### 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, click anywhere in the column, then click the button that appears on the column header to select the column. Point to the left or 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, click anywhere in the row, then click the button that appears at the leftmost on the row to select the row. Point to the upper or 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.

To hide a row or a column in a table, click anywhere in the row or column and you can see the buttons and appear at the leftmost on the row and on the column header. Click the corresponding button to select the row or column, then right-click and select Hide from the shortcut menu.

To show the hidden components, click Menu > Edit > Unhide Components and then select the desired components to show from the drop-down list.

You can also set the Invisible property in the Inspector panel to show or hide a component. To do this, select the node that represents the component in the report structure tree in the Inspector panel, then set its Invisible property as required. You can create an expression with the Formula Editor to control the property value by clicking in the value cell and selecting <Edit Expression> in the drop-down list. If the parent of the component has no data source, you can use a formula to control whether or not to show the component.

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. 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. Do either of the following:
   - Using dialog
     1. Click the Show Objects button on the toolbar to display the Show Objects dialog.
     2. 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.
     3. Click OK to confirm the settings.
   - Using the Inspector panel
     1. Select the node that represents the component in the report structure tree in the Inspector panel.
     2. Click in the value cell of the Invisible property, then select the required formula from the drop-down list, or click <Create Formula> in the drop-down list and create a dynamic formula in the bound data source to control the property value.
     3. Repeat the above steps to specify the Invisible property of other components.

   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 the object properties with either the corresponding properties dialog or the Inspector panel.

Modifying component properties using the 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 group header/footer, table detail, or table header/footer, you need to first click anywhere in the corresponding row, then click the button that appears to select the row, right-click on the row and select Properties from the shortcut menu.

If you want to format the properties of the report, click Menu > Edit > Report Body Properties, then in the Report Body Properties dialog, configure the properties as required.

Modifying component properties in the Inspector panel

Properties of the objects in a web report are shown in the Inspector panel when Web Report Studio is in the edit mode (to display the Inspector panel, click View > Inspector on the menu bar). The Inspector panel lists all the properties of the object selected in the report structure tree. Each type of object has its own set of properties. Depending on the object type, the properties that a certain object holds may greatly differ from those of another. To edit the properties of an object, select the object in the report structure tree to make all properties of the selected object list in the Properties sheet. The Properties sheet has two columns: Name and Value. You can change how an object appears and behaves by changing its property values in the Value column. For details about properties of each object, see Web Report Object Property Reference.

#### Changing the position of components

Report templates in JReport use a flow layout model. That is, paragraphs and components in the report body can flow from one page to another, maintaining their sequence, and the Position property controls whether a component is to be part of the flow, or separate from it. Besides the report body and tabular cells themselves in JReport can also act as flow layout containers.

In a flow layout model, objects are positioned relative to one another or absolutely. The Position property controls the position of components in the flow layout container, which can be the report body or a tabular cell. Components placed in other areas such as table cells, are not affected by the Position property.

The Position property can be one of the following values:

- Static
  The component will be positioned at the location in which it is inserted. The X and Y coordinate properties are disabled. The position of the component cannot be moved other than by having its insertion point moved. This can happen when the text flow preceding the insertion point expands.
- Absolute
  The component will be located at the position specified by dragging and dropping or by setting its X and Y coordinate property values. The component insertion point does not change, for instance it is not affected by having text inserted before it.

To change the position of a component:

- Click on the component, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, right-click on the icon and on the shortcut menu, select the required item from the Position submenu.
- In the Inspector panel, select the node which represents the component, then set its Position property value 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 and select Delete from the shortcut menu, or click on the component, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, right-click on the icon and on the shortcut menu click Delete. If a message prompts asking for your confirmation, click Yes to confirm the removal.

To delete a table column, click anywhere in the column, then click the button that appears on the column header to select the column. Right-click on the column and select Delete from the shortcut menu. In the Confirm dialog, click Yes to confirm the removal.

Note: In a web report, there must be one and only one tabular, so you cannot either insert another tabular or delete the current tabular.