Looking for Plug-in to Generate PDFs

[Steve à Montréal]

I'm looking for a plug-in that would allow an IWP-user to print a "real" report.

Here's the workflow I'm looking for...

1. User finds desired record (e.g., an invoice)

2. User clicks a "Generate PDF" button that triggers a script.

3. The script generates a PDF of a report layout (not an IWP screen layout) and stores it in a container field.

4. Voilà the user can now view, open and print a "real" report even though they're using IWP.

Can anyone out there help turn my fantasy into reality?

[Demnos]

Any movement on this (in the 4 years since posting this question)?  I'm looking for a similar solution.

[lance123]

Hi Demnos, This can be done, it is not elegant but it does work.  You need a robot machine.

 

1/ User clicks create pdf on IWP page, field is set to attract robot

2/ Web script is thrown into LONG loop with a loop field that is set to 'running' (This stalls the loading of the page while pdf is created)

3/ Robot creates pdf and loads to container then sets loop field to 'done'

4/ Web script detects loop field ='done' and completes execution

 

This is of course a bit simplified, but it does work quite well.  You can then see the pdf in the container and load it in a web page or download it etc.  Load on server does not seem to be a problem with the long loop.  (No more than normal load of script execution.)

 

The main issues I found was that IWP hangs at odd times which can be a problem.  It may be better now with later version.  (I was using FMSA 8)

 

Hope that helps.

 

Regards,

Lance