Firebird report
lazarus / 16-Databases

----------------------------------------------------------------------
SennTech · 2012-04-12 19:37

Hello, I am new and not sure if this is the right section. I am coming
from MS Access. I have used Firebird before with C++, but am really
interested in Lazarus. I have 2 questions.

1) In the Access report writer, there is a property for the text
widgets and for the bands called "Can Shrink", which allows the widget
/ band to collapse to a 0 height for records where a particular field
is empty or blank, but return to normal size for records where the
field value is present. Its purpose is to eliminate useless white
space in a report. I have not been able to reproduce this with
LazReport / Firebird. Is there a way to do this? If not, could someone
provide advice on how to accomplish this. Another report writer or
modifying LazReport are both viable options.

2) What are the pros / cons of using the built in IBConnect, etc. vs.
using IBX for Lazarus. I am drawn to IBX because it has support for
password maintenance, backups and other server utilities that don't
seem to be present in the stock package.

Any guidance would be appreciated.
Mike

----------------------------------------------------------------------
jamhitz · 2012-04-13 16:51

Quote from: SennTech on April 12, 2012, 09:37:16 pm1) In the Access
report writer, there is a property for the text widgets and for the
bands called "Can Shrink", which allows the widget / band to collapse
to a 0 height for records where a particular field is empty or blank,
but return to normal size for records where the field value is
present. Its purpose is to eliminate useless white space in a report.
I have not been able to reproduce this with LazReport / Firebird. Is
there a way to do this? If not, could someone provide advice on how to
accomplish this. Another report writer or modifying LazReport are both
viable options.


In LazReport set the "Stretched" property to true for both the widget
in question, as well as the band.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
SennTech · 2012-04-14 16:12

Quote from: jamhitz on April 13, 2012, 06:51:37 pmIn LazReport set the
"Stretched" property to true for both the widget in question, as well
as the band.

Yes, I found the stretched property. It seems to be the same as
something called "Can Grow" in Access. I believe I am talking about
the opposite of that, where the report would print:

[field 1]
[field 3]

with no space between them if field 2 was blank, but on the next
record it would print:

[field 1]
[field 2]
[field 3]

if field 2 was not blank

So far I am still getting:

[field 1]
     blank space
[field 3]

if field 2 is blank

Are you saying that the stretched property should have the behaviour
shown in the first of the 3 examples above? If so, that would be great
because it would mean that my field 2 is not truly blank / empty /
null or whatever condition is necessary to trigger that behaviour, and
that would probably be much easier to fix.

Thank you for your response.
Mike

----------------------------------------------------------------------
jamhitz · 2012-04-15 19:34

QuoteAre you saying that the stretched property should have the
behaviour shown in the first of the 3 examples above? If so, that
would be great because it would mean that my field 2 is not truly
blank / empty / null or whatever condition is necessary to trigger
that behaviour, and that would probably be much easier to fix.
Try to make both the height of the widget  and band very small.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
SennTech · 2012-04-16 15:15

Quote from: jamhitz on April 15, 2012, 09:34:23 pmTry to make both the
height of the widget  and band very small.

I tried that strategy at the beginning, however I have since found
that the stretched property did not work going down, only across, it
was a bug. I have downloaded the snapshot where it is fixed. The
widget will now 'grow' down, but is still does not 'push' the widget
below it down, so I still have the same problem.

If I make field 2 in the example above 0 or 1 in height, I have to set
the top property of field 3 to 1 or 2 larger than the top property of
field 2 in order to get rid of the space that field 2 occupied. This
works if field 2 is blank. But if field 2 has content, it prints, and
then the content from field 3 prints over the top of it because of the
small difference in the top properties (field 3 does not get 'pushed'
down).

Thank you once again for your time and thoughts.
Mike