Editing the properties of many components simultaneosly

rbuser

Hi there

One thing I would dearly love to be able to do is select multiple components
in the report designer and then change their properties with the right-click
menu. When you've got 200 components in the layout and you want to change
their display format or font, it takes a real long time using the current
method. Also it would be nice if one could assign the pipeline and field
this way.

Any chance this will ever happen-or maybe there's another way?

I'm hopeful.

Phillip Taylor

digitalmetaphors

Thanks for the suggestion. The only current way to do this is at Delphi
design time where you can use the object inspector to change a common
property across a selection of components.

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Hi Jim

Thats why I posted it here. I develop a lot of complex (many fields)
end-user reports and find it quite cumbersome to do this in the end-user
designer. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm assuming I could do these in the
delphi environment and then output the RTM file. I guess I'll do that in the
future, but that doesn't solve the problem for the actual end-user who
doesn't have delphi.

Do you expect to implement this functionality in the designer in some future
version?

Thanks

Phillip Taylor

digitalmetaphors

Yes, there is no runtime object inspector for ReportBuilder. It would be a
cool feature. It would be possible if you have to have it, to modify your
copy of our source and add one. The code that deals with the current
selection is located in ppDsgner.pas. You may be able to make it a
TppToolWindow descendent so it will be dockable. Basically, you'll need to
access the selction list and find all the common properties. THe best
example which deals with the selection and the components is teh object tree
view. See the TppReportTreeView in ppTreeVw.pas. Check out the report object
tree as it highlights the components in the treeview which represent the
current selection of the designer.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Thanks Jim

I think that's a good idea, but I think time constraints would prevent me
from
tackling that at this stage - is there any chance DM will do it?

I think what I need to do in the near future is get the RB designer in
delphi to
use our ODBC Express interface (the one we created to get the end-user
designer to work with ODBC Express). Can you point me in the right
direction to achieve this?

Thanks

Phil Taylor
Australian Flagship

digitalmetaphors

You simply need to create and install a Delphi design time package whcih
includes your daODBCExpress plugin unit and whatever else is required to
compile this package. Check out the other packages for DADE plugins in the
End User Demos directory for other databases for examples.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors