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Painter Bar Report Tools
- New Argus Users don't use, we create reports a different way.
See Modifying Reports and Creating a New Report for an explanation of what ArgusUsers use instead of the New Icon.
- Open Argus Users don't use. We don't use this button. We open reports by clicking on the library icon and selecting them there. The section on Modifying Reports more fully describes how ArgusUsers open reports.
- Save There are two ways to save: 1) click on this save icon, or go into the file menu to save. Be careful with save. Make sure you aren't saving a standard report (that is, writing over a standard report). A much safer practice is to use Save As instead of Save and rename the report. An even better habit is to save the standard report as something else before you begin to change it.
Tip: Whether PowerBuilder is installed on every PC or not, anytime Argus is installed on a PC, the standard reports are installed on the PC. If you accidentally copy over a standard report, you can copy it from another PC or you can reinstall Argus.
See also Report Naming Conventions for instructions on how to facilitate Argus functioning via your report naming conventions. - Text Used to create and modify text in a free text box. To create a free text field, select text icon on the PowerBar, click in the report where you want the field to appear and type the text. Click in the report where you want the field. Type text.
To change text in a free text box, place your focus on the box. Select the A (text icon). While that icon is selected, you can also select a different font and font size. Next to font size are icons for Bold (B), Italics (I), and Underline (U). At end of text bar, are Text aligning icons for text inside the box. This particular feature won't align the boxes in the report, but will align the text inside the boxes. Other icons in dropdown box are features that can also be accessed through the Object menu. - Undo The Undo icon and feature behave as they do in Microsoft Windows. It undoes (or cancels out) the last action
- Clear This eraser-shaped icon behaves it does in Microsoft Windows. It is a delete button.
- Align The Align feature will allow you to choose alignment for all fields in the report or some selected report elements. In order to make this feature work, you must have two or more boxes highlighted. Select report elements and click on the Painter Bar Align box to view a dropdown list of positioning options. Align feature elements include: Align Flush Left, Align Center Horizontal, Align Flush Right, Align Flush Top, Center Vertical, Align Flush Bottom, Size Height and Size Width. In aligning two or more items, the first field clicked determines alignment of subsequent fields clicked. Align works for any field type.
Tip: You probably don't want to use the Align Center Horizontally option. This option aligns boxes centered one on top of the other). Instead, click on the object to use as a marker first (i.e. a line), then press control as you click on the object(s) to align with the first object selected, and click align center vertically.
To increase/decrease the size of an object box, hold your cursor over one of the margins until it turns into a double-headed arrow. To match an object size, click on the object, hold control, and click object boxes to be adjusted, selected size height/width (aligning icon features).
See also Selecting Objects in an Existing Report to learn how to select objects. - Foreground Color Changes text color.
- Background Color Changes background color.
- Currency Format Argus Users don't use. Currency will be formatted using the format tab of the individual field's Property sheet.
See also Formatting with the Property Sheet for instructions this and other formatting tools available for the report as a whole and for individual fields. - Percent Format Argus Users don't use. Percent will be formatted using the format tab of the individual field's Property sheet.
See also Formatting with the Property Sheet for instructions this and other formatting tools available for the report as a whole and for individual fields. - Borders (actually called "Shadow" on the PainterBar icon) Can add a border to a box. Select your border and the appearance of your border via a dropdown list. The default is no border.
- Autosize Height
Adjust size of box to fit data, so that data wraps around and box gets higher to accommodate more data and shorter to accommodate less data. Select Auto Height routinely to prevent truncated data. It is often a good practice to select all the fields in the detail section of the report and select Autosize Height.
See also Selecting Objects in an Existing Report to learn how to select objects. - Slide Above Sliding - works in conjunction with Autosize height. Sliding accommodates moving the boxes to accommodate the varying the placement of text after the autosize height is selected. After completing report, select everything in the detail section of you report and click Slide All above to fill in empty fields. If you still see blank spaces, reselect everything in the detail section and select Slide Directly Above.
- Slide Left This cues PowerBuilder: "ignore any empty space in the box, focus on the size of the data in the placement on the report and slide it left". Slides boxes to the left, based on data size rather than box size. For example, the data boxes sized to accommodate [early date] - [late date] will display as 1991-1999 (a smaller sized data box). This feature is also useful in addresses (pulling city, sState and zip code fields closer together). It is useful for sliding data pulling fields closer to the tags.
- Newspaper Columns Don't use.
- Properties This is the he formatting tab governs defaults for your reports. If you have your focus on the report and not on a specific field or object in the report, it is the properties of the report as a whole you will be modifying. If an individual report element is selected, it is the properties of the that element. You can also get properties by right clicking on the object.
Argus reports are written in pixels and users must start work on reports with the format sheet for the report. On General tab, change PowerBuilder units to Pixels. The PowerBuiler paper orientation is Portrait, but using the Print Specifications tab, you can select Landscape instead. See also Formatting with the Property Sheet for instructions on Property Sheet formatting tools available to the report as a whole and to individual fields. - Tab Order Don't use.
- SQL Used to select tables and fields in creating reports.
See also Creating a New Report for a fuller discussion of the SQL button. The Tables, Table Keys, and Table Joins section will prove vital in creating advanced reports. SQL also plays an important role in creating limiters or data display features covered in the Limiters section of these notes. - Preview Used to preview your report as you create it. You do not want to click on the Preview icon until you have set up limiters for your data. If you click on preview without setting up limiters, you will be viewing your report against your whole database - you may be waiting a long while to see data and in the end your pc may become frozen and return no data. If you accidentally hit the preview icon, click on the stop icon (a red left glove).
The Limiters section of these notes describes how to set up limiters in SQL. - Exit Closes PowerBuilder
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