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 of them 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 report elements or add a uniform colour background.

In the Property Grid, the Panel control's properties are divided into the following groups:

Appearance

• Background Color

  Specifies the background colour for the control.

• Borders, Border Color and Border Width

  Specify border settings for the control.

• Formatting Rules

  Displays the Formatting Rules Editor, used to choose which rules should be applied to the control 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 control.

• Style Priority

  Used to define the priority of various style elements (such as background colour, border colour, ). for further information on style inheritance, refer to Styles Concepts.

• Styles

  This property is used to define odd and even styles for the control, as well as to assign an existing style to the control (or a newly created one). for further information on style inheritance, refer to Styles Concepts.

Behavior

• 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.

  Note: If the Anchor Vertically property is set to Bottom or Both, the Can Grow property setting (see below) is ignored, and is not considered when calculating a final height value of this control.

• Can Grow

  When this property is set to Yes, the control's height can be automatically increased, if required, to fit the text. If there are other controls below the current control, they will be pushed down to prevent them from overlapping. That if a control overlaps the growing Panel by even one pixel, it will not be pushed down by the expanded Panel.

• 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, this property specifies whether this control should be split between the current page and the next, or whether it will be printed entirely on the next page. If a control does not fit on the next page either, then the control will be split despite this property's value.

• 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 control should be visible when the report is previewed.

Data

• (Data Bindings)

  If the current report is bound to data, this property enables users to bind some of the control's properties (Bookmark, Navigation URL and Tag) to a data field obtained from the report's data source, and to apply a format string to it. for further information, refer to Display Values from a Database (Bind Report Elements to Data).

• Tag

  This property enables users to add additional information to the control; for example its Id, by which it can then be accessed by 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 dropdown list, select the required data field.

Design

• (Name)

  Determines a control's name, by which it can be accessed in the Property Grid and by scripts.

Layout

• Location

  Specifies the control's location, in report measurement units.

• Size

  Specifies the control's size, in report measurement units.

Navigation

• Bookmark and Parent Bookmark

  These properties are used to create a hierarchical structure within a report called a document map. For an explanation and help, refer to Add Bookmarks.

  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 Bindings) property and from the Bookmark.Binding dropdown list, select the required data field.

• Navigation URL and Navigation Target

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

  Note: A URL should 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. for further information, refer to Create Hyperlinks.

  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 Bindings) property and from the Navigation URL.Binding dropdown menu, select the required data field.