Rich Shepard wrote: > On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, Paul McNett wrote: > >> Ask away. What do you need from the Report Designer that you aren't >> figuring out how to do? > > In your screencast demos you have a window on the left that seems to have > tables and fields listed so you can select which one you want to edit. How > does one start a new report definition in a project directory that does not > already contain a filled .rfxml?
You are referring to one of two things with the "window on the left". Besides the main designer surface, there's the "properties" window and the "object tree" window. You can show/hide these from the view menu. But when you say "tables and fields" I think you may be referring to the test cursor. Having a test cursor with the same field names as your actual data is helpful when designing your report, because you can preview it live, and be able to right-click on a band and choose the field name instead of having to add a string field and then type the expression yourself. The easiest way currently to get a starting rfxml with a test cursor filled in is to create an app wizard application against the data you want to report on. Then run the app, go to "Quick Report", click "Advanced", and then run the report. Now take a look in your app's reports directory - you'll see a new rfxml there. Edit that in the Report Designer (so you can see the visual layout) and remove all the visual elements. Now take a look at the XML, which will only contain the test cursor. Save the rfxml and make a copy of it so you have something to fall back to as you play around. >> Also, since you are looking at invoice.rfxml, you could open that in the >> report designer which may open some doors for you. > > I did this. However, it did not help me figure out how to place a title, > for example. Do I need to explicitly make room for it between the top two > bands (or above the topmost)? The screencasts work with an existing report > definition rather than starting from scratch. I'm scratching. Place your title in the pageHeader band. Drag the pageHeader band down until enough space is exposed to fit your title, and then right-click in that blank space, choose "New Object", choose "String". You should now see a rectangle in your header band with "None" showing. Now, select the string object by clicking on it, and go over to the properties sheet and edit the expr. Make it say "My Cool Report Title" and you need to include the quotes because it gets eval()'d at report time. Then experiment with placing and sizing the title, using the mouse, editing the values in the propsheet, and/or editing the values in the xml directly. -- pkm ~ http://paulmcnett.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/dabo-users
