Panel

The Panel control is used to group individual report controls.

The Panel control is a container used to keep together any number of report controls. When controls are placed into a Panel, they can be moved, copied and printed as a whole. There are some limitations on Panel usage. One limitation is that the Panel control does not have the Can Shrink property, and so cannot suppress the white space that appears when the controls inside are shrunk or collapsed. Also, the Panel cannot be used in different bands, unlike a cross-band control.

The Panel can also be used for page decoration, for example, to create borders around the controls or add a uniform color background.

On the Properties window, the Panel control properties are divided into the following tabs:

Appearance

Background Color

Specifies the background colour of controls. The functionality is also available on the Report Designer tab ().

Border Color, Border Dash Style, Border Width and Borders

Specifies border settings for controls.

Formatting Rules

Displays the Formatting Rules Editor window, used to choose which rules are applied to a report during report generation, and to define the priority of the applied rules.

Location

Specifies the location of the control in report measurement units.

Padding

Specifies indent values used to render the contents of the controls.

Size

Specifies the size of the control in report measurement units.

Style Priority

Defines the priority of various styles (for example, background colour or border colour).

Styles

Defines odd and even styles for the controls, as well as assigning an existing style to the them (or a newly created one).

Behavior

Anchor Horizontally

Specifies the horizontal anchoring style of the control, so that after page rendering it stays attached to the left control, right control, or both. The property setting is useful for data-bound controls located between controls, which are able to resize depending on their contents.

Anchor Vertically

Specifies the vertical anchoring style of the control, so that after page rendering it stays attached to the top control, bottom control, or both. The property setting is useful for data-bound controls located between upper and lower controls, which are able to resize depending on their contents.

If the Anchor Vertically property is set to Bottom or Both, the Can Grow property values are ignored, and are not considered when calculating a final control height value.

Can Grow

If the check box is selected, the panel control height is automatically increased, if required, to fit the text. If there are other controls below the current panel control, they are moved down to prevent them from overlapping. Note that if a control overlaps the grown panel control, it is not moved down by the expanded control.

Can Publish

Specifies whether or not the control can be printed or exported.

Keep Together

Specifies whether the contents of the control can be horizontally split across pages. In other words, if the control occupies more space than remains on the page, the property specifies whether the control is split between the current page and the next, or printed entirely on the next page. If the control does not fit on the next page either, the control is split, regardless of the property value.

Scripts

Contains events which can be handled with scripts.

Visible

Specifies whether the control is visible when using the print preview.

Data

(Data Bindings)

If the current report is bound to data, the property is used to bind control properties (Bookmark, Navigation URL, Tag and Text) to a data field obtained from the report data source, and to apply a format string.

Tag

Adds additional information to a report, for example, the id, by which the report can then be accessible via scripts.

If the current report has a data source, the Tag property can be bound to a data field obtained from the data source. To do this, expand the (Data Bindings) property and from the Tag > Binding drop-down list, select the required data field.

Miscellaneous

(Name)

Determines the name of the control, by which it can be accessed in the Report Explorer, Properties window or via scripts.

Bookmark and Parent Bookmark

These properties are used to create a hierarchical structure within a report called a document map.

If the current report has a data source, the Bookmark property can be bound to a data field, obtained from the data source. To do this, expand the Data > Data Bindings drop-down list and select the required data field.

Navigation URL and Navigation Target

Use the Navigation URL property to specify a URL for web browser navigation when the control is clicked. The web browser displays a page in a window or a frame as specified in the Navigation Target property.

Note: A URL must have an appropriate prefix for example, 'http://'). Cross-references can be created within the report by assigning the name of the target control to the Navigation URL property, and setting the Navigation Target property to ‘_self'.

If the current report has a data source, the Navigation URL property can be bound to a data field obtained from the data source. To do this, expand the Data > Data Bindings drop-down list and select the required data field.

Right to Left

Specifies the content orientation of the controls.

Snap Line Margins

Specifies the margins for the control, which are maintained when the control is aligned using snap lines.

Snap Line Padding

Specifies indent values used to render the contents of the band, which are maintained when the control is aligned using snap lines.

Favorites

Right-click on the Favorites tab and select Edit Favorite Property List to display the Favorite Properties Editor, which is used to customise the available properties on the Favorites tab.

Refer to Conditionally Modify Control Display, Styles Concepts, Handle Events via Scripts, Display Values from a Database (Bind Report, Controls to Data), Add Bookmarks and Create Hyperlinks for further information.