Why can't we print collection data properly?

When you say print, are you referring to console.log for custom symbols? What are you talking about?

Print as in a printer...

No, because that functionality is external to PI Vision. Printing from a web browser will only ever show what is currently displayed (this is derived from the browser, not the software). If you want it to be different, you have two options.

1. Change your display to fit your printing needs.
2. Build a custom extension that builds the HTML in the print-friendly format you want.

The point of a collection is that it can expand or shrink. Some of our collections are very large and it still wont print correctly, it becomes very small on a single page. I would like to see AVEVA have it expand and shrink accordingly. When a user creates a visual using a collective and can't print it, I think that’s not great. Regarding your second option which is custom, if you have some resources, I would be interested, but again, feel like the solution should be incorporated within the visual tool that we should be able to use to view data.

Collections, like other symbols, use coordinates and fixed widths (which are derived from how you choose how big (x,y) to make a symbol appear on the page). Doing dynamic sizing based on resolution becomes a complicated endeavor. You can request that feature though if you want, but given the ask, I wouldn't hold much hope for that particular feature. The majority of use-cases with Vision are where users define the display in the intended format and leave it as is, and scroll through their collections as needed.

As for a custom tool pane extension, I can't remember which company, but I know there is one that already has a printing function. Whether or not it would do what you want with collections, I couldn't answer, but I wouldn't expect that it solves your problem because again, it's an HTML issue, not a Vision issue.

Thanks, I understand how a collection works and your correct, there are othe company's we've been looking at to try to solve this issue, I think it's too bad we have to look elseware just to get something to print correctly.