Previous Page Next Page

Page Report Manager

Adding an item

Editing the properties of an item

Searching for a report or folder item

Exporting the report information to a table

Moving an item to another folder

Deleting items

All created page report files (.cls) are physically placed in the same directory where the catalog file resides. Due to this, you will not be able to get detailed information about a page report until it is opened in JReport Designer. For example, if you want to find a page report with a special condition, you will have to load each page report. For just a few page reports, this is not a problem. However, the case is different when there are many reports.

JReport provides you with a tool for managing page reports by means of adding them into folders with the Manage Page Reports dialog. You can build folder items in the manager, helping you to divide the page reports into different types at your disposal. Then, the reports can be added to the folder, and worked on just like processing files in a file system--add, open, delete, move, rename and search items. In all, the feature of report folder implemented in catalogs enables you to manage your page reports in a way that can better satisfy your requirements.

The following are some concepts used in the Manage Page Reports dialog:

• Folder Item: A container in which you can operate page report items or sub folder items.
• Report Item: This represents a page report. You can edit name, keywords and description properties of this item.

To display the Manage Page Reports dialog, click Report > Manage Page Reports.

You can manage your page reports in the current catalog with the Manage Page Reports dialog as follows:

Adding an item

To add a folder item to the Manage Page Reports dialog:

1. Select a folder and click New Folder on the toolbar or right-click a folder and select New Folder from the shortcut menu.

   Now, a new folder is added as a sub node, and the default name for the folder is Folder1, Folder2.... You can rename the folder as required.

2. Select the folder and click Rename on the toolbar or right-click it and select Rename from the shortcut menu.
3. Type a new name in the name box, and then click outside the box (or just press Enter on the keyboard).

To add report items to the Manage Page Reports dialog:

1. Select the folder to which you want to add the page reports and click Add Page Reports on the toolbar, or right-click the folder and select Add Page Reports from the shortcut menu.
2. In the Choose Page Report dialog, all the page reports in the current catalog are listed. Select the required ones.

   

3. Click the Add button to add the selected page reports to the folder. The default names of the report items are the file names of the reports. You can rename the report items as you would with a folder item.

A report can be added to multiple folders in case you want to include it in multiple categories. You can double-click any report item in the Page Report Manager to open the report.

Editing the properties of an item

Select the item the properties of which you want to edit, click Show Properties on the toolbar, then edit its property values in the Properties sheet. After editing a value, press Enter on the keyboard to confirm the change. You can make use of the quick search toolbar to search for the desired properties (to display the toolbar, click the Search button at the upper right corner of the Properties sheet). The search toolbar is closed when you select another item.

• Text box
  The quick search toolbar treats resource names as strings and searches by consecutive text. Type in the text you want to search for in the text box and the resources containing the matched text will be listed.
• X
  Clear the text in the text box.
• 
  Lists more search options.
  • Highlight All
    Specifies whether to highlight all matched text.
  • Match Case
    Specifies whether to search for text that meets the case of the typed text.
  • Match Whole Word
    Specifies whether to search for text that looks the same as the typed text.

The properties of a folder item are:

The properties of a report item are:

Searching for a report or folder item

Wildcard searches for report name or folder name in the Manage Page Reports dialog are supported. To search a report or folder item, follow the steps below:

1. Select a folder item and right-click it.
2. Click Search on the shortcut menu to display the Search Reports dialog.

   

3. In the Find what text box, input the report or folder name, or report keywords you have specified for the Keywords property of the report in the Properties sheet, then select the corresponding search criteria from the By drop-down list, which can be by name, by keywords or by name or keywords.

   If you just input part of the report or folder name, or report keywords, use * to replace the other part of the name or keywords. For example, if you want to search for the report EmployeeInformation, you should input *Info* instead of info in the text box.

4. Specify what you want to find: a folder, a report or both.
5. Enter the search path in the Look in text box.
6. Specify whether to limit the search to text that exactly matches the case of the search text.
7. Specify whether to find the folder or report also in the sub folders of the search path.
8. Click the Search Now button to start searching. Matched results will be listed in the search result box.
9. If you want to start another search, click the New Search button and set the condition using the method described above.

Exporting the report information to a table

You can export report information in the Manage Page Reports dialog to a table in a DBMS. The default name of the table is ReportsInfo. You can change the name as required. Each row of the table is a report description. To do this:

1. Select the root folder Reports and right-click it.
2. On the shortcut menu, click Export. The Get JDBC Connection Information dialog appears.
3. Fill in the required fields for connecting to the DBMS, and then click the OK button.
4. Give a name for the table, and then click OK in the Input dialog. The report information is added to the table in the DBMS.

You can then set up a JDBC connection in a catalog to connect with the DBMS and add the table to the catalog via the JDBC connection for use.

Moving an item to another folder

Any items added to the Manage Page Reports dialog can be moved to another folder if required. You can use either of the following methods to move an item:

• Using shortcut menu
  
  1. Right-click the item that you want to move and select Move To from the shortcut menu.
  2. The Move Report/Folder dialog appears. All the available folders are listed in the dialog.

     

  3. Select the folder you want the item to be moved to, and click OK. The item will then be moved to that folder.
• By dragging and dropping
  

  Drag the item to the destination folder.

Deleting items

Using the Manage Page Reports dialog, you can delete reports from the file system.

To delete items from the Manage Page Reports dialog:

1. Select the items on the Reports tree, and then take either of the following ways:
   • Press the Delete key on the keyboard.
   • Click the Delete button on the Manage Page Reports dialog toolbar.
   • Right-click and select Delete from the shortcut menu.
2. A Warning message box is displayed. Check the option Also delete report files from file system if you want to remove them from your local directory permanently. Otherwise leave the option unchecked and only remove the items from the virtual tree.
3. Click Yes in the box. If a report is selected, the report will be deleted. If a folder is selected, the folder and all its contents will be removed.

If a report is deleted manually from the local file system, later when you open the Manage Page Reports dialog, you will see the node icon that represents the report is marked with a red cross. You can use the above method to remove the unused node.

Previous Page Next Page