _
" <MarginRight>2cm</MarginRight>" + _
" <MarginBottom>1cm</MarginBottom>" + _
"</DeviceInfo>"
Dim mimeType As String = Nothing
Dim encoding As String = Nothing
Dim fileNameExtension As String = Nothing
Dim warnings() As Warning = Nothing
Dim streams() As String = Nothing
Dim renderedBytes() As Byte
Try
renderedBytes = rpt.Render( _
"PDF", _
deviceInfo, mimeType, encoding, fileNameExtension, streams, warnings)
Catch ex As Exception
Dim err As New HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError)
Throw New HttpResponseException(err)
End Try
Dim _mediaType As MediaTypeHeaderValue = MediaTypeHeaderValue.Parse("application/pdf")
Dim fileName As String = "Customers.pdf" ' myFileStoreEntry.FileMetaData.FileName
Dim memStream As MemoryStream = Nothing
Dim fullResponse As HttpResponseMessage = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK)
Try
memStream = New MemoryStream(renderedBytes)
fullResponse.Content = New StreamContent(memStream)
fullResponse.Content.Headers.ContentType = _mediaType
fullResponse.Content.Headers.Add("content-disposition", String.Format("attachment; filename={0}", fileName))
Catch ex As Exception
Dim err As New HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError)
Throw New HttpResponseException(err)
End Try
returns HttpResponseMessage
memStream.Position = 0
Return fullResponse
So far I never applied the same solution to a VS2013 app but I think this could be a good starting point, I'm copy/pasting code and changing personal code references from an old project so please double check.
Also, I remember I wasn't able to use this solution on Azure, please take a look at
this post.
Marco