Hello again everyone! I'm back from Microsoft and ready to get back in to full-time Reports module work. I wanted to post a quick blog to let everyone know I've returned and to fill you in on my plans for the next version.
The next version will be Reports Module version 5.0 and will include a few new features, most notable the new Data Sources Framework. Similar to the Visualizer Framework, this system will allow for the development of pluggable Data Sources from which data can be retrieved and passed off to a Visualizer. Effectively this makes the Reports module a simple hosting framework that connects a Data Source to a Visualizer.
Other planned enhancements include:
* HTML Visualizer Token Modifiers - Allows the user to add modifiers (such as HTMLDecode) to HTML Visualizer tokens (i.e. [Biography:HTMLDecode]) to affect the output of the column.
* XSLT Extension Objects - Allows the user to inject .Net-based XSLT Extension Objects for the XSLT Visualizer.
* Other minor tweaks including updates to the Reporting Services Visualizer
* Support of the Universal Installer for installing Visualizers and Data Sources. This means that the Reports Module version 5.0 will have a dependency on 4.6. However, I will investigate the possibility of providing a version that works on previous DNN versions but does not include the extra installer features.
I hope to have this version done in the next month or so, so keep reading the blogs for more info.
Finally, I'm looking for volunteers to work on more Data Sources and Visualizers so if you have an idea or if you want to help build a Data Source or Visualizer, please post in the Reports Module forums or email me at 'andrew DOT nurse AT dotnetnuke DOT com'