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Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

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    #1

    Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

    I have been working with quick reports. I like them for their ability to print as HTML, then export to formats (pdf, html, word.)

    But I have a few issues with them.

    1) I can't seem to find a way to use arguments in a header. For instance, if I am printing by a range of dates, I would like to show the dates in the header. I even included the dates as part of the returned dataset, but I can't add fields to the title either. These particular dates are arguments of the report. I am doing this in a browser - so I'm not sure how to turn the arguments into variables. I don't really want to make them session variables if I can avoid it. Got enough of those already.

    2) If I make a change to the query, it seems to break the report. The report will run, but it won't open in edit mode, so I can't add a new field easily. This has happened to me twice now. I end up having to delete the report and recreate from scratch. Not every quick.

    Any advice or anyone else encountering the same issues?
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

    Ok, Answer to my own question, followed by another issue.

    You can't put a field in the title, but you can in a group. So I can create a group and put my title in there. I think that will work for most of what I need to do. We'll see. I'm working on a simple one page report now, I don't know how the group title will work with multiple pages yet.

    But, in finding that out, my Alpha has locked up four times now. Two of those times, when I went back into Alpha, the report I was working on was GONE. (And yes, I had saved it.)

    Someone please add a little more stability to the quick report writer.

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

      I don't think you can get very far using the Quick Report; I thought it would be nice to just go back there to make changes, but after the first couple of mock-ups I just do the "Open in report editor".

      I think in Report Editor you will not have any issue with the "Title" field because all the field contents are handled the same where you pick from that huge dialog of what to insert into the report. You can just echo the argument back from the SELECT statement. If "gMyArg" is an argument to the SQL query then you can echo it back in the SELECT clause by inserting a field expression in the SELECT clause, like ":gMyArg as MyArgValue".

      I haven't printed "arguments" of a report directly back like that, but I just ran a test in sql builder preview window and it worked. I construct the query to return every single data item on the report! It is quite difficult for me to get used to having every single data item repeated on each returned row, even when the item is only used once like in the report title. But I guess that is the thing to do with these style of report writers.

      The "Static HTML" radio button and the "Field" radio buttons are the only ones I use for cell contents. If you have problems with things coming out in different font sized just use "Static HTML" for everything. I don't know what they mean by "Static HTML" because you can include field names and "IF" statement to vary the output based on conditions.

      Yep, the reports do break easily. I hope that users are reporting problems to Alpha. When I submit a problem to Alpha and demonstrate how to reproduce it they are extremely fast at fixing it. There are a few things left with the Report Designer that I have not reported as bugs because I cannot reproduce them. But I know if I find a way to reproduce them than Alpha will take of them. The pre-release builds correct a number of problems in the report designer.

      When I am using the Report designer I do not open any other Alpha windows while report designer is open. And, I just expect Alpha will crash if I go into Grids or Ux's after being in the report designer.

      If you have another program running that makes automatic backups of changed files then you might find things work better if you exclude the alpha project folders. Alpha should be making a backup of components every time they are saved. (This is different than the workspace backup, you might see at project startup.) Right-click a component or report and select "Restore Backup". You should see a list of the backup files. When I had WD backup running in the background and doing its auto backups on changed files, Alpha had a difficult time.

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

        Thanks for the response. I have taken a report from the Quick Report into the report writer and it does seem a lot more stable that way. It messed up a couple of fields when I did it, but it was easy enough to fix them.

        I think from now on I will use the quick report to get them started, and then when I have to make changes I'll open in the full report editor.

        And I did end up adding the arguments into the select statement and that allowed me to do much more with them. And once you are in the full report editor, the rest of what I want becomes possible.

        I'm building reports at the moment that need to be able to export to excel and I just have to be careful that I keep things lined up properly so it won't mess that up!

        Larry

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          #5
          Re: Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

          I think if the request comes in to take any of my reports to excel then I would make separate reports that give the user the flattened raw data from the SQL source tables. The user would have to add back in any grouping and totaling they wanted.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

            Have you tried that feature? Using a quick report (or a table layout report), you can show the data in HTML format. That lets you put up icons to export to Word, Excel, PDF or HTML and you don't really have to do anything to make it happen.

            It's a pretty sweet feature.

            Your way is much more powerful, but for quick and dirty, I don't know how it could be any simpler. (Once you get the report made that is!)

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Quick Report - a couple questions/issues

              Yes, two of us looked at the feature, but we just didn't see it being that helpful for the reports we generate, unless we flatten out the data.

              What I'd rather see is for the Layout Reports to use proper HTML for group headings, so the browser can repeat group headings during a page break. There is a browser standard for doing that, but last time I checked Alpha was not using it. As it is now only the Working Preview window is capable of putting in page breaks for the HTML Layout Reports!

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