Background

The HtmlReport functionality takes an XHTML string, processes it adding data from a viewmodel and outputs the resulting XHTML.

XHTML is a strict version of HTML that is XML compatible. Most important is that it always have one, and only one, root node. Read more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML

All the functionality of the HtmlReport functionality also applies to XML if you need that.

The HTML generating functions share most of it's code with the OpenDocument functionality. The OpenDocument format uses XML for storing the document content.

How it works

• Viewmodel that defines data to insert
• Template to insert data into

You create a viewmodel that extracts the data you need from your model. Each attribute in this viewmodel can replace one or more "tags" in the source template. Note that the viewmodel also defines where the template can be found.

ResultHTML := self.XHtmlReportAsString(ReportRoot.ViewModels.ReportingViewmodel)
ResultHTML := self.opendocumentreportasblob(ReportRoot.ViewModels.ReportingViewmodel).asString

HTML documents

You can also use html templates. If the template used ends with .htm or .html the logic expects a well formed html document and will expand tags just as in OpenDocument formats - but the we will check for row-builders %%+ROWBUILDERTAG& in <tr> context (html tables)

XML documents

XML is just the more generic case of html. They are treated by the same logic. You can from 20190919 use any xml-tag as row builder. Example

 <SomeXml attrib='%SomeVMColumnAsAttributeresult%'>     %SomeOtherVMColumnAsXMLTextresult%   <Items>     <Item>%%+TheVMNestingColumn%       <ContentInItem someattrib='%VMColInNesting%'>          %StuffFromViewModelNesting%       </ContentInItem>     </Item>   </Items> </SomeXml> 

Viewmodel additions

The templates is can be accessed in several different ways;

• From an String attribute in a modeled class
• From an URL
• From the local filesystem
• From the database in BLOB attribute in a modeled class (base64 encoded)

The viewmodel providing the report data also has attributes with specific names providing information to the report functionality.

Attribute name	Attribute should evaluate to	Value type and content
TemplateUrl	The URL or local filename	String with for example http://www.mdriven.net/templates/report.odt or for prototyping c:\\temp\\mytemplate.odt
TemplateBlob	A class attribute containing the template	Blob with an uploaded document template, value is expected to be Base64Encoded

When creating OpenDocument documents, consider using the tag %meta% in your document to get the exact tag list for your document.

Copy the tag name including the percent signs from the generated meta tag information (preferable without style). The %meta% must be first string in element in order to be recognized - it is also case sensitive.

If you type it or edit a part of the tag name, your editor can insert invisible control information that's interfere with the merging.

2020-04-06: Please also note that we have seen some issues with corrupt downloads when the ods template is created in OpenOffice 4.1.X. If the template is created in Excel is the document downloaded properly.