Alastair- Although it may not seem believable, but I have been muddling through this for 20 years too. I was confused at first by all the white space in the reports and finally concluded the 'powers that be' will fix it eventually. It's known that the problem is with the breakpoints, and I think possibly with the display format mask -- when I set this, it added more white space. May I please ask if you have found a workaround for the report whitespace problem, and if so, would you be kind enough to enlighten me. My customers are receiving their reports with lots of sheets of paper!
Deb Roepken cmri 631-587-1495 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Alastair Burr Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2005 4:38 AM To: RBG7-L Mailing List Subject: [RBG7-L] - Re: Page Breaks - Printing Sami, MikeB, Buddy - many thanks for all the suggestions. Let me try and explain the problems as best I can without taking up too much time: In v6.5++ these reports produce(d) a number of text files that selected data from a view depending on a where clause. One report in particular produces 36 output files based on the first letter of an artist's name; so: A-Z & 0-9. They are plain text but the output filename has an HTM extension so that a browser will read them. All the HTML tags are embedded in the report construction and a style sheet formats the display. There are report breaks that not only sort the data but also pull in look-ups from other tables. In v6.5++ they work perfectly - at least, I've never found an error either in the presentation or the data since finishing setting them up around 2 years ago. On the basis that it was said that conversion to v7 of forms and reports would all be done in the upgrade there seemed no reason to change anything that was working. A lot of work had already gone into these reports and if it wasn't broken I didn't want to mend them. Obviously where I could improve them then that was something to do in the future. After 15 months using and converting to v7.x these reports work but not perfectly. The main problems are that the amount of "white space" that seems to appear between the various breakpoints and/or page breaks; the layout can suddenly change in the browser for no obvious reason; and some of the text sometimes gets repeated. Because they're intermittant problems I can't report them. The "white space" was/is a problem in v6.5++ as well but in v7.x it seems to be inconsistent. The only problem that it causes is the file size is much larger than it need be so the browser takes longer to load it. The other two problems seem to be related to the layout of the report - maybe the breakpoints, maybe the page set-up, maybe the printer set-up - but something of that sort appears to be doing something odd. But remember that they still work perfectly in v6.5++ so I can't see how it can be the data and I can't see anything wrong with the data. As I - and others - have said over the last year or so there is very little help available to explain why certain features might be useful and how to use them in conjunction with other features. There is very good help identifying what settings may be used for all these features but nothing to explain why you might want to set any particular value. (Obviously some are obvious but many are not.) This is particualrly true with reports. I think that it is also true with forms but, for me, trial and error along with the unending help from the list has eventually taught me how to solve the use of all the form controls that I've needed. Unfortunately, I'm not having that much luck with reports. I see, as Mike suggested, the options for other types of output but I have no idea either why I would need to use any one of them in preference to what I am already using and no idea how to use them. I have thought about using a select statement to extract the data but I'll happily admit to not being capable of constructing it. But then why should I? That's what the reports are for! For someone that has used R:Base for around 20 years and been delighted by it until up to a year ago it is so frustrating to find v7 has so much potential that is hidden behind inpenetrable features and an almost total lack of explanation. With all the help being in electronic format it's not even a problem of having to physically print manuals. I don't understand why, when a change is made, the documentation is not updated at the same time. It must be harder to have to go back and do it later and the users/customers are likely to remain in the dark until it has been done. Way back in September/October 2003 I never dreampt that I would still be converting to v7 fifteen months later. Changing and improving - yes, of course - that's the fun part. Unfortunately, this conversion has just been a long, hard slog. Regards, Alastair.
