[Qgis-user] Report Layout Wishlist

Wed Sep 16 07:52:15 PDT 2020

Hi Nyall,

your "wishlist" on the report layout looks quite feature complete already.
Might add: Save report as template (similar to atlas layout)
and/or (if possible at all): Load atlas templates as group section template.
Having already set up a full fledged atlas layout with all bells and
whistles, it is quite a pain to have to rebuild it from scratch for the
group section of a report.

 From all listed topics, the ability to reorder/move the sections and
the expression based filters would have my priority #1, cause they
heavily influence to initial amount of work one has to put into a report.
While the reports are now very static, there is a lot of
trial-and-errortill you reach a first satisfying result.

I changed the threads subject to give it a bit better fitting name and
to look forward for to things to hopefully come.
If anyone could tell me what I could do to assist in this process,
please instruct me.

Cheers,
Bernd

On 16.09.20 00:59, Nyall Dawson wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Sep 2020 at 19:17, Bernd Vogelgesang
> <bernd.vogelgesang at gmx.de> wrote:
>> Hi Andreas,
>>
>> hope I did not sound too negative. For sure I would like to help in some
>> way. I give money in nearly every crowdfunding project, though I even
>> don't need most functionalities there.
>> Around the report function, there is quite a sounding silence in the
>> lists and the web, so I assume that few people use it, or feel too
>> stupid to ask cause they don't get it to work properly.
>>
>> What I already tried, was to collect issues on github for the Report
>> But already there the problems begin: There is not a label for it (only
>> a general "Print Layout") and report is a very common word)
>> This may be intended as the reporting seems to be the younger brother of
>> the Atlas, but makes it not easier ;)
> There's now https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AReports,
> and I've trawled through and tagged everything I could find (I may
> have missed some though!)
>
> There's a wishlist Google docs which has been a WIP collaborative
> effort for a while detailing possible future enhancements to reports
> (and layouts). Here's a quick summary of the current contents:
>
> **General layout improvements**
>
> - Show print margins for pages
> - Coloured and named snapping guides
> - Better guide snapping feedback (following the Illustrator approach)
> so that it's easier to see exactly what a smart guide is snapping
> features to
> - Add a wizard for automatic guide setup (e.g. for easy creation of
> grid based designs)
> - Allow negative guide placements to create guides which are aligned
> at “right edge - value” (e.g. -5 = 5mm from right side of page,
> regardless of page size)
> - Switch all the remaining items to use QgsTextRenderer for text -
> allowing buffers, shadows, background shapes. (Remaining items are
> legends and label items)
> - Make more layout item size settings unit aware, and add user-facing
> setting for setting the default layout unit
> - “Smart shapes”, e.g. annotation style “balloons”
> - Support icons in rows for attribute tables (i.e. show the
> conditional formatting icons in attribute tables when they are
> activated)
> - Double click resize handles to auto size items (e.g. expand/shrink a
> label item to fit the text. Double clicking the right handle would
> expand the item to the right, double clicking the left would expand it
> to the left, etc...)
> - Expand Processing layout tools to add extra algorithms for working
> with layouts -- e.g. create layout from template, export report, etc
> - Easier dynamic text insertion into layouts for beginners -- e.g.
> drag and drop dynamic page number, file path, author labels to the
> layout
> - Ability to drag and drop atlas fields to the page to auto-create an
> appropriate layout item. E.g. a layout label showing the field value,
> or a picture item populated by the field (if the atlas layer's form
> setup is set to use a file reference widget)
>
> ** Reports **
> - Expression based filters for sections
> - Expression based custom sort order for field groups
> - Relation based sections (repeat section for all related features)
> - Support “aggregated” geometries for headers/footers in sections
> - Support for non-full page repeating sections
> - Support for "expanding" content (.e.g label items which grow to fit
> the available text, causing the section's size to vary
> feature-by-feature) (this one continues on from the previous point)
> - Reorder report sections via drag and drop
> - Add user-defined notes to sections describing the logic (not
> included in the outputs, only visible while designing the report)
> - Copy/paste groups and sections between different reports (or for
> duplicating within the same report)
>
>
> Feel free to add further ones :) At this stage it's just a wishlist,
> which would be culled down to a package of works at a later stage...
>
> Nyall
>
>
>> Before I would be able to create a QEP, I would need someone to explain
>> me the parts in Report that I maybe simply do not understand.
>>
>> So, count me in (at least a bit ;) )
>>
>> Bernd
>>
>>
>> On 15.09.20 08:30, Andreas Neumann wrote:
>>> Hi Bernd,
>>> The report functionality definitely needs some love. There is a great
>>> base now, but it needs to improve.
