Mike 3.15.2011

  • Created entities and remote services for storing and retrieving Reports, TextSections of reports, and user Comments.
  • Tested the services from within java and made the sure column/table mappings worked correctly.
  • Currently a report consists of an owner, an xml configuration, and a collection of TextSection references
    • The xml configuration defines the layout of the report and section headers and also contains references to its parts
    • The TextSections define blocks of text in the report, they are stored as strings but can be HTML, TFL, or whatever format we decide to go with
    • I’ve decided the most flexible way to incorporate Comments in the report is the way Microsoft Word does it: create a custom tag within the text that references the Comment object.  That way users can comment on a word, a sentence, and entire paragraph, whatever.  And since comments are stored a separate objects in the database, they can be also used to reference other objects such as tables or charts.  Comments do not currently have references to what they are about so that may be an issue.