Field Auto Size feature

rbuser

Hi,
I would like to display in the DBText with '*****' characters if the
actual data size exceed the size of the displayable width. I needed to set
the AutoSize of the DBText to false due to some reasons. Any suggestion
will be appreciated.

Thomas Liaw

digitalmetaphors

This can be accomplished by placing a Variable on the form in place of the
DBText and making sure the type of the variable is String and that no
formatting is applied. In the OnCalc of the Variable pull the data of
interest from the data pipeline as a string, compute it's pixel width, and
compare it to the width of the Variable field to see if the String will fit.
Below is sample code that pulls a data string from the pipeline and, if it
is too wide, fills theVariable field with '*'s.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------

function TForm1.WidthInReportUnits(aString: String): Single;
var
liWidthPixels: Integer;
liWidthMM: Integer;
begin

{ Get the width of the string }
liWidthPixels := ppReport1.Printer.Canvas.TextWidth(aString);

{ Convert width to report units }
liWidthMM := ppToMMThousandths(liWidthPixels, utPrinterPixels,
pprtHorizontal, ppReport1.Printer);
Result := ppFromMMThousandths(liWidthMM, ppReport1.Units, pprtHorizontal,
ppReport1.Printer);

end;


procedure TForm1.ppVariable1Calc(Sender: TObject; var Value: Variant);
var
lsString: String;
liStringWidth: Single;
liStarCount: Integer;
liIndex: Integer;
begin

Value := '';

// retrieve the desired data value as a string
lsString := ppReport1.DataPipeline.GetFieldForName('Company').AsString;

// compute the string width
liStringWidth := WidthInReportUnits(lsString);

// if that width is less than the text field, the value fits
if (liStringWidth <= ppVariable1.Width) then
Value := lsString

// otherwise...
else
begin
// compute width of one star character
liStringWidth := WidthInReportUnits('*');

// compute the number of start needed to fill the field
liStarCount := Trunc(ppVariable1.Width / liStringWidth);

// build the string of stars
for liIndex := 0 to liStarCount - 1 do
Value := Value + '*';
end;

end;


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------

--
Cheers,

Alexander Kramnik
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Hi Alex,
Thanks you for your reply. It is certainly not so simple to implement
for what I saked for.
For most of my situations, my concern is on the numeric fields rather
than string fields. There are limited space for us to put the numeric
results fields on the report form and setting autosize to true will make the
DBText all overlapped one another and making my support personnel a hard
time in field support. So we have to set the DBText to non-autosize and
make sure no overlaping amount the fields. In certain condition where we
underestimate the amount of the numeric result, the DBText will automatic
trancate the print out, making the end user thinking is a incorrect
calculation but in fact is the insufficient width in DBText. If Report
Builder have an options for the report designer to print just '****' in this
kind of situation, we can easily educate the end users and thus making
support personnel easier to support them. I guess this can be only put into
the wish list. If you do have a solution that I can write it as an wrapper
function, said to ppReport, please let me know (We have thousands of such
numeric fileds).

Thomas Liaw

digitalmetaphors

You can provide such a solution to your end-users by creating a custom
component. An example of a static sized DBText component has been created
and can be obtained from
www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/CustomDBTextComponent.zip. You can include
the package in the example with your report to provide the component in the
designer at run time or install it in delphi to provide the component in
report designer at design time.

--
Cheers,

Alexander Kramnik
Digital Metaphors