>>> Would you volunteer to collect missing things regarding reports in a QEP
>>> and then help organize a crowd-funding? Even if you can't fund this
>>> yourself, it would help a lot to come up with a sound proposal /
>>> specification, that some interested developer can submit a quote and we
>>> can look around for funders.
>>> There are quite a few successful examples in the past where someone who
>>> missed a functionality in QGIS but couln't finance it came up with a
>>> sound proposal and then we could find a developer and funders based on
>>> that initiative.
>>> Or you could organize this as a joint effort - e.g. through the german
>>> QGIS user group.
>>> Greetings,
>>> Andreas
>>> On 2020-09-14 23:09, Bernd Vogelgesang wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 14.09.20 22:30, Håvard Tveite wrote:
>>>>> Including photos / images in reports is covered by the documentation.
>>>>>
>>>>> See:
>>>>> https://docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/user_manual/print_composer/create_reports.html#including-pictures-in-a-report
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It worked for me.
>>>>> It should now also be possible to use images stored in a BLOB field.
>>>>>
>>>>> Håvard
>>>> Thanx for answering. Indeed there is something about adding photos, but
>>>> actually this version of the doc is somehow not showing up in google
>>>> searches:
>>>>
>>>> Furthermore, I did not have the problem of having to construct a path to
>>>> the image. The full path is already in the data (from the nice toolbox
>>>> function for geotagged images). The report just did't eat the path.
>>>> After dozend and dozends of attemps, QGIS somehow seemed to give up on
>>>> refusing them, and now miraculously is accepting the path.
>>>>
>>>> The problem, that all images where repeatedly showing in all section got
>>>> solved too. In the level up for the subplots, I had to use the field
>>>> unique for each subplot and not that for the plot, as I wrongly assumed.
>>>> Having it set wrongly didn't influence the correct print of the plots
>>>> and then their subplots, but had influence on the follwing photos. Pfuh,
>>>> the logic behind, how the report "knows "what to print in lower levels
>>>> is actually not really obvious, It seems to figure this out on its own.
>>>>
>>>> So, seems I get it working.
>>>>
>>>> Major flaws:
>>>> There is only the possibility to select an existing field for a layer in
>>>> report groups. So the data has to be prepared for each and every
>>>> possible usage beforehand. Having the possibilty to use expressions here
>>>> would be phantastic. So now, when you find out that you had not the
>>>> right variables for your job in the data, you have to stop working on
>>>> the report and fumble the stuff into the attributes. I worked around
>>>> this problem by setting up a nice model to prepare my data, but not
>>>> everyone has the knowledge to do so.
>>>>
>>>> Found no way to add sections within the "tree" or to move anything. Once
>>>> you laid out a design and forgot a title page or mid-sections, you seem
>>>> to have to restart from scratch. No way to manipulate it later.
>>>>
>>>> Found no way so far to add page numbers.
>>>>
>>>> All in all. Spent 2 days now on this 30 page report and I hope I will
>>>> remember next time how to glue things together.
>>>> This could be a really powerful tool for lazy people having to do boring
>>>> reports frequently. So far, no time was gained, and I had to use extra
>>>> doses of alcohol not to give up.;)
>>>> Hopefully developers will give it a little more love some day to make it
>>>> a bit smoother, then it will really rock!
>>>>
>>>> On 14.09.2020 18:20, Bernd Vogelgesang wrote: Hi there,
>>>>
>>>> I'm really eager to finally figure out how to create a photo
>>>> documentation with QGIS.
>>>>
>>>> Everything needed is prepared and in place. I have overview coverages of
>>>> plots with sub-plot over an aerial image. The maps are nicely produced
>>>> to a report as groups. On each overview, the belonging sub-plots follow
>>>> as individual maps.
>>>>
>>>> Now I would like to show pictures taken on the sub-plots.
>>>>
>>>> First issue: I add a new group photo-points and as field I select the
>>>> referencing field for the sub-plot. Edit body, add picture frame. When
>>>> setting the full file path for the images (stored as field "photo" in
>>>> the point file, generated with "Import geotagged photos") there is only
>>>> a red cross shown, and the selection in the dialog jumps from raster to
>>>> svg. On export as pdf, there is a warning "Picture source is missing or
>>>> corrupt".
>>>>
>>>> I redid this several times, to no avail, but once in a sudden, a preview
>>>> image was shown, though I did not change the slightest thing in the
>>>> settings. I swear!
>>>>
>>>> Second issue: Now that it finally accepted the path, exporting the
>>>> report now produced a page for each picture under each sub-plot, instead
>>>> of filtering those which actually fit there (and how it does with the
>>>> sub-plots within the plots!)
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone an idea what might be wrong here. Documentation on this
>>>> matter or examples are unfortunatly nonexistent.
>>>>
>>>> Linux Mint, 3.14.1
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Bernd
>>>>
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