Re: [Gnumed-devel] GNUmed forms printing

[Sebastian Hilbert]

On Tuesday 20 June 2006 11:35, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 07:05:17PM +1000, Ian Haywood wrote:
> > > possible solutions:
> > > - use LATEX for forms, create ps-files, feed them to the printer
> > > --> LATEX forms are hard to build and maintain ?
> >
> > It's possible to use a simple extension to LaTeX which makes
> > fixed-position forms fairly easy, look under gnumed/test-area/ian
>
> I do think we should be using that code in our forms eventually.
>
> My suggestion would be (requires a bit of effort):
>
> - write Cheetah templates for the forms
makes sense, some questions remain, filling in is easy but  how do you how 
many characters at max

> - process them in GNUmed (fill placeholders, that is)
some kind of error checking ? 

> - transform them to LaTeX using Ian's fixed position extension
I see. cheetah basically 'compiles' a latex (any other format) file which then 
is compiled by Latex  into pdf, txt, whatever 

> - generate PDFs from it
doable

> - use the wxPython framework to send that PDF to a printer
doesn't work. the framework cannot process pdf directly. Only way seems to be 
to either convert it into some kind of bitmap/postscript stream or send it to 
the printer via system calls
>
> The result is that we could be maintaining form templates
> independant of the code proper.
YEs and no. I agree you get a templating system and abolute positioning via 
latex bu you would have to maintain latex templates plus cheetah templates

Well, they are in the same file but hell, I don't want latex. It's not the 
most readable format plus I don't want to fire up latex2pdf and send the pdt 
to the printer afterwards. If I have time I will test this but the speed 
penalty will be huge. 

In most offices you wnat the form printed by the time yout put the form into 
the printer tray. 

here ist where reportlab could come into play. simply write cheetah templates 
that output reportlab templates and let reportlab output pdf and or svg, png

That way you stay all python and you get a chance to do some error checking 
like too many characters in one line

Additional benefit beeing able to output form and content seperately
as well as generate bitmap for on screen display.

Last but not least reportlab 'templates' will be able to be handled by Joe 
Average plus there is a tkinter designer around that takes care of the 
absolute positioning

'Cheetlab' I guess is the way to go

Any comment is appreciated
>
> Karsten

-- 
Sebastian Hilbert 
Leipzig / Germany
[www.gnumed.de]  -> PGP welcome, HTML ->/dev/null
Faire Angebote beim Internetshoppen gibt es in meinem Onlineshop
fairdeal.profiseller.de