MVReport

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Introduction

In 2011 Apple introduced iOS Printing API, a set of classes intended to simplify printing from iOS devices. Those classes will allow user to compose document for printing and send it to a printer. However, that didn't resolve a reporting problem completely. If user wants to print a document he can use those new classes, but if one wants to generate document and send it via mail, or share it on some other way he will need to abandon this approach and use c frameworks to generate PDF report. MVReport aims to solve this problem by introducing set of classes similar to Apple's printing classes but not only for printing. It uses the same paradigm, formatter and page renderer objects, and same methods where it make sense. But, It also extends functionality by adding some new objects that allow generation of repeatable content, and positioning of text sections relative to other sections.

I marked this release as 0.1 because it requires more testing for some edge cases, and there are some parts of code I'm not satisfied how it looks now. I can imagine fairly complex cases resolved with existing classes and methods, but I didn't tried enough of them to call release 1.0.

How To Get Started

Download MVReport and try out the included iPhone & iPad example app
Check out the documentation for a comprehensive look at all of the APIs available in MVReport

Installation

MVReport is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod "MVReport"

Usage

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the Example directory first.

Simple Page Elements

If you wish only to generate document with portion of text, or simple repeatable content you can use this approach. Create concrete instance of MVReport depending on report type you wish to generate (currently there is only MVPDFReport available), and initialize it with your MVReportPageInfo object. Create concrete instance of MVReportPageElement and initialize it with your plain text or HTML text. Attach MVReportPageElement instance to pageElement property of MVReport instance and generate report.

MVReport *report = [[MVPDFReport alloc] initWithPageInfo:myPageInfo];
MVReportPageElement *pageElement = [[MVReportSimpleTextFormatter alloc] initWithText:mySimpleText];
report.pageElement = pageElement;
NSData *data = [report generateReport];

Result is a PDF document that can be written to file, send via email, or send to printer...

Report Section

If you need to put repeatable content in report you may use MVReportSection class. You don't have to subclass MVReportSection if there is no need for section heder, footer or some custom drawing not related to repeatable content. You will need, however to create custom subclass of MVReportSectionElement, object that will draw one row in a section. You can think of it as a table row cell. In your subclass you will override method that returns content rect (height of the row in other words), and method that actually draws something:

@interface MyAcmeElement : MVReportSectionElement

@property (nonatomic, copy)NSString *text;

@end

@implementation MyAcmeElement

- (CGRect)rectForContentRect:(CGRect)contentRect
{
if (contentRect.size.height > 44)
{
contentRect.size.height = 44;
}

return contentRect;
}

- (void)drawInRect:(CGRect)rect forPageAtIndex:(NSInteger)pageIndex
{
CGRect myRect = CGRectInset(rect, 3, 3);
[self.text drawInRect:myRect withAttributes:textAttributes];
}

@end

Having MyAcmeElement class, its easy to compose report:

NSMutableArray *textElements = [NSMutableArray array];
for (NSString *text in myTextArray)
{
MyAcmeElement *element = [[MyAcmeElement alloc] init];
element.text = text;
[textElements addObject:element];
}

MVReportSection *section = [[MVReportSection alloc] init];
section.sectionElements = textElements;

MVReport *report = [[MVPDFReport alloc] initWithPageInfo:myPageInfo];
report.pageElement = section;

NSData *data = [report generateReport];

Page Renderer

TBD

Combining Page Elements in Page Renderer

TBD

Requirements

MVReport 0.1 and higher requires Xcode 5, targeting either iOS 7.0 and above. MVReport uses ARC.

Author

Daniel Moro, Moroverse - moroverse@gmail.com

License

MVReport is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.