Simplify Reports using CSS

Could the power of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) simplify reporting in NAV?

Reports have 2 elements, Data and Display. The display is the notoriously elusive, ever changing, and proprietary technology that literally drives developers nuts and costs customers lots of money. Developers have been using the same Data access tools for decades, virtually unchanged.

CSS is a style sheet language that can be used to describe the display of any data, i.e., xml, html. It is relatively simple (compared to say, NAV reporting in 2013).

This link is to a site I’ve known about for years. www.csszengarden.com In a nutshell, it’s a demonstration of how data can be presented in a limit-less array of formats using simple CSS. Somewhere in this concept (CSS as presentation layer), I can’t stop thinking, is an answer to all of our reporting conundrums.

To get a quick idea of what is going on on this site, be aware that the content is the same, you just click on a different design and the content is displayed based on the CSS in the design.

Take a look.

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