From Previewer want ability to load designer...

rbuser

I've registered my own report previewer. Now, I want to add a button to the
toolbar that will load the report designer with the currently active report
and data pipelines. Also, when the designer closes, if the report design has
changed the report needs to re-draw itself. How should I go about this?

digitalmetaphors

We don't recommend trying this, but it may be possible. Use the report
designer at it is designed in the workspace which has the 4 elements of the
report equation:

Data -> Calculations -> Design -> Preview

Are you using the TppPreview plug-in architecture, or are you replacing the
preview form itself? If you are descending from TppPreview, then you can
create a button as shown in this example.

http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/AddControlsToPreview.zip

However, if you have a custom preview form replacement you aren't using the
TppPreview plugin architecture, you can ignore the above approach.

The problem is that all of this is going to happen inside of a call to
Report.Print. What the best way to reprint is to call Report.Print again
after the first Report.Print execution has finished. But that isn't
possible because the preview form is created in the producer as part of the
print process. You can try otherwise, but not sure what will happen. Put a
designer on the preview form. Then you can connect the report to that
designer. Call Designer.ShowModal. When the designer closes, you can call
Viewer.Reset and Viewer.FirstPage after the call to ShowModal in your
button's event handler. That should cause the report to regenerate the first
page and send it to the screen device. The reason this might not work is
that the report has a cache manager and when Report.Print is called, a
footprint for all of the components in the report is saved. If this changes
while the report is running (ie, you add or remove a component) then it may
not generate correctly.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

I'll work with your suggestions. Thank you...

Some questions, though... Can I hide the preview tab in the designer? I'm
descending from TppPreview and the preview window shows my "Design" button
again, which is not good, ie, I can repeatedly open new design windows...
Alternatively, within the TppPReview descendent, can I determine if I'm in a
report or in the preview window of the designer?

Reports in my app are stored in a database. In my designer I don't want the
user to be able to open a new report, or save the report under a different
name. I want them to control fonts, add design elements and link to data
fields, things like that... Nothing too involved... How do I go about
chopping out functionality to that degree?

rbuser

A related question... I have the design button working within the
report.print previewer. That is, the design window comes up with a
.Showmodal. If I make a change in the designer, though, then close (without
saving), the report design is not saved (to the database) and I am not
warned about losing my changes. Is there a way to popup a dialog about "Do
you want to discard changes?"

rbuser

Ok... one other question... after the designer.showModal, how can I tell if
the user saved changes in the designer... I don't want to try to reset the
report to the first page if the user doesn't alter the report design.

rbuser

So far I haven't been able to get the preview to update after changes to the
design, just as you said might be a problem...

If this method is not recommended, what method is? I've been trying to
understand the best way to let users make minor changes to reports. Rather
than print then design, should I have the options of print and design side
by side (as buttons on my form, say), then if the user clicks design load
the designer with the report in question?

The reason I am having a conceptual problem with this... end-users don't
need a designer, but they do need the reports. So, the ability to see
reports is generally programmed before the ability for end-users to design
reports. So, when I wanted to add the ability for users to make changes to
existing reports, it seemed logical to do that from within the existing
architecture rather than add a separate button/menu option to design _rather
than_ preview. I use one previewer throughout my application, but I acccess
reports from many different forms, so it sounds like I will have to modify
those many different forms to bring up either the previewer or designer...
Is that correct?

rbuser

How many messages am I gonna line up on this thread???

Only some of my users should be allowed to change report designs. Would it
be reasonable to use a TppDesigner instead of a TppReport, and always load
the report in preview mode for all users. Some users would see the design
tab, some would not. What I'm trying to avoid is the need to make changes to
every form that gives access point to reports, ie, I don't want to have both
a print button and a design button. What I'm thinking is the existing print
buttons would load a TppDesigner in preview mode.

Thanks in advance.

digitalmetaphors

> How many messages am I gonna line up on this thread???

As many as you want:)

The designer component is what you'll want to give the end user with only
the design and preview tabs. You can scale the designer down. You can use
the ShowComponents property of the designer if you want to not show all the
controls to the user. You can also hide the menus in the designer. Here is
an example of a bare bones designer by also removing the toolbars in code:

http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/SimpleDesignerPreview.zip


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

digitalmetaphors

Oh, there is this cool property I forgot to mention on the Designer
component called TabsVisible. Set this to False. Hit F1 on this property to
see the help.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

In some cases I want the preview tab to be visible when I first call
designer.showModal. How do I do that?

rbuser

I worded that incorrectly... I meant that I want the preview page to be
displayed (ie, report preview) when designer.showModal is called. I think I
can do it with

TppDesignerWindow (ppDesigner1.Form).pgcDesigner.ActivePageIndex := 1;

in the onShow event of the designer.

Then, my speedbutton to "Design Report" will simply change the
ActivePageIndex to 0. Some users will not be allowed to design reports, so
they won't get the "Design Report" button, and will never see the designer.

rbuser

In the onShow event of the designer I change the ActivePageIndex, as stated
below... The previewer comes up empty, though. If I then click on the design
tab, then back on the preview tab, my report is there... How can I have the
designer come up initially with the preview tab displayed and the report
ready to view?

digitalmetaphors

In the Designer's OnShow event, call

uses
ppDsgner;
...
TppDesignerWindow(ppDesigner1.Form).Notebook.SelectNextPage(True);

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Thanks... SelectNextPage worked.

I have one remaining issue... If I make a change in the designer (like
change the text of a label), then close (without saving), the report design
is not saved (to the MS SQL database, in my case) and I am not warned about
losing my changes. Is there a way to popup a dialog about "Do you want to
discard changes?"

digitalmetaphors

Are you running RB 6 or earlier? There was an issue in RB 6 where the
modified property was not getting set. If you are using a standalone
designer and no report explorer, then you have to code it. The report
explorer has the save option built in, but the standalone designer component
doesn't. In this example I used the OnCloseQuery event of the designer to
save to file, but you could also save to database.

procedure TForm1.ppDesigner1CloseQuery(Sender: TObject;
var CanClose: Boolean);
begin

if (ppDesigner1.Report.Modified) then
if SaveDialog1.Execute then
begin
ppReport1.Template.FileName := SaveDialog1.FileName;
ppReport1.Template.SaveToFile;
end;

end;

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Something a bit odd is happening on one of my reports...

In the OnShow for the TppDesigner I do a SelectNextPage to have the Preview
page shown initially. If I then click on the Design tab, then close the
window, the Report.modified property is true, and (using my code) am asked
if I want to save changes (even though I haven't made any).

It's possible that I am setting the visibility of components at run-time, or
some other sort of conditional formatting of components on the report. I
guess what needs to happen is I need to make sure modified is false when the
designer first comes up. Any way to do that?

digitalmetaphors

Set Designer.Report.Modified := False after it has loaded and the designer
is shown. This shouldn't be a problem in RB 7. There was a known issue in
older versions where setting the units (internal initialization code) in the
designer was causing modified to get set to true. If you have an older
version, then upgrade to RB 7 to see if that fixes the problem.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

I have RB 7. What I think is happening is that my report is being modified
at run-time before the report is shown, and that is setting modified to
true... In one case, I have several subreports defined in the report. When
the report loads I free and nil some of the subreports depending on run-time
variables.

I am now setting modified to false during the onShow and that seems to fix
the problem, although now I am concerned that if the user wants to change
the design of this report he will not have all the subreports available and
he might accidentally save a changed report (minus some important
subreports) over a good report (which includes all subreports). That's
something I'll have to re-code.

Anyway, I think the mystery is solved, and what remains is something I have
to re-design. Thanks for your help.