Making simple modifications to report objects

By virtue of JReport Web's powerful ad hoc functions, you can make simple modifications to report objects at runtime while viewing the report in DHTML.

Moving a component and DBFields/labels in it

A component (table, tabular, banded object, chart or crosstab), can be easily moved to a new position. What you need to do is clicking anywhere in the component, then dragging the icon appearing at its upper left corner to the destination. After JReport Web has finished processing, the component will be redrawn in the new location.

Also, the DBFields and labels in a component can be moved. You can use the following two ways to move:

Drag the DBField or label to the position you want.
To move the DBField or label to an exact position, right-click the DBField or label you want to move, on the shortcut menu, select Property and then in the General tab of the corresponding properties dialog, modify the values of X and Y options.

Notes:

Before you can move any object in a report, you need to first make sure that the JReport Web window is in the Interactive View mode.
For reports designed in JReport Designer, only the components whose Position property value is absolute, and the DBFields or labels which have been defined as a cube element can be moved in JReport Web.

Resizing a component and its elements

To resize a component, click anywhere in the component, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, click the icon to select the component, then you will see that it is surrounded by a rectangle with three 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 resize a panel in a banded object, select it and drag the resizing handle to the desired position.

To adjust the width/height of a column/row in a table, point to the right/lower boundary of the column/row, when the mouse pointer becomes a horizontal/vertical double-headed arrow, drag the handle and the width/height of the column/row will change. This will also resize all cells in the column or row.

For a crosstab, you can resize its rows and columns the same as you do with a table.

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.

To change the width and height of a field, click any value of this field to select it, then drag the right or lower resizing handle on its borders to a new position, and the width or height of the field will change. You can also do this for any label.

Notes:

When resizing table rows:
- If you resize the table header, only the height of the header will be changed. However, when you resize any row except the header, the height of all rows in the table will be changed at the same time.
- If there are some groups in a table and the height of one group row is changed, the other group rows will not be resized.
When resizing crosstab columns/rows:
- If you resize the horizontal/vertical header of a crosstab, other rows/columns will not be affected.
- If you resize the total column/row of a crosstab, other columns/rows will not be affected, vice verse.

Hiding/showing an object

To hide a component, click on the component, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, right-click on the icon and then select Hide from the shortcut menu.

To show a hidden component, right-click the object containing the component, then on the shortcut menu, select the component name from the Show submenu.

For objects such as text boxes, lists, drop-down lists, fields, and labels, you can also right-click it and then select Hide to hide it, and show it in the same way as for showing a component. Banded panels can also be hidden in this way.

Modifying object properties

JReport Web allows you to modify object properties with the corresponding properties dialog.

To format the properties of any object in a report, including label, data field, special field, image, multi-value container (list and drop-down list), text box, banded panel, table cell and tabular cell, right-click the object and then select Properties from the shortcut menu. In the corresponding properties dialog, specify the settings as required.
For a table cell, you can also right-click any field value (or label) in this cell, and then select Table Cell to show the Table Cell Properties dialog; with regard to a table row, you can right-click any field value (or label) or cell in the row, and then select Table Row to show the Table Row Properties dialog.

Tip: If you just want to modify the text related properties for a field or label, for example, you want to change the text alignment or make the text bold, you can achieve it by simply selecting the field or label, then clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar.
To modify the properties of a component (banded object, table, crosstab, and tabular), click on the component, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, right-click on the icon and select Properties from the shortcut menu to show the corresponding properties dialog. For a table, you can also right-click any field or cell in it and then select Table from the shortcut menu to show the Table Properties dialog.
For a chart, you can right-click the icon or any part of the chart except for the legend and label and select Format Platform or Format Paper to modify the chart platform or paper properties, and you can also right-click the legend of the chart and select Format Legend from the shortcut menu to set its legend properties. For any label in a chart, you can right-click it and select Format Label to edit its properties.
You can right-click a group header/footer panel in a banded object, and then select Group to show the Group Properties dialog in order to define the group properties.
If you want to format the properties of the report, right-click the blank part of the report, select the Report item from the shortcut menu, then in the Report Properties dialog, configure the properties as required.
To set up report page properties, click Menu > File > Page Setup, then in the Page Properties dialog, specify the settings according to your requirements.

For detailed explanation about options in the properties dialogs, refer to the specific topics in JReport Web dialogs.

Deleting an object

An object can be removed from the report if it is no longer required. However, objects that are in a subreport cannot be deleted.

To delete a table, tabular, banded object, chart, or crosstab, click on the component, when the icon appears at its upper left corner, right-click on the icon and select Delete from the shortcut menu, or you can drag the icon outside the report page. Then, a message box will prompt, asking for your confirmation. Click OK in the message box so as to remove the component.
For a field, you can drag any value of the field outside the report page to remove it. You can also drag any label outside the report page to remove it. Right-clicking and then selecting Delete is another way to achieve this.