Detail Report Bands (for Master-Detail Reports)

The Detail Report Band is a type of band used to incorporate one report into another in master-detail reports.

The Detail Report Band is quite different from the Detail Band since it holds the whole detail report in a master-detail report layout.

There can be an unlimited number of Detail Report Bands nested inside one another, and every new group of bands is coloured differently in Reporting, as illustrated below:

The Detail Report Band cannot be added to a report via the Report Editor like other band types. To add a Detail Report Band, right-click the report and in the Context menu, point to Insert Detail Report. If the bound data source contains a data relationship, the submenu will contain an item with the name of that relationship. Select this item to create a Detail Report Band already bound to a detail table. Otherwise, add an unbound detail report and specify its properties later.

In the Property Grid, the properties of this band are divided into the following groups:

Appearance

• Background Color

  Specifies the background colour for the controls contained within the band. This option is also available on the Formatting Toolbar ().

• Borders, Border Color and Border Width

  Specifies border settings for the controls contained within the band.

• Font

  Specifies the font settings for the controls contained within the band. Some of these settings are available on the Formatting Toolbar.

• Foreground Color

  Specifies the text colour for the controls contained within the band. This option is also available on the Formatting Toolbar ().

• Formatting Rules

  Displays the Formatting Rules Editor, used to choose which rules should be applied to the band during report generation, and define the precedence of the applied rules. for further information, refer to Conditionally Change a Control's Appearance.

  

• Padding

  Specifies indent values which are used to render the contents of the controls contained within the band.

• Text Alignment

  Used to change the text alignment of the controls contained within the band. This option is also available in the Formatting Toolbar.

Behavior

• Page Break

  Use this property if the current report design requires that the band's section should be separated from previous sections or follow-ups. Specify the Before the Band or After the Band values to insert a page break before or after the current band. In many cases, this property may be used instead of the Page Break control.

• Scripts

  This property contains events, which can be handled with the scripts. for further information on scripting, refer to Handle Events via Scripts.

• Visible

  Specifies whether the band should be visible when the report is previewed.

Data

• Data Adapter

  Determines the data adapter that provides the detail data for the report. for further information, refer to Master-Detail Report (Detail Report Bands).

• Data Member

  Determines a name of the data relationship established within the bound data source. for further information, refer to Master-Detail Report (Detail Report Bands).

• Data Source

  Determines the data source that provides the detail data for the report. If this property is not defined, the detail report gets data from the master report's data source. for further information, refer to Master-Detail Report (Detail Report Bands).

• Filter String

  Used to display the Filter String Editor, used to define a filtering condition for a detail report's data. for further information, refer to Change or Apply Data Filtering to a Report.

  

• Tag

  This property is used to add additional information to the band; for example its Id, by which it can then be accessible by scripts.

• XML Data Path

  Used to define a path to data contained in an XML file. The data contained in the file will then be used as the Detail Report Band's data source.

  In this case, the Data Member property will specify the bound list in the XML data source.

  Note: That a detail report uses the XML Data Path property value only when the Data Source property is set to None. The XML Data Path property has a lower priority than the Data Source property.

Design

• (Name)

  Determines a band's name, by which it can be accessed in the Report Explorer, Property Grid or by scripts.

Misc

• Bands

  Used to display the Report Editor for managing and customizing a report's bands.

• Level

  Specifies the order of several Detail Report Band objects in a report. It enables the reordering of different Detail Report Bands at the same level of master-detail relationships.

• Print when Data Source is Empty

  Specifies whether or not a Detail Report Band should be printed if its data source is empty.