This is kind of like a philosophical question more than technical. When I was less experienced I created a layout attached to one of the tables in my database for the purpose of excuting scripts that produce reports from other tables in the database. Over the years it has become massive with a lot of buttons for various reports and different output formats.

Since those days I've learned to create function scripts so that the user can specify the output type upfront. That has reduced the number of button but the number of reports required continues to grow.

The question is: Is it still a practical navigational Interface technique for producing all these reports or should I create room on the various "data entry" views I created for all the tables in my database? I'm also wondering if having all these scripts excuting from this one layout creating any problems that I either have not become aware of or unconciously worked around, (not knowing that I've had a Problem)?

Thanks for your thoughts.

As always, it depends.

Reports interfaces are useful when some users need to only have access to generating statistics, but not necessarily be able to see the raw data itself.