Types of Elements

All the report elements that are placed in the report layout has a popup menu. The popup menu contains the menu items Properties, Group, UnGroup, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete and Ordering.

When the Properties menu item is selected for an element the corresponding Properties window appears where the values can be set.

The Group and UnGroup menu items are initially deactivated. When more than one element is chosen using the Selection element these menu items are activated. The Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete are used to perform the edit operations. The Ordering menu item has the Bring Forward, Send Backward, Bring To Front and Send to Back sub menus.

If for example say there are three elements overlapped one above the other. Select the top most element. On selecting Ordering -> Send To Back option from the popup menu of the element the topmost element appears behind the other two elements. Instead, if the Send Backward option is selected then the element is sent one step behind i.e. it appears in between the other two elements.

Select the Bottommost element. On selecting Ordering -> Bring to Front option from the popup menu of the element the bottommost element appears in front of the other two elements. Instead if the Bring Forward option is selected then the element is brought one step in front i.e. it appears in between the other two elements.

When the values are being edited in the Properties column then the Names of the Properties in the Name column turns to bold indicating that the values of that particular property is being edited.

If a value say for instance value1 has been assigned for a particular property of an element and then we edit the value to value2. When you want to revert back to the original value1 select "Revert to Style" from the popup menu of the respective element. Now the value1 is assigned again and the property's font changes from Bold back to Normal.

If for instance you set the background colour of an element say as green colour. Now, add a style in the report tab and specify a different background colour(blue). Then when you assign this style in the property table of the element the background colour still remains as green. So if you want include the colour specified in the style click in the row corresponding to the background colour in the property table and select revert to style from the popup menu. Now the background colour of the element will be changed to blue.

All the Graphical elements have the Properties Wizard in which the values can be entered. The non-graphical elements such as Horizontal Box, Vertical Box, Selection and the Page Break does not have the Properties Wizard.

Manipulating Report Elements

Elixir Report Designer allows you to select, resize and move report elements such as labels, Data Fields, etc.

Selecting Report Elements

In Elixir Report Designer you can select a single element or multiple report elements at a time.

Selecting an individual report element

  1. Click the report element. Green handles will appear on the selected report element.

  2. To unselect the report element, click anywhere outside the report element.

If the desired element is a child of another element, for example it is within an hbox, vbox, table or group, then a click will select the parent element. Use control-click to select an element within the currently selected parent. You can see from the shape tree on the right hand side of the designer which element in the tree is currently selected. HBox and VBox elements contain cells, which are not themselves editable. The box contents are within the cells. You will notice that a cell shows grey handles to indicate it cannot be resized.

Selecting multiple report elements

This selection method is used to select multiple report elements in the same section of the report.

Marquee selection

  1. Position the cursor near the first report element you are going to select.

  2. While holding down the left mouse button, drag it to include all the report elements that you wish to select. When the mouse is dragged a box with blue coloured dotted lines will appear using which you can surround the elements.

  3. Release the mouse button and all the report elements will be selected.

Shift Selection

  1. Select one report element.

  2. While holding down the shift key select the other report element.

To unselect the elements click outside the selection(s).

Moving Report Elements

Moving report elements within its own section

Report elements can be moved by dragging them with the mouse which is fine for rough positioning, or when snapping to the ruler or edge. Alternatively, you can use the cursor keys for finer-grain control after selecting the elements or you can use a combination of command keys+cursor keys for smaller increments. Finally, you could also enter the Left and Top values in the position node of the property table which is the most accurate but time consuming.

Moving report elements between different bands of the report

  1. Select the report element(s) and Cut them using the popup menu or the accelerator key Control-X.

  2. Click in the target area (the left hand ruler will highlight to show it is current) and then Paste, using either the popup menu or the accelerator key Control-V.

Copying Report Elements

  1. Select the report element(s) and Copy them using the popup menu or the accelerator key Control-C.

  2. If you are copying the report elements to a different band then click in the target area. The left hand ruler will highlight to show it is current.

  3. Paste, using either the popup menu or the accelerator key Control-V.

Resizing Report elements

Select the report element(s). Move the cursor towards the green handles. The cursor becomes the resize cursor. Now, drag on the resize cursor to increase or decrease the size. Alternatively select the report element(s) and in the properties table change the Width and Height properties.

Selection

The various types of report elements and their individual properties are given below:

The Selection element is used to select the elements placed in the report layout. This is useful when we want to perform a common operation on all the controls. If a number of elements have to edited, aligned, resized, grouped or ungrouped then all the elements have to be selected at a time using the Selection element in the toolbar.

The Align and the Resize menus are included along with the other menu items only in the Selection element's popup menu. Similarly, the Group and UnGroup menus are active only for the Selection control's popup menu.

The submenus of the Align menu are Align Left, Align Right, Align Top and Align Bottom. Select the elements that are to be aligned using the Selection element. On selecting Align -> Align Left, all the elements are aligned inline with the element in the extreme left. When Align -> Align Right, all the elements are aligned inline with the element in the extreme right of the layout.

If Align -> Align Top is selected then all the elements are aligned inline with respect to the top most element in the group. When Align -> Align bottom is selected then all the elements are aligned inline with respect to the bottommost element of the group.

The submenus of the Size menu are the Widest, Narrowest, Tallest and the Shortest. Select the elements that are to be resized using the Selection element. On selecting Size -> Widest the width of all the elements increases in proportion to the width of the widest element in the group. When Size -> Narrowest is selected then all the elements decreases in size in proportion to the narrowest element in the group. When Size -> Tallest is selected then all the elements decrease in size in proportion to the tallest element in the group. If the Size -> Shortest is select then all the elements decrease in size in proportion to the shortest element.