Resetting AutoSearchFields in RAP

rbuser

I'm using RB 7.04 and am having some difficulty resetting the auto search
fields. I'm trying to use ideas taken from the demo under 5.AutoSearch /
6.Set End-User Search Criteria in Code.

I have a query on the actual form which pulls a record containing operating
summary figures. That record contains the starting and ending transaction
numbers for another query that I want to do in the report. Some reports
will want the additional detail query of the transactions and some will not,
so I want to do this detail in the Report rather than creating another query
in Delphi. So, I have constructed another query in DADE for use in a
subreport as the last section of the report. I have selected the TransNo
field and set it to autosearch so that SQL was generated like the following:

SELECT * FROM TRANS
WHERE ( Trans.TransNo >= 1 )
AND ( Trans.TransNo <= 99 )
ORDER BY Trans.TransNo

Now I want to stop the autodialog from showing, so in the
BeforeAutoSearchDialogCreate event, I have put:
Report.ShowAutoSearchDialog:=False;

That seems to work fine.

Then in the OnGetSearchValues event, I have put:

if (Report.AutoSearchFields[0].FieldName = 'TransNo') then
Report.AutoSearchFields[0].SearchExpression := '1';
if (Report.AutoSearchFields[1].FieldName = 'TransNo') then
Report.AutoSearchFields[1].SearchExpression := '88';

I'm doing this as a test. I actually want to set it to values found in the
two fields in my other table. However, the test does not work. I'm still
getting records with TransNo > 88. Can anyone give me some direction here?
I have tried using 'Trans.TransNo' as the field name too.

One other question. Something is slowing this report way down. When I
click on the Calc tab, it takes about fifteen seconds before it shows.
Compiling just these few lines takes about 10 seconds. When I preview, it
goes fast, but when I go back to the designer, it takes about 15 seconds.
Any tips on why this is happening?

David Miller.

rbuser

I discovered that the code doesn't work when using the preview tab, but it
works fine when the report is actually run from the main application. I
still wonder why the Calc tab takes so long to come up when I click on it.

nicocizik

Hi David,

In RB 7.04, the BeforeShowAutoSearchDialog event may not be firing at the
right time (early enough or at all) to successfully change the AutoSearch
field. In RB 9.02, some new features and events were added to RAP in order
to make this process easier. The TdaSQLBuilder object was added to allow
you to access the SQL object and alter it using a very easy to understand
set of commands. The BeforeOpenDataPipelines and AfterOpenDataPipelines
events were added to give you a chance to make these changes even before the
OnGetAutoSearchValues event fires.

My suggestion would be to download a trial version of RB 9.02 and test your
app with that (backing up any RB 7.04 templates and your RB 7.04
installation file). This may also improve the performance when switching
from the Preview tab to other tabs.

--
Regards,

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

rbuser

Thanks, Nico. I have already purchased a license to version 9.02 Enterprise
and Server Editions, but I cannot use RB9 yet because I have hundreds of
reports that use the RBAddOn components which another Digital Metaphors
person had recommended to me back when I was using RB6 Professional and I
needed better merge capability. Those components have not been upgraded to
version 9, so I am kind of stuck right now until I can make time to redesign
all those reports using RB9. I am not looking forward to that.

Most normal reports I have are pretty fast. The reports that involve this
operating summary are not. The operating summary table has almost 300
fields, and most of these are printing on the report. There also are many
graphic lines and labels, and about 30 calculated variables that were put in
when I was using RB6 professional, so they were not done in RAP. I have one
record spanning two pages using a dynamic height detail band. Are there any
settings I should consider that might enhance performance in this particular
situation? I have two tables on the form which are positioned to the
desired record before invoking RB7, and there are two datapipelines on that
form as well, hooked up to the tables, with RangeBegin and RangeEnd set to
rbCurrentRecord and reCurrentRecord respectively. A direct preview of the
report from the form takes about 15 seconds before the report appears. If I
go to the designer, it comes up pretty quick, but when I click on the calc
tab, there I am waiting about 15 seconds until it fills in. If I go to
preview from there, it is fairly fast, but when I click back on Design, I am
stuck waiting for awhile before it shows. When I used RB6 Pro, I did not
have these delays in previewing the report. Of course, I did not have the
Calc tab either, so I am suspecting the slow down might have to do with
that. As I said before, there are many calc variables that are used that
are hooked to code in Delphi rather than RAP because they were made with RB6
Pro. Could this be part of the reason for the slow down? Would putting all
the code for those calc variables in RAP instead of my Delphi unit help?

