We’ve updated ReportWorkshop to version 5.1
ReportWorkshop v5.1 corresponds to TRichView v21.
Trial versions are available here: https://www.trichview.com/download/
This update is free for customers who ordered in 2021 and later. If you do not know how to renew, please contact me (by sending a private forum message, or email to richviewgmailcom).
The complete list of changes:
https://www.trichview.com/help-report/version_history.htm
This article discusses changes that were added since the last minor update.
New features:
Since this update, Report Workshop supports fields containing HTML.
Normally, HTML data are auto-detected. If not (for example, if HTML data does not contain <html> and <head> tags), users can specify the field type explicitly:
My document: {DATAFIELDNAME html}HTML field type has the same format string as for other document formats: you can override fonts to make multiple HTML documents look consistent.
To display HTML source code as text:
Source code: {DATAFIELDNAME text}Previous versions of Report Workshop converted NULL values of numeric fields to 0.
The new version does not do it.
A code for inserting a data field value in a report field inserts nothing for NULL fields.
Let we have the following SQL statement:
select * from MyTable where MyField={ValueThatCanBeNULL}For NULL fields, it now produces incorrect statement:
select * from MyTable where MyField=To fix this problem, this statement can be changed to:
select * from MyTable where
MyField={=If(Defined(ValueThatCanBeNULL),ValueThatCanBeNULL,0)}This code for NULL field value produces:
select * from MyTable where
MyField=0Another option, to check for NULL fields in SQL statement:
select * from MyTable where
{'=If(Defined(ValueThatCanBeNULL),"MyField="+ValueThatCanBeNULL,"MyField is NULL")'}This code for NULL field value produces:
select * from MyTable where
MyField is NULLIn the examples above (click “+” to expand), you can see the new expression function Defined(). It returns True for non-empty values.
The rules of processing of NULL values in expressions are here: https://www.trichview.com/help-report/expressions.htm#null
In the rule properties dialog, you can see a new checkbox “Delete the whole table if no results”.
It allows setting Essential property.
$IFDEF and $IFnDEF commands can be used not only for data fields and variables, but for cross-tab headers as well.
For example:
{$IFDEF #Caption}
{#Caption}
{$ELSE}
Untitled
{$ENDIF}Note: {$IF Defined(#Caption)} works as well.
New property of cells of report tables: Name.
It allows referring cells in data fields by names, just like it was implemented for table row generation rules: {MyCellName:MyFieldName}.
In the previous versions of Report Workshop, this action was a copy of a normal table insertion action, with exactly the same user interface.
This action inserts a report table instead of a normal table.
This action was redundant, because other Report Workshop actions can convert normal tables to report tables.
In this update, this action has got new user interface. It can generate a report table from data.
The resulting table has up to 3 rows:
To activate this feature, DataProvider property of the action must be assigned (and this data provider must return at least one table). Otherwise, the standard dialog for blank table insertion is displayed.
To disable this feature, either unassign DataProvider, or assign UseDataTables=False.
If the target editor does not use named styles (UseStyleTemplates=False), all text in the resulting table uses the same font.
If the target editor uses named styles (UseStyleTemplates=True), heading rows are formatted according to HeadingTextStyleTemplateName and HeadingParaStyleTemplateName properties.
By default, HeadingParaStyleTemplateName is blank (so “Normal” style is used), HeadingParaStyleTemplateName = “Strong”.
Normally, report designing in ReportWorshop starts from a document: the user creates a rich text document, then links data to the whole document or its parts.
While this approach is very flexible, it may be hard to use.
In this update, we added a new action:
This action can generate a new report template from data.
Currently, the following data providers support this action:
Most data providers included in Report Workshop are SQL-based, so this action can be used with them.
A predefined master/detail relationship can be defined in universal DB data provider: TRVReportDBDataProvider on datasets that have MasterSource:TDataSource property.
This action can generate a simple report, or a master/detail report. The number of levels of details is not limited, so complex reports can be generated. However, there is a limitation: one detail for each master. This limitation comes from the step-by-step design of a wizard dialog. Let me know if you are interested in removing this limitation.
The action generates SQL queries for master/detail reports automatically.
Data queries for this actions are generated by data provider components.
If datasets or field names have spaces, they must be quoted for using in SQL statement.
All data providers use double quotes to make SQL identifiers. The exceptions are data providers for MySQL: TRVReportMyDataProvider (for DevArt MySQL DAC) and TRVReportMySQLDataProvider (for MicroOLAP DAC for MySQL); they use backtick characters for identifiers.
There may be a problem with data providers that work with multiple DB engines, if the chosen engine does not support double quotes for SQL identifiers.
You can assign the following properties of data provider:
Note: if table and fields names do not include space characters, data providers do not use quotes.
On each level of data, the user chooses:
*if master/detail relationship is predefined, the wizard does not ask how details are linked.
Data can be placed in reports as:
If you specify “Cards” with one card per row, the result will be the same as for one-column table. The difference will be on the next step. For cards, details are displayed inside a card. For tables, details are added outside of the previous level (at the right side or below)
If a master data is a table, details can be attached in several ways:
The report wizard stops when
The user can define the report header, footer, and the outermost table header.
As a result, the wizard generates a new report template. It is ready-to-use, but of course you can edit it as you want.
If the target editor does not use named styles (UseStyleTemplates=False), all text in the resulting report template uses the same font.
If the target editor uses named styles (UseStyleTemplattes=True), the resulting report template is formatted according to the StyleTemplates, see AccentedTextStyleTemplateName, ReportFooterStyleTemplateName for details.
By default, the action resets style templates to default values using the linked TrvActionNew action. If you want to generate a report template using the current style templates, assign UseCurrentStyleTemplates=True.
All “ReportEditor” and “ScaleRichView ReportEditor” demos were changed:
“Northwind” sample database is rebuilt for the newest version of NexusDB.
“Crosstab Employees x Employees.rw” sample report for NexusDB is updated: SQL statement in the heading cross-tab cell was updated to takes NULL values of #ReportsTo into account.
User interface for new features is translated to English and Russian.
In other localizations, they are displayed in English.
I’ll appreciate if Report Workshop translators update their translations.
This video shows:
1. All types of single-level reports
2. 3-level master-detail report
This video shows how to generate 4-level report with the following levels:
The second level (EmployeesTerritories) is technical, it contains only links between employees and their territories (so, at the end, we remove data displayed for this level)
This video shows the report generated for “Sakila” (a sample film rental database for MySQL).
The report basically shows “Category – Film – Actor” report, but it has 5 levels (because “Category – Film” and “Film – Actor” are many-to-many relationships, so intermediate tables film_category and film_actor are used.
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