Frame control can be placed on any of the report sections. To place frame control on report canvas,
- On the Desktop Studio screen, open the report in which the frame control is to be placed.
- Click Frame option from Insert.
- Click
tool button. The mouse pointer turns to a cross-hair. Point to the top left corner of the area you want to cover in frame and drag it to bottom-right corner.
Figure 2:Placement of Frame control
Properties pane displays default properties of the selected frame control, which you can change, if required.
To place field controls on a frame, drag corresponding fields from Fields list to the frame on canvas.
Figure 3: Three fields and one Label placed on frame
Label, field, checkbox, image, line, and shapes can be placed on a frame. Chart, crosstab, page break, sub-report, barcode, and databar cannot be placed on frame. You can set individual properties of controls placed on frame by selecting a control and changing properties from Properties pane.
Using Frame
When you place multiple controls on a frame, you can manage all the controls (like its visibility) at one go.
- Create a character type parameter UserType. For more information, refer to Desktop Studio – Report Parameters
- In detail section, place a frame control A and place fields Product ID, Product Name and Sales_92 on it.
- In detail section, place a frame control B and place fields Product Name, Sales_92 and Sales 93 on it.
- Select Detail Section and on its OnFormat event, write script to:
- Set Visible property of Frame A as False.
- Set Visible property of Frame B as False.
- Check the value of parameter UserType: (i) if value is “A” set Visible property of Frame A as True. (ii) if value is “B” set Visible property of Frame B as True.
When report is executed, Input Parameter Form will appear where user will provide parameter value. If user has entered ‘A’, Frame A will be displayed in the report. If user has entered ‘B’, Frame B will be displayed in the report.
Scripting
Using scripting, you can display or hide a frame dynamically at run time.
For example, for a report, you need to:
- If for parameter UserType, user specifies “A”, display Product ID, Product Name and Sales_92 in detail section.
- If for parameter UserType, user specifies “B”, display Product type, and it should display Product Name, Sales_92 and Sales 93.
To achieve this, you should set up frames as described in Using Frame section.