Suppressing Blank Lines???

[Rosann David]

Hi to all,

I have done several searches on this site and have tried the suggestions: shrink, RTF with soft return. I cannot get them to work.

I have a report, in the detail section I have two lines with multiple fields that will always have information in them. Then I have three lines, one field each line, that may or may not have information in them. How do I get the report to suppress the three bottom lines if there is no information in them?

Question 2: In this same report I have two group headers and one continuation header. Can you also suppress these group headers. (They are calculated fields)

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Rosann

[Eric Ruff]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

For your first question: when designing the report, usually you can right click on the title of the section containing the lines you want to suppress, select properties, select the 'Region' tab, and click 'Shrink contents of band.' Unfortunately, the detail section does not have that option.

So if the above method does not work, you can grab a 'conditional object' off the toolbox and place it on the report. You'll have to play with it a bit to make it work, but you can select the conditions under which any other object placed inside the conditional object will appear. You need to check 'Object can shrink' at the bottom of the 'Setup' tab of the properties. For your purposes, you may be able to simply use the Default expression; if the lines of text to display are blank, it should shrink.

A key issue with conditional objects: they must be at least as large as any objects they contain (they can be the same size), and the objects they contain must fit entirely within the boundaries of the condition object.

As to Question 2: I think you can use the same conditional object to suppress anything in the headers. You'd have to have an expression to key off of, however, to make sure the headers turn off when you want.

The key here is to play with the conditional objects. Good luck, and hope this helps!

Eric

[Rosann David]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

Eric,

Thank you for your response.

I have tried the conditional object. But I guess because of my inexperience with A5. I cannot get it to work. What exactly is the default expression on the conditional object? I put several expressions in there but none did what I needed it to do.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Rosann

[Eric Ruff]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

Rosann,

The 'Default' is all condiditions not specified in any other condition. You can specify conditions in the Properties menu for the conditional object, giving them any name you want. Here's a simple example.

Suppose you want an text object (such as a heading) to appear only if there is at least one item to be displayed. Assuming you have a calc variable that counts the items (e.g, Calc->Total_Items), right click on the conditional object (or click the little button at the upper left corner). Then, create a condition "Calc->Total_Items > 0" and label it "Display". Make sure to check the "Object can shrink" box at the bottome. Close the properties.

Next, click on the upper-left button and select "Display". With "Display" selected, drag into the conditional object the heading (or create a text object) you want to display. That's it! You can see that when you select "Default" you will see nothing in the object; when you select "Display" you'll see the heading.

When Calc->Total_Items is greater than 0, this heading will display; otherwise, nothing will display.

I've been using A5 for less than two months, and this is one of the things I had to struggle with, but it works pretty well once you figure it out. There's a little trick to moving conditional objects: if you can, select the condition under which nothing displays, then move the conditional object to whereever you want. This will make sure all the other items for the other conditions move with it. Otherwise, when you move the conditional object, it will move without the objects under the displayed condition. (I hope that makes sense!)

Eric

[Rosann David]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

Eric,

I think that it all makes sense. I will try this first thing in the morning and let you know.

Thanks for the help!

Rosann

[CALocklin]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

Roseann,

Take a look at the "test_cal" application in the attached zip file. This will show you how to set up the RTF field to do what I think you want to do.

Just open the app and go to the 'reports' tab. Run the report to see how it looks then take a look at how the RTF is set up.

The secrets are:
- The line that is to be blanked out must be COMPLETELY void of any text. This includes things like field labels. If you must have field labels, create them via a calc field such as: IF( fieldvalue1"", "Label for Field1", "" )
- Use the soft enter (shift-enter) at the end of each line in the RTF field. (by the way, this also has some neat uses in word processors) [Just in case: Do not put each field from the table in a separate RTF object!]
- Once the RTF object has been completed, shrink it down to a height of zero or nearly zero. I usually use 'nearly' so I can easily find the object. If you don't do this, the RTF object will still take up space. (I thing there is a 'shrink' option but I find that it often doesn't work as expected.)

The attached app is just an application I occasionally use for testing new ideas or working on questions from this message board so don't ask me what all the rest of the stuff means because I have no idea.

Hope this helps,
Cal

[Rosann David]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

Cal,

Thank you for you response. I have looked at your report. It looks just like the one that I set up. But... I make my RTF nearly zero and the "bottom line" of the detail section will only move up to the bottom of where the RTF would be if it was expanded. Do you know why that would be? I have done so many things to it, it is driving me crazy.

Thanks for any help.

Rosann

[CALocklin]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

Shrink the RTF then, after making sure that region has focus, use the menu option "Edit / Select All" and look for another object 'hiding' in there somewhere. This is nearly always the issue.

I've noticed that it is easy to create another field, especially an RTF field, when editing a report. If you pay attention you will notice that the cursor remains in the 'create RTF' mode even after you create an RTF field. If you accidently click the mouse while moving it, you will inadvertantly create another RTF field but with nothing in it. I've done this so many times I've lost count but at least I know to watch for it now.

This action is similar to the action with other object types. The difference is that empty RTF fields are harder to see.

[Rosann David]

RE: Suppressing Blank Lines???

Cal,

Thank you so much you are a genius!! I was just about to give and tell my boss that it just could not be done. It works wonderfully now. I'm so glad that they have this board.

Thanks again for all the help!!

Rosann