Layout Report Woes

[Pat Bremkamp]

Spent (wasted) the day trying to create a layout report, and it appears that if you try to merge cells in the report header and/or the page footer that the builder barfs.

Has anyone been able to successfully create a layout report that has any merged cells in the header or footer? After spending several hours getting the header and footer just right, I print and all the fields have been dumped. Open the builder and most of the fields are gone. The layout is empty.

Is there some trick to this, or do I just need to go back to the regular report builder?

[gaby_h]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Pat: What build are you on?

[DaveF]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Yes, I have been able to create Layout Table reports with merged cells in the header. It's been about 5 months since I worked with these reports, but I do remember struggling with it and eventually figuring out a work around or what I was doing wrong. I will search my computer and see if I made any notes.

[Lance Gurd]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Done several now, love the way you can have vertical lines to the bottom of the page.

This one has several merged cells, some with conditional data, some with blank lines suppressed. Like Dave, it took a while to get used to but ended up with great results.

purchase order.png

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Pat,

Here is my own tale of woe:

http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...layout+reports

But that was a year ago. Since then they have fixed a lot of bugs. I have been able to successfully build a layout report or two. But as you have found out, it's a bit like a fly walking on a spider web - take your chances!

[GGAllen]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Thank goodness for this thread - I thought I was going nuts! "a bit like a fly walking on a spider web" is an understatement.
I have 4 reports to produce to finish a project (and get paid). I could have produced them in my old system in an afternoon but I've spent a week on them and only successfully created one! And the result is a directory with a dozen saved files at each stage because if you make one error it's back to square one. I got the second one completed last night only to find that the groups were reversed and no way to fix it.
Alpha5 has had a few blog entries about V12 and the importance of reporting and I'm very afraid that they will force me to buy a new version in order to get this fixed (maybe).
I bought Alpha 5 V10.5 about 1 1/2 years ago to develop web apps (MYSQL backend). I have since upgraded to V11 and I'm about ready top throw in the towel. While it's true that I can produce about 75% of an app in 1/10 the time of my old system, I'm constantly plagued by small things (like layout reports) that take weeks and throw project schedules out the window.
Documentation of creating layout reports is abysmal and the whole thing smacks of a good idea having gone very, very wrong.
As you can probably tell, I'm very frustrated at the moment.

[Pat Bremkamp]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Thanks to all of you for contributing to this effort to learn layout reports.

Gaby, I'm on the latest version, 3353_4090...oops, I see there is a new release 3357_4090, but the release notes don't mention anything report related.

Lance, thanks for the picture. Yes vertical lines is one of the main reason for wanting to use this type report. I noticed in your header the statement {begin:SuppressBlankLines} Is that out of a function you created or a stored procedure? Is this technique documented somewhere?

Thanks for the link Peter. I recognized a lot of the same issues I had yesterday in that thread. One of the things I did wrong, I think, was to copy and paste a text field from another report into this one. I also discovered a session variable in a calculated field that was not defined. Your characterization of it being "a bit like a fly walking on a spider web" is very apt. I think one of the keys to success is to figure everything out before hand and never change your mind. That's hard when you are trying to learn something new and keep trying things that don't work, then try something else.

Dave, any "things that work" suggestions would be appreciated.

Garry, yes, that's my experience too. I have 22 reports to create which my client did in Excel in two days total. I'm on day two and have none so far!

[Lance Gurd]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Hi Pat

All the work is done for you by Alpha, see video R6 for where it can be found. Using the static html for cell content is very powerful, I have managed to combine 6 separate reports (invoice, application for payment and credit note with client/own copies of each) into one report using the {if condition}.

[Bill Parker]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Lance,

In your sample above was the font for "Orders to:" specified in CSS or in-line in the html. Could you show the code for that cell?

Bill.

In my test report I do not see a connection between a cell and the currently active stylesheet. For example, I have a report heading (before conversion, the genie showed tahoma,16,b) and a system->date (which is a smaller font). No font is specified in the Properties panel for either cell and the active Minimal stylesheet just has settings for borders. Of course I can code properties for each object. But I wonder where the current values are specified?

[Lance Gurd]

Re: Layout Report Woes

Hi Bill,

it is in-line HTML as

{begin:SuppressBlankLines}
<div style="padding-left:10;">
<b><big>Order to:</big></b><br>
{sup_name}<br>
{addr1}<br>
{addr2}<br>
{addr3}<br>
{addr4}<br>
{addr5}<br>
</div>{end:SuppressBlankLines}