Page Break for Each Subreport

rbuser

I have a report that consists basically of a header/footer and 4
subreports in the detail band. I want each subreport after the first
visible one to print starting on a separate page without creating blank
pages in the report. The basic algorithm is that when a subreport other
than the first visible one prints, if it isn't already at the beginning of
a page, insert a page break before printing the subreport.

I've read through various suggestions to implement this. Setting the
SubReport.PrintBehavior to pbSection seems to force a page break even if
the subreport in question didn't print due to no records. Creating groups
for this purpose seems like a bad hack, since my report doesn't really
group any data. Using the NewPage property of the subreport's title band
makes the title print on one page, then a page break, and the subreport's
detail band print on the next page.

I'm using RB 6.03. I'm sure there is an easy way to implement this
little feature, but I can't seem to find it.

Erik

digitalmetaphors

Groups aren't going to help in the main report, because the detail band only
prints once and prints the subreports inside of it.

One solution to this problem is to daisy chain them together by placing each
subreport in the summary band of the above subreport.

One thing you can try is to use section style subreports, but toggle their
visibility property in the main report's DetailBand BeforePrint event when a
subreport has no data in its data pipeline. Check for ppdaNoRecords in the
DataPipeline.State set property.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Jim Bennett (Digital Metaphors) wrote:

I tried this and it seems that when the outer/enclosing subreport has no
records, none of the subreports nested in its summary seem to print. Is
this expected, or am I mistaken?

I also noticed a bug with cut/paste of subreports. Cutting a subreport
from the summary of one subreport back to the main report that has no
summary band causes an AV. This happens in a simple test report with no
data pipelines attached in 6.03 for me:
---------------------------
Error
---------------------------
Access violation at address 03F2E2E8 in module 'rbRCL66.bpl'. Read of
address 000000EC.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------


I tried this as well. The first visible subreport has to be pbChild, so
there isn't a blank page at the beginning of the report. The subsequent
printing pbSection subreports are somehow overlaid on top of each other,
sharing the same page, instead of printing one at a time with page breaks
between each subreport. I thought it might be related to ShiftRelativeTo,
but that property doesn't make much sense for a pbSection report, and
setting that appropriately doesn't seem to make a difference here.

Is there a way to manually/in-code place a blank component in the summary
of the subreports that expands to fill the rest of the page, to force a new
page? That way, I could continue to use normal pbChild subreports (and
inherit the main report's title band, etc.).

Printing the four subreports all as pbChild subreports works fine - it
just doesn't have page breaks between subreports like I need. I'd suggest
a feature to make it easier to add page breaks after a subreport - the
current workarounds/methods seem a bit complex and error-prone in 6.03 (at
least in my experience).

Erik

rbuser

> Printing the four subreports all as pbChild subreports works fine - it

I managed to get this working by creating a fake group (grouping in a
variable that is never set and never changes) in the subreports, and adding
what I had in the subreport's title to the group header, so I get a header
that prints without a page break before the detail. Then I could set the
title band's NewPage property dynamically at runtime based on whether it
was the first subreport to print or not, to cut out the initial blank page
that always setting NewPage produced.
The process I went through still seems like an enormous amount of
searching/work required for a fairly simple feature, and requires careful
documenting of the various hacks so others can understand the code later.
If I haven't missed something obvious, my feature request still stands.

Erik

digitalmetaphors

Yes, that works. I came up with a fake group approach in a subreport earlier
this morning before I read your post and thought I had a great idea, but you
beat me to it:) I have a couple twists on it. For the extra group variable,
you can set it to not be visible in the report, so that it isn't displayed,
but can be used for the group, or even a static invisible TppLabel. I then
toggled the NewPage property of the group object directly in order to force
the page break in the main reports DetailBand.BeforePrint event. Here is an
example (I used DADE for the data access):

http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/ForceNewPageSubreports.zip

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors