Basic RB report layout question

rbuser

Hi.

I have an RB report that currently takes 3 pages. A good deal of this length
is because of memos, images, etc that may or may not contain text or image
content, but I've laid out the space assuming they do/might have content,
and I've set aside the space they are likely to need (but even so it might
not be enough and it might get cut off).

How do I get it so that, assuming I have a memo field, it uses up as much
space as it needs to fill out the memo text, but if there is no memo data,
it doesn't use any additional lines of space (ie there is never more than
one empty line)?

Also, suppose I wanted the memo layout space available to be arbitrarily
long, but of a fixed width. That is, the dbmemo would adjust to become as
deep as required to fit in all the text, pushing everything else down the
page below it.

How do I do these things?

Thanks!

Lauchlan M

rbuser

Luchan:

You need to use a Region component to accomplish your spacing. Region
components contain memos, graphics, etc. & dynamically expand to meet the
space requirements of their components.

In your report, you could have Region1
Region2
Region3

Region2.ShiftRelativeTo = Region1
Region2.Strech = True

Region3.ShiftRelativeTo = Region2
Region3.Strech = True

I believe that if the components in the region are set visible=False
then the region will contract to a height of 0.

Check out the help on regions and check out the Demos.


Neil Huhta

rbuser

Hi

I am using regions anyway, to organise my report components. But if I have
say a dbmemo in the region which for the sake of argument is spaced to take
up the bottom half of the region, it still takes that same space regardless
of whether there is one word or 10 paragraphs in the dbmemo. Setting the
dbmemo (or a region containing the dbmemo) to false will not achieve the
aim, because it still needs to be visible to display its one word, even if
it doesn't need space for 10 paragraphs in this given case.

So I'm not sure what the next thing I need to do is. Before I get the
regions moving relative to each other, I've got to figure out how to resize
the regions depending on the data in its components for a given record, and
before that how to resize how much space the components use depending on the
amount of data in the components, and make adjacent components shift
accordingly.

Thanks!

Lauchlan M

rbuser

Lauchlan:

Use 1 Region for each horizontal area you need to size - maybe even 1
region per memo control. Size the memo control to only hold 1 line & set the
memo stretch property to true. The memo will expand within the region. The
regions will stay positioned vertically one after another.

Is this what you are trying to do ???


Neil Huhta

rbuser

Check the Band properties that these components reside on and make sure that
the PrintHeight is set to 'phDynamic'.

Regards,
Chuck