= Blueprint for Reporting/Charting =

We need to be able to generate Pretty & Informative Reports from the database.

For quick visualisations in the browser, we have included [http://www.jqplot.com jqPlot].

For more formal reports (which can also be retrieved via webservices using the PDF representation of the REST Controller), we currently use [http://reportlab.org ReportLab] via [http://geraldo.sourceforge.net Geraldo]. This also supports Graphics (via [http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/ PIL])

Other options:
 * [http://www.xhtml2pdf.com Pisa] uses [http://reportlab.org ReportLab] to generate PDF from HTML
 * [http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq/howto_faq.html#matplotlib-in-a-web-application-server Matplotlib] can generate visualisations 
 * [http://www.web2pyslices.com/main/slices/take_slice/12 Cairo] can generate nice charts from the back-end
 * [http://appyframework.org/pod.html Pod] to create Open Document Format

Excel files are currently written using [http://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlwt xlwt]. Other options:
 * [http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyexcelerator PyExcelerator]
 * Docs on Python Excel libraries: http://www.python-excel.org/
 * Thread recommending xlwt: http://groups.google.com/group/web2py/browse_thread/thread/375307e92df40ca8

T2 includes a basic barchart function:
{{{
def barchart(data,width=400,height=15,scale=None,
             label_width=50,values_width=50):
    if not scale: scale=max([m for n,c,m in data])
    if not scale: return None
    return TABLE(_class='barchart',
           *[TR(TD(n,_width=label_width,_style="text-align: right"),
           TABLE(TR(TD(_width=int(m*width/scale),_height=height,
           _style='background-color:'+c))),TD(m,_width=values_width),
           _style="vertical-alignment: middle") for n,c,m in data])
}}}

Could be something to use Flash? (although best-avoided, if possible, to minimise client support)
 * PyAMF: http://pyamf.org
  * Web2Py integration: http://mdp.cti.depaul.edu/AlterEgo/default/show/22
 * !BirdEye: http://code.google.com/p/birdeye/
 * !FusionCharts Free: http://www.fusioncharts.com/Free/
 * Open Flash Chart: http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart-2/
  * from Python: http://code.google.com/p/open-flash-chart-python/

S2 version:
 * http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php?id=dev:reportinglib

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BluePrints