Printing with LightSwitch?

Question

I am about to create a control that will layout a report and print it. I just wanted to know if I missed something obvious?

Answer 1

I assume that you understand that LightSwitch doesn't have any native support for printing. I can't think of any reason that you couldn't create a Silverlight control to do it, though - I know I've seen a third-party Silverlight reporting component on Visual Studio Gallery, although I haven't tried it.

Let us know how it turns out.

Regards,

 

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Steve Hoag Microsoft aka the V-Bee

Answer 2

There's native support for printing in Silverlight. See here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.printing.printdocument(VS.95).aspx

In our OSS project (MIT/X-11 license) we want to persist images of controls, with the additional option of printing. Here's how we do that bit:

In Silverlight, WritableBitmap has a constructor overload that takes any UIElement, so you can...

1) create a WriteableBitmap using the UIElement overload

2) encode the bitmap to a .jpg (optional)

3) save the image

    a) if you want a user-specified location to save, you have to use an OpenFileDialog

    b) otherwise, you can save to isolated storage

Like so:

public static void SaveUIElementToJpegImage(UIElement element)

        {

            // todo: pass myChart as a command parameter declaratively to be handled in PlotViewModel

            var b = new WriteableBitmap(element, null);

            using (var s = GetLocalFilestreamFromFileDialog(".jpg"))

            {

                if (s != null)

                {

                    SaveBitmapToJpeg(b, s);

                }

            }

        }

// as found here: http://blog.blueboxes.co.uk/2009/07/21/rendering-xaml-to-a-jpeg-using-silverlight-3/

        // also see attribution to SO post here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1139200/using-fjcore-to-encode-silverlight-writeablebitmap 

        private static void SaveBitmapToJpeg(WriteableBitmap bitmap, Stream fs)

        {

            //Convert the Image to pass into FJCore

            int width = bitmap.PixelWidth;

            int height = bitmap.PixelHeight;

            int bands = 3;

            byte[][,] raster = new byte[bands][,];

            for (int i = 0; i < bands; i++)

            {

                raster[i] = new byte[width, height];

            }

            for (int row = 0; row < height; row++)

            {

                for (int column = 0; column < width; column++)

                {

                    int pixel = bitmap.Pixels[width * row + column];

                    raster[0][column, row] = (byte)(pixel >> 16);

                    raster[1][column, row] = (byte)(pixel >> 8);

                    raster[2][column, row] = (byte)pixel;

                }

            }

            ColorModel model = new ColorModel { colorspace = ColorSpace.RGB };

            FluxJpeg.Core.Image img = new FluxJpeg.Core.Image(model, raster);

            //Encode the Image as a JPEG

            MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();

            FluxJpeg.Core.Encoder.JpegEncoder encoder = new FluxJpeg.Core.Encoder.JpegEncoder(img, 100, stream);

            encoder.Encode();

            //Move back to the start of the stream

            stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

            //Get the Bytes and write them to the stream

            byte[] binaryData = new Byte[stream.Length];

            long bytesRead = stream.Read(binaryData, 0, (int)stream.Length);

            fs.Write(binaryData, 0, binaryData.Length);

        }

        private static Stream GetLocalFilestreamFromFileDialog(string defaultExtension)

        {

            // save to user-specified location (requires user interaction)

            var dialog = new SaveFileDialog();

            dialog.DefaultExt = defaultExtension;

            dialog.Filter = dialog.DefaultExt + " File|*" + dialog.DefaultExt + "|All Files|*.*";

            if (dialog.ShowDialog() == true)

            {

                return dialog.OpenFile();

            }

            return null;

        }

        private static Stream GetFileStreamFromIsolatedStorage(string filename, FileMode fileMode)

        {

            // save to IsolatedStorage with no user interaction

            var userstore = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication();

            var locations = userstore.GetDirectoryNames();

            return new IsolatedStorageFileStream(filename, fileMode,

                IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication());

        }

Answer 3

I assume that you understand that LightSwitch doesn't have any native support for printing. I can't think of any reason that you couldn't create a Silverlight control to do it, though - I know I've seen a third-party Silverlight reporting component on Visual Studio Gallery, although I haven't tried it.

Let us know how it turns out.

Regards,

 

---

Steve Hoag Microsoft aka the V-Bee

 

MSFT *MUST* get on the printing .....    for example that 3rd party reporting costs to much and is just not that great!

We must have a SIlverlight Report Viewer and Printing as a native part of SIlverlight by V5

LightSwitch V1 needs to have that also......

sure we can export data to Excell but that's just not the way to print stuff.... not for a decent app.

Look at what folks can do an Access reports, SIlverlight needs to have at least the View / Print UI for SQL RS

 

 

Answer 4

MSFT *MUST* get on the printing .....    for example that 3rd party reporting costs to much and is just not that great!

We must have a SIlverlight Report Viewer and Printing as a native part of SIlverlight by V5

LightSwitch V1 needs to have that also......

sure we can export data to Excell but that's just not the way to print stuff.... not for a decent app.

Look at what folks can do an Access reports, SIlverlight needs to have at least the View / Print UI for SQL RS

 

+1 (I agree)

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Mario De Ghetto
http://community.dotnetwork.it/mario.deghetto/Default.aspx
http://deghetto.wordpress.com

Answer 5

Me too! :)

Is this suggestion already in MS Connect?

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André Alves de Lima
Visite o meu site: http://andrealveslima.spaces.live.com
Me siga no Twitter: @andrealveslima

Answer 6

I posted a tutorial showing how to print here:

http://lightswitch.adefwebserver.com/Blog/tabid/61/EntryId/3/Printing-With-LightSwitch.aspx

Answer 7

Nice! :)

Answer 8

Ditto. Thanks Michael - having this and the custom control walkthrough available when LightSwitch goes live to the public tomorrow is going to be a big plus!

Thanks,

 

---

Steve Hoag Microsoft aka the V-Bee

Answer 9

I posted a tutorial showing how to print here:

http://lightswitch.adefwebserver.com/Blog/tabid/61/EntryId/3/Printing-With-LightSwitch.aspx

That's nice, but what about serious reports like ledgers and others with multiple sub-groups/sub-totals, etc.

VFP9 has a very powerful report builder, although it cannot be compared to Crystal Reports.

Answer 10

That's nice, but what about serious reports like ledgers and others with multiple sub-groups/sub-totals, etc.

VFP9 has a very powerful report builder, although it cannot be compared to Crystal Reports.

see:

http://johnpapa.net/silverlight/advanced-silverlight-printing-strategies/

Answer 11

One of LightSwitch sample provided was an Invoice application. What's the point of having an invoice application without the ability to print it?

I strongly suggest to add this feature to v1 final release. This is a major need for business applications.