General operations

After having opened a report in Page Report Studio, you can do the following general operations:

• Managing report tabs
  A page report can include one or more report tabs. The Go To drop-down list on the toolbar panel or the tabs across the top of the report lists the display names of all the open report tabs in the current report. Clicking the display name of an inactive report tab will make it active. You can manage report tabs in a page report easily as follows:
  • Opening and closing a report tab
    In a page report, a report tab can be shown or not. To close (hide) the active report tab, click Menu > File > Close Report Tab . If there are one or more report tabs open other than the active report tab, the close action will hide the active report tab; in the case that the active report tab is the only report tab open, the close action will prompt you whether or not to close the report.

    To open (show) a hidden report tab, click Menu > File > Open (or the Open button on the Standard toolbar) to display the Open Report Tabs dialog, in which the report tabs open in the current report are marked with a check symbol. Check the report tabs you want to open, uncheck the ones you want to close, and then click OK.

  • Renaming a report tab
    To rename a report tab, first activate it, then click Menu > File > Rename Report Tab. In the Rename Report Tab dialog, specify a new display name for the report tab.
  • Deleting a report tab
    To delete a report tab, first activate it, then click Menu > File > Delete Report Tab. The only report tab open cannot be deleted.

    Note: A JReport Live license for JReport Server is required in order to delete report tabs. If you do not have the license, contact your Jinfonet Software account manager to obtain it.

  Tip: If the administrator has specified to switch report tabs using tabs in the Page Report Studio profile page, you can easily activate a report tab in a report by clicking the tab representing the report tab on the report tab bar, and closing, renaming and deleting a report tab can also be accomplished by right-clicking the report tab and choosing the corresponding command from the shortcut menu.

• Turning the report pages
  If a report tab includes more than one page, to turn between the report pages, you can:
  • Click the First Page button , Previous Page button , Next Page button , or Last Page button on the View toolbar.
  • Input a number into the page box and press Enter to go to that page.
  • Click Menu > View > Turn To and then click the corresponding command on the submenu. When the Page command is selected, the Turn To page dialog appears for you to input the page number.
  • Use the scrollbar or mouse wheel to scroll up/down the report tab.
• Navigating through the report data
  You can use the TOC Browser to navigate through a report tab. To show the TOC Browser, click Menu > View > TOC Browser.

  In the TOC Browser, expand the Report node, select a component or a node with the group value that you want to browse to. The page that contains the component or the matching data will then be shown.

  The table of contents on the TOC Browser is organized into a tree structure. The root node represents the report tab that you are currently viewing. The component names indicate components in the report tab. The group values show hierarchical groups.

  For report tabs designed in JReport Designer, the nodes displayed on their TOC tree as well as the format of the TOC tree can be customized. For details, refer to Showing components in a TOC tree in the JReport Designer User's Guide.

• Refreshing the report result
  To fetch the data of the current report again, you can click Menu > View > Refresh.
• Applying a style
  A style can be applied to a report in order to change its appearance and characteristics. You can create and set up your own styles in JReport Designer. When you publish your reports to JReport Server, you can include these custom styles with the published reports. When you run a report, the style feature will be enabled and you can select a style to apply to the report.
  • Applying a style to a report
    To apply a style to a report, make sure nothing is selected in the report, then click Menu > Report > Style and select the required one from the submenu, or select the required style from the style drop-down list on the toolbar. When a style is applied to the whole report, all components in the report will take a uniform appearance.
  • Applying a style to a data component
    The data component (banded objects, crosstabs, charts, and tables) in a report can take a different style of its own. To apply a style to a data component, select it and then click Menu > Report > Style and select the required one from the submenu, or select the required style from the style drop-down list on the toolbar, or right-click the component and select Apply Style from the shortcut menu to select the required style in the Apply Style dialog. If the data component is contained in a banded object (for a chart, in a table also), you can also select the Inherit Style option to make it inherit the style of its parent data component.

  However, if there is only one style available to the report, this style will be applied to the report by default, in which case, you will find that all these style related commands are hidden.

• Changing the report parameter values
  If there are parameters in the current report, you can change the parameter values at runtime. To do this:
  1. Click Menu > Report > Change Parameters to display the Report Parameters dialog.
  2. Specify the value for each parameter.
  3. Click OK to run the report with the specified parameter values.

  You can also use parameter web controls to dynamically change the parameter values of a report at runtime. For details, see Applying web controls.

• Opening links
  When a page report is developed with links in JReport Designer, which refer to locations specified by URLs, e-mail addresses or other reports, you can click the links' trigger objects in Page Report Studio to open the links. However, if the click priority of the link action is not specified to be the highest at report design time, you have to right-click on the trigger objects and click the corresponding link item on the shortcut menu to open the links. For example, if a trigger object is linked with a detail report, you need to right-click the object and select Detail Report from the shortcut menu to open the detail report. Meanwhile, when opening the detail report, you may be prompted with the Encoding dialog, asking you to provide encoding and DB security information before the report result is produced. Click OK in the dialog if you want to run a detail report using the same encoding and DB security settings as that of the master report.

  Note: When opening a link report or detail report, a "link path", which tracks the linking actions, will be displayed in the Go To drop-down list on the navigation bar if the link report or detail report is opened in the current window. Clicking an item in the list will switch to the corresponding report.

• Printing the report result
  You can print the report result to a PDF or HTML file. To do this, click Menu > File > Printable Version (or the Printable Version button on the Standard toolbar). In the Printable Version dialog, specify the settings as required and click OK. The PDF or HTML result file is then opened in an associated program with which you can print the result to a printer.
• Configuring Page Report Studio features
  The JReport Administration page provides default settings for you to use Page Report Studio features, and controls whether the settings on the JReport Console page can be configured. A user playing the "administrator" role may change the settings in the JReport Administration page so as to enable or disable some features. Then you can configure Page Report Studio preferences on the JReport Console page, that is, you can decide whether or not to enable the features which have been enabled on the JReport Administration page. After you have made changes to Page Report Studio settings on the JReport Console page and saved them, Page Report Studio features available for you will be consistent with your new settings on the JReport Console page. For details, see Customize Profile.
• Setting Page Report Studio options
  Page Report Studio allows you to set the skin and customize toolbars. To do this:
  1. Click Menu > View > Options (or right-click anywhere on the toolbar area and select Options from the shortcut menu) to open the Options dialog.
  2. In the Option tab, set the skin of Page Report Studio user interface.
  3. In the Customize tab,
     • To modify a toolbar, select it in the Current Toolbar box, remove those unnecessary items from the Selected Tools box, and add required tools from the Available Tools box. Click or to adjust the order of the tools on the toolbar.
     • To add a toolbar, click to show the New Toolbar Name dialog, then specify the toolbar name, click OK to return to the Options dialog, and set the tools for the new toolbar.
     • To delete a toolbar, select it and click .
  4. To load the default settings, including the skin, and the three built-in toolbars, namely Standard, View, and Analysis, click the Restore Defaults button.
  5. Click OK to apply the settings.

  Tip: To close a toolbar, right-click anywhere on the toolbar area, then on the shortcut menu, select the item corresponding to the toolbar name. You can also do this to open an invisible toolbar, such as a newly-created one. The open/close toolbar operation can also be achieved by clicking the corresponding item on the Toolbar submenu of the View menu.

• Tuning report page magnification
  You can zoom in or out the report page by selecting a magnification from the Zoom list on the View toolbar. You can also click Menu > View > Zoom to show the Zoom dialog, and then specify the magnification.
• Setting up the page
  To set up the report page, click Menu > File > Page Setup. In the Page Properties dialog, specify the page type, the orientation, and the margins as required.
• Adding/Removing page breaks
  A new page will be generated in a report tab only when the space in a page has been fully occupied or there exists a break control in this page, for example, a page break that is inserted in the page.

  To insert a page break, click Menu > Insert > Page Break, then click the mouse button on the destination where you want the page break to be inserted.

  To remove a page break, right-click on the report body, then on the shortcut menu, click Remove Page Breaks and then the corresponding page break from the sub menu.

  Notes:

  • Page breaks can be inserted into the report body level.
  • Page breaks can be inserted into banded objects only when the following conditions have been met:
    • The parent of the banded object is the report body.
    • There isn't any existing page panel in the report body.
    • Its Position property of the banded object is set to static.
• Undoing/redoing actions
  You can undo or redo some actions by clicking Menu > Edit > Undo or Redo (or the Undo button or Redo button on the Standard toolbar).
• Showing/hiding user information
  The User Information bar shows the current user name, catalog path and name, and report path and name. You can click Menu > View > User Information Bar to show or hide the bar.

  Tip: Administrators can make this bar open by default. To do this, log onto the JReport Administration page, click Profile on the system toolbar and select Customize Profile from the drop-down menu. Go to the Page Report Studio > Properties > Default tab, and then check the User Information Bar option.

• Showing/hiding editing marks
  In Page Report Studio, you can use editing marks (dashed outlines of objects) for purposes such as aligning, moving and resizing. By default, the editing marks are shown only when you create a new blank report in Page Report Studio. You can click Menu > View > Editing Marks to switch the status of the editing marks as required.
• Asking for help
  At any time, you can click Menu > Help > User's Guide to open the index page of Page Report Studio User's Guide. Furthermore, you can click the Help button in any dialog to show the help about the dialog. You can also use the Help menu to open the User's Guide and access Jinfonet Software website for more information.
• Exiting the report
  If you want to close the current report and release the resources, just click Menu > File > Exit (or the Exit button which is always on the upper right corner of the Page Report Studio window, or the close button of the browser window). Closing the only report tab open will also prompt you whether or not to close the report. In case that you have modified the report without saving it, Page Report Studio will prompt you to save the report. If you have changed the sort and/or filter criteria, you can check Sort and/or Filter in this dialog to save these changes with the report. Click Yes to save the report and close the report.