Aligning Report Text - Smalltalk

Pax,

>I have integrated Ian's Report Package into my application and it
>works very well. Great job Ian!

Blimey! I didn't think anyone would use that package in anger. I only
really added it so that I could produce some formatted text without
getting too involved in the RichEdit control. IIRC, I never got round
to finishing it.

I'm glad you find it useful though.

>My question is how to align data for a given report. First I populate
>the report with column names followed by the data values which come
>from a model object. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get the
>model data to align with the field names.
>
>Any suggestions?

Can't the tabs do that. You can set parameters for the tab stops
programmatically - tab position, tab alignment and character used to
fill in the tab spacing.

The alignment can either be left, centre, right or decimal (decimal
points are aligned).

So, to create two columns with right aligned text you would have to
define a tab scheme (tab position, alignment, filler)

tabs
at: #myFormat
put:
((OrderedCollection new)
add: #(2 #right #space);
add: #(4 #right #space);
add: #(6 #right #space);
yourself).

and then add your data to the report document

myReport
tabStops: #myFormat
while:
[myReport appendTextAndCr: ' header1 header2'.
myReport appendTextAndCr: ' aaa 11'.
myReport appendTextAndCr: ' bbbb 2222'.
myReport appendTextAndCr: ' cccccc 33333'].

where the "spaces" in the above strings are tab characters.

Let me know if that won't do what you want and I'll see if I can work
out something else.
--
Ian

The From address is valid

Hi Ian,

I did notice the tab configuration but didn't give it a second look. I
think your suggestion should give me what I want and make things align
nicely. However, I will have to create a tab format for each report
class which should be straight forward.

Otherwise, I like what you have done with the package as it gives the
developer a means to view/edit/print and print preview a document from
the object model.

Again, great job!

Thanks,

Pax