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(This from a [http://www.nabble.com/Report-Interface-to13012651.html#a13012651 gramps-dev discussion])
Users usually either have an idea of a particular kind of report that they would like to run (something to show their ancestors), or they are browsing to see what reports are available. However, the first set of categories that the user encounters are: Code Generators, Graphical, Text, View, and Web, Unsupported, and now Graphviz (maybe that is just a temp category?). These are a mixture of what is in the report (graphics vs. text) OR where it is going (web vs. View) OR what is used for (code gen) OR its supported status.
Those categories don't make any sense to a new user, and even after using GRAMPS for a while, I have to stop and think. But even beyond that, these categories are largely arbitrary and irrelevant. If a text-based report includes pictures, does that then make it graphical? The Ahentafel report can go to the web, but it isn't in the webpage category, it is in Text.
After a user selects a report to generate, the very first questions are: Filename, open in, and output format. Some reports can be saved as PDF, others as images, LaTeX, RTF, and others. What determines the output options? It isn't clear why all output options aren't available for all reports.
Some general suggestions:
# Create categories that are more meaningful to the user, not the programmer.
# After the report is displayed, all reports should then have 3 options, "OptionsPreview", "Print", and "Export"---and you can do each multiple times.
# Make it so that you can print all reports, even those that originally just went to the screen.
# Make the export options the same (or mostly the same) for all reports.
The goal of this part of the plan is to make the flow a bit more smooth in printing, previewing, and creating various kinds of output.
The current dialog look like this:
[[Image:Oldreport.png]]
The first step might be to make a clean separation from getting the core elements of information, to what you are going to do with it. The following is a mock-up of what the first dialog might be for selecting a report.