David Miller.

rbuser

Here's another clue for you.

If I go into the application and simply preview the report on the screen
without ever going into the designer, the report prints pretty fast.
However, if I go into the designer first, and don't do anything but exit,
and then attempt to preview the report on the screen, it takes about 15
seconds of showing an hour glass before the report shows. Any ideas of why?

David Miller.

nicocizik

Hi David,

Sorry for the delay, somehow my news reader did not pick up your recent
posts until now.

Are you loading templates created in RB6? If so, each time you load one the
report engine needs to parse through the template code and make the proper
changes in order to successfully run the template in RB7. If after this
conversion the template is not saved down, RB will be forced to go through
this process all over again every time the template is loaded.

--
Regards,

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

rbuser

The template was originally created in RB6, but I have saved it again after
loading it in the designer. The template does say Version = '7.04'.

Also, I have my settings set to save the report templates as ASCII. Should
I be saving them as binary for faster loading and processing? I was having
them save as ASCII in case an end user wanted to modify the template in some
way.

David Miller.

nicocizik

Hi David,

Loading the reports from ASCII format will take a bit more processing but
should not take 15 seconds.

If you completely take RAP out of the picture, does everything run as
expected? Are you using the data tab(DADE) to create you datasets for each
report template? Does this take a while to load? Also, which
database/connectivity are you using? Are you accessing data over a network?

--
Regards,

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

rbuser

I'm not sure what you mean by taking RAP COMPLETELY out of the picture. I
have another report that uses the same pipelines, but does not have any RAP
calculations at all. It is a shorter report. It does have many calc
variables, but they do not use RAP. It does not use the DADE either. When
I first loaded it and clicked on the CALC tab, it would take 41 seconds for
the CALC tab to show up. I tested this several times to make sure it was
not a fluke. I realized that this template had been saved under RB6, so I
resaved it under RB7.04, exited the program, then went back into it and
loaded the designer. I also closed some other programs I had open like
Acrobat. Now it will only take 11 seconds when I click on the CALC tab. If
I never go into the designer at all, previewing the report is fast, almost
instantaneous. However, if I go into the designer first, then exit the
designer without doing anything, then preview the report, it will pause for
11 seconds before the report shows. If I preview again, same thing. If I
exit the program, then go back in and preview, it is fast again. The delay
of 11 seconds here is basically the same delay I see if I click on the CALC
tab in the designer. It seems like it must have something to do with memory
allocation and deallocation, but I'm just giving a wild guess. Maybe it has
something to do with all the calc variables that were created under RB6 Pro
and therefore did not use RAP.

My database connectivity is Flash Filer 2.12. I am not accessing data over
the network. It is on a local hard drive. Also, the data is not being
retrieved by DADE. I have two tables that are positioned before calling
Report Builder, and two data pipelines are connected to these tables. There
is no data traversal as the report simply prints from a single record in the
two data files.

David Miller.

nicocizik

Hi David,

Unfortunately we have not seen this behavior before in ReportBuilder. Have
you tried to run a similar test in RB 9.02? If not, you may want to try
this and see if it makes a difference. If this is a bug of some sort, then
we would only be able to address it in the latest version of ReportBuilder
(9.02). I would also recommend trying to use the demo provided with
ReportBuilder and see if you can still get the same behavior.

If at all possible, please put together a small example I can run on my
machine and send it to support@digital-metaphors.com in .zip format so I can
try to get to the bottom of this for you.

--
Regards,

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