Using some kind of "Global component" to influence total report behaviour

rbuser

[Crossposting this from Reportbuilder.Component-writing, by lack of respons
on that forum]

Hi

I'm trying to figure out a way to create a component i can drop on a report
template that will have influence on the entire report.

I.e. to create some kind of alternating grey-band in the background for detail,
groupheader and groupfooter bands. As the header and footer band are not
always visible, and the number of details within a group can be odd or even,
printing of the shading in i.e the groupfooter is dependent on the last band
that was printed before it.

I don't want to hardcode this into the report, but have all functionality
in the component itsself

How can I get the report to initiate some kind of init-routine of the component
when starting to print and reset when printing is finished? Again, i dont
want to hard code a call to the init method from the OnReportPRint event.

Anyother clever ideas maybe on accomplishing this?

thanks
bas

nicocizik

Hi Bas,

This was also answered in the Component-Writing newsgroup...
---

Unfortunately Report components do not function the way you need them to as
stated in your requirements below. Once a component is placed on a report,
nothing occurs until the engine is ready to print the band and therefore
give commands to render the component.

Another approach would be to perhaps loop through all report components
before the report prints to see if your custom component is present. If so,
it could trigger some event code that alters the report globally. This
would need to be done before the report prints to have an effect on the
entire report.


--
Regards,

Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com

rbuser

Hello Nico,

thanks for your reply, but i'm not giving this up yet ":-)

I'v added a post in the Components thread detailing my current attempt of
achieving this


greetings
Bas