Making simple modifications to components

This section introduces the general actions that you can perform on the report components.

Resizing a component and its elements

To resize a component, click anywhere in the component, then you will see it is surrounded by a rectangle with resizing handles. Point to a handle, when the mouse pointer turns to a double-headed arrow, you can drag the handle to resize the component.

To adjust the width of a column in a table, point to the right boundary of the column, when the mouse pointer becomes a double-headed arrow, drag the handle to resize the column.

To adjust the row height in a table, point to the lower boundary of a row, when the mouse pointer becomes a double-headed arrow, drag the handle to resize the row height. Then all the other rows of the same role will be resized too. For example, if a detail row is resized, all rows in the detail area will be resized. If a group row is resized, all rows of the group will be resized, while the other groups' rows keep unchanged.

To resize the column or row in a crosstab, drag the right or lower boundary. Then all the columns or rows of the same role will change too.

For a tabular, point to the boundary between two cells and the mouse pointer will become a double-headed arrow, you can then drag the boundary to adjust the size of the related cells.

Hiding/showing a component

To hide a component, right-click on the component, then click Hide on the shortcut menu.

For a row, a column, or a header/footer in a table, there are two ways to access the Hide option:

• Right-click any cell within the object, go to the submenu of Table Row or Table Column, then select Hide.
• First select the object by right-clicking any cell within the object and selecting Select on the submenu of Table Row or Table Column, then right-click the object and select Hide.

To show the hidden components, click Menu > Edit > Unhide Components and then select the desired components to show from the drop-down list. Another way to show the component after hiding is Undo.

For any component whose parent doesn't have a data source, for example, a label in the tabular cell of a web report, you can also use the Show Objects dialog to show or hide them. To do this:

1. Click the Show Objects button on the toolbar. The Show Objects dialog appears. See the dialog.

   

2. Select true or false from the Invisible drop-down list to show or hide the corresponding component. You can also use a formula to control whether or not to to show the component.
3. When done, click OK to accept the settings.

Using formulas to control showing or hiding components

You can use formulas to control whether the components whose parents have no data source will be shown or not in a web report. However, before doing this, you need to first bind a data source to the web report, then create dynamic formulas of Boolean type based on this data source and use these formulas to control the Invisible property of the required components in the Show Objects dialog. A return value of true will hide the component.

To use formulas to control which components to show in a web report, follow the steps below:

1. Click Menu > Edit > Bind Data. The Bind Data dialog appears. See the dialog.

   

2. Select a business view in the current catalog.
3. Click OK to bind the business view to the web report.
4. Click any blank place in the report. The business view bound to the report will be displayed in the Resources panel.
5. Follow the steps in Creating and using dynamic formulas to create the formulas you need.
6. Click the Show Objects button on the toolbar to display the Show Objects dialog.
7. Click beside the Invisible property of the component which you want to control by formula and select the required formula from the drop-down list. Repeat this to select formulas for other components.
8. Click OK to confirm the settings. Then whether the components will be shown or not will then be determined by the return value of the specified formulas.

If you set the Invisible property of a component to true using a formula, the object will not be listed in the Menu > Edit > Unhide Components drop-down list. You can show it only by using the Show Objects dialog. Meanwhile, once the Invisible property of a component in a web report is controlled by a formula, the data source bound to the web report cannot be changed unless you remove the relationship between the formula and the property.

For a web report created in JReport Designer, if it has been bound with a data source before being published to JReport Server, and some dynamic formulas have been created based on this data source:

• If any of the formulas is used by the web report in JReport Designer, you cannot change the bound data source for the web report in Web Report Studio. However, you can use the formulas of Boolean type created in JReport Designer or create new formulas based on this data source to control the Invisible property in the Show Objects dialog.
• If none of the formulas is used by the web report in JReport Designer, you can change the bound data source for the web report in Web Report Studio as you want.

Editing a component

• To edit a label, click in the text and update the content. You can also use the Quick Formats toolbar to format the font, background color and alignment of a label.
• To edit a table, crosstab, or chart, use the corresponding report wizard on the shortcut menu. For details, see Manipulating data components.
• To edit an image:
  1. Click on the image, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, right-click on the icon and click Edit on the shortcut menu. The Edit Image dialog appears. See the dialog.

     

  2. Specify another image to use.
     • To use an image in the local file system, select Local File, then click Browse to find the image.
     • To use an image on a website, select Web URL, then input the image URL or paste the URL in the Image URL text field.
     • To use an image in the image library of the Web Report Studio, select Library, then select the image in the My Images box.
  3. Click OK to finish editing the image.
• To edit a multimedia object:
  1. Click on the multimedia object, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, right-click on the icon and click Edit on the shortcut menu. The Edit Multimedia dialog appears. See the dialog.

     

  2. Choose from the three multimedia object types: Flash, Real Media file, or Windows Media File.
  3. In the File Name/URL text field, specify the full path of the multimedia object you want to insert or use the Browse button to find it if it is on your local disk. Or you can provide a URL for loading it from a website.
  4. The Plug-in page text field provides a default URL from which to download the player to play the inserted multimedia object on a web page.
  5. In the Properties box, specify the properties for the multimedia object as required.
  6. Click OK to finish editing the multimedia object.
• For a tabular, you can edit it as follows:
  • Merging tabular cells
    Adjacent cells in a tabular which form a rectangle can be merged into one cell.

    To merge adjacent cells, select them one by one while holding the Ctrl key, then click Menu > Format > Merge or click on the toolbar, and these cells will be merged into one cell.

  • Splitting a tabular cell
    To split a tabular cell, select the cell and click Menu > Format > Split, then in the Split Cell dialog, specify the number of rows and columns and click OK. You can also click on the toolbar to split the cell vertically or horizontally.

Modifying component properties

You can modify object properties with the corresponding properties dialog.

• To edit the properties of an object in a report, right-click the object and select Properties from the shortcut menu. In the corresponding properties dialog, specify the settings as required. For detailed explanation about options in the properties dialogs, refer to the specific topics in Web Report Studio dialogs.

  For a table cell, the Properties option is available on the submenu of Table Cell after you right-click the cell.

  For a row or a header/footer in a table, there are two ways to access the Properties option:

  • Right-click any cell within the object, go to the submenu of Table Row and click Properties.
  • Right-click any cell within the object, go to the submenu of Table Row and click Select to select the object, then right-click the object and click Properties.
• If you want to format the properties of the report, click Menu > Edit > Report Body, then in the Report Body Properties dialog, configure the properties as required.

Deleting a component

A component can be removed from the report if it is no longer required. To delete a component, right-click on the component, then use Delete on the shortcut menu. Then, a message will prompt, asking for your confirmation. Click Yes in the message box so as to remove the component.

To delete a table column, take one of the following:

• Right-click any cell within the column, go to the submenu of Table Column, then select Delete.
• First select the column by right-clicking any cell within the column and selecting Select on the submenu of Table Column, then do either of the following:
  • Drag the column to the Resources panel.
  • Right-click the column and select Delete.