Technologies
visionCATS’s report templating is based on standard Web technologies. The final report document is a PDF file, but it is first created as an HTML file.
HTML
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) defines the content and basic structure of a template. For reference, please see W3Schools HTML.
CSS
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) defines the presentation of a template. For reference, please see W3Schools CSS.
Colors
A list of color names is available on W3Schools HTML Color Names and also a color picker on W3Schools HTML Color Picker.
SCSS
SCSS (Sassy CSS) is a flavor of CSS using Sass preprocessor language to add features like variable. For reference, please see sass-lang.com.
JavaScript
JavaScript is the programming language of the templates. For reference, please see W3Schools JavaScript.
Since visionCATS 3.1, the version of the language is now ES6 (ECMAScript 2015).
visionCATS’s report templates use several JavaScript libraries to make the templating possible.
Note
All the needed libraries are preinstalled with visionCATS.
Handlebars
Handlebars is a templating language, written in JavaScript, to be used in the HTML files. For reference, please see handlebarsjs.com.
linq.js
linq.js (LINQ for JavaScript) is a JavaScript version of LINQ (Language-Integrated Query). It permits to easily query data for advanced templating. For reference, please see linq.js Reference.
D3.js
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. For reference, please see d3js.org.
Flot (legacy)
Replaced in new templates by D3.js.
Flot is a pure JavaScript plotting library. For reference, please see flotcharts.org.
Other JavaScript libraries
Some other libraries are used, but most user created template would not use them directly.
JQuery
Moment.js
Numeral.js
EO.Pdf
EO.Pdf is a .NET class library for rendering HTML to PDF. It use an embedded Chromium web browser (the base of Google Chrome web browser). Chromium is embedded in one or more process of eowp.exe.
Important
An error in the template could block the rendering to PDF. After 1 minutes, the rendering process will be stopped, and then you should look at the EO.Pdf log and try the report inside a web browser, to determine the error.
Warning
Some antivirus may block eowp.exe. Please add eowp.exe to your white list if it is happening.
The Chromium used by EO.Pdf is a recent one, and therefore most modern HTML features should be usable. The actual Chromium version is displayed in About visionCATS (and in report data, by the field ChromiumVersion of SoftwareData).