Saving layout to Template

rbuser

Hi;

As I'm following the tutorial, I came across a question. I see that I
can save my report's layout to an external file or to a database as
BLOB. Then at runtime I can load the layout and print it.

However, even if I save the layout to file, I noticed next time when I
return back to that report at design time, the layout is there without
me loading from file. And that has led me to believe that even though I
had saved it to external file, that layout is STILL being saved into my
EXE, which I'm trying to avoid.

So the question is, if I'm saving my layouts to template or BLOB, how
can I tell RB NOT to save it into EXE?

Thanks!

--
Best regards,
..Ben Hayat
Micro Intelligence Corp.
MicNet@IX.Netcom.Com

rbuser

Hi Ben...

If you drop a TppReport component onto your form and load or create a report
template there, this will stay in your application just as you have noticed.
If you don't want this, you have to either clear this report by saying "New
Report" and deleting the data-views manually afterwards (so you end up with
a fresh blank report) or you do not use this component for creating or
editing reports, which is what I do. I created a small application to design
reports and do not touch the TppReport component of my actual application. I
use the TppDesigner at runtime, which has the up-shot that the template does
not stay in the TppReport component.

I think it would be a nice feature, by the way, to have a property saying
"discard template after close" or similar

Cheers, Marco...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Marco Heine
QUMAS
Enterprise Compliance Management
Visit our Website: www.qumas.com

rbuser

Hi Marco;

Thanks for confirming my findings;

Great idea!

For sure! My main understanding of using Blob/template was to keep the
EXE small. So I hope DM is reading this post and taking note of it.

Thank you!
--
Best regards,
..Ben Hayat
Micro Intelligence Corp.
MicNet@IX.Netcom.Com

digitalmetaphors

We recommend creating the end user reports at runtime with the end user
report designer. Yes, the report and its components which you create on a
form are persistent to the form. You could also delete the report on the
form and drop a new one on, in order to effectively refresh both the layout
and the DADE dataviews:)


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Hi Jim;

user
But these are the reports that I'll be designing and they are going to
be quite a lot. The reports that developer designs, can they be stored
in blob and then use the report explorer so the end-user can select the
report they want (from blob database)? or is the explorer only for end
user developing their own reports?



--
Best regards,
..Ben Hayat
Micro Intelligence Corp.
MicNet@IX.Netcom.Com

digitalmetaphors

Yes, you can create reports in the run time designer. It is called the
EndUser Designer, but in fact it is only because it is scalable, where you
can control which components that the user can see in the toolbar. The cool
thing is that if you have created custom RB components, then you can test
them at runtime by using them in the same runtime designer that your end
users will be using.

The reports you create will be saved in the database by using the report
explorer. You can also launch the designer and save them to ascii file
templates (rtm).

There is one aspect you may want to consider at runtime: there is no object
inspector to play with properties that aren't accessible from the runtime
designer. Most properties are available in the designer.

BTW, we perform our runtime QA by using the report explorer with the
different DADE plugins and different databases.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors