Determining Page Range from Print Dialog

rbuser

In my application I have some PDF Attachment files that I spool to the
printer after my report.

I currently do this by using a combination of the BeforePrint,
OnPrintDialogClose, and OnCancel events to find out if the report was
printed or cancelled, and providing there was no cancel I simply call my
routine to spool these PDF's in the AfterPrint event.

The only problem is I do not want to spool these PDF's if the user is not
printing the entire report from the preview. For example, if they choose to
print only the current page, or a subset of pages I do not want my PDF's to
print.

Therefore I need some way to determine the selection of the Page Range group
in the PrintDialog. Maybe I am just missing it, but I do not see any
reference to it from the Report.PrintDialog object.

Where can I get this value from?

Thanks,

Jeff Guidotti
(Delphi 5/ReportBuilder v7.03)

nicocizik

Hi Jeff,

There is no reference to the actual page range in the TppPrintDialog class,
however there are two options to gain access to this information.

1. Create a custom print dialog that exposes this value. See the article
below on replacing the dialogs in ReportBuilder.

2. The edtPageRange EditBox is a published property and can be accessed by
typecasting the Report.PrintDialog property as TppPrintDialog. Then you can
send the text from this edit box to the ppTextToPageList procedure in the
ppUtils.pas file to get a valid page list if you would like. See the
TppPrintDialog.btnOKClick procedure for how this is done in RB.

------------------------------------------------------------
Tech Tip: Replacing Built-in Dialogs/Forms in ReportBuilder
------------------------------------------------------------

ReportBuilder has an open architecture for replacing any of the built-in
dialogs. You can replace any of the built-in dialogs by creating a new form
that inherits from an abstract ancestor and then registering it as the new
built-in dialog.

For example to replace ReportBuilder's print dialog you could

1. Create a new Print dialog by renaming ReportBuilder's default print
dialog, then doing a SaveAs to save it under another unit name.

The default dialog resides in RBuilder\Source\ppPDlg.pas and the form is
called ppPrintDialog. You should assign your form a unique name, for
example, myPrintDlg, and save the unit to another name. Also save the unit
to the directory where your other forms are stored (not RBuilder\Source).

2. Make desired changes.

You will notice that the print dialog inherits from an ancestor
TppCustomPrintDialog - this ancestor resides in ppForms.pas (where all the
abstract ancestor forms for ReportBuilder are defined).

3. Register the new form.

Declare an initializtion section at the bottom of the unit:

initialization

ppRegisterForm(TppCustomPrintDialog, TMyPrintDialog);


4. Add the new unit to your project and compile.

Now your preview dialog should be automatically created and destroyed by
ReportBuilder. The two page preview dialog in the
RBuilder\Demos\Reports\Demo.dpro was created this same way. The only
difference is the ppRegisterForm call is in then OnClick event of the
button.


--
Regards,

Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com