Code On Time: Application Builder

Thursday, December 20, 2012Print Subscribe

If the report was created at this time, it will look like the picture below.

There are still a few things to change:

Right-align field labels in the second column.
Format Unit Price, Extended Price, Subtotal, Freight, and Total as currency.
Format Order Date, Required Date, and Shipped Date on the left side, and hide the time.
Format Discount as percentage.

Right-Align

In Visual Studio report designer, select all field labels in the right-hand column by clicking on them while holding Ctrl key. On the toolbar, press the Align Right icon.

Format as Currency

Right-click on the cell containing Unit Price, and press Text Box Properties.

Switch to the Number section, and select “Currency” from the list.

Press OK to save. Perform the same operation on Subtotal, Freight, Total, and Extended Price text boxes.

Format As Date

Select the three date fields: Order Date, Required Date, and Shipped Date. Press the Align Left button on the toolbar.

Right-click on the first field, Order Date, and press Text Box Properties.

Switch to Number section, and make the following changes.

Property	Value
Category	Date
Type	*Monday, January 31, 2000

The screen will look like below:

Press OK to save. Make the same changes to Required Date and Shipped Date fields.

Format as Percentage

Right-click on Discount field, and press Text Box Properties.

Switch to the Number section, and select Percentage from the list.

Press OK to save. Make sure to save the report file as well.

Finalized Report

Now that the minor imperfections have been removed, the report will look more like the picture below.

The next step will be to add an action that will activate the report.

Labels: Application Builder, Reports, Web Application Generator

Thursday, December 20, 2012Print Subscribe

Order Form Sample–Part 35

Let’s add header and footer elements that will display information about the order.

Header

Drag the Text Box item from the Toolbox into the center of the header area.

Double-click on the text box and type in “Order #[OrderID]”. The bracketed statement will automatically be replaced by an expression that evaluates as the OrderID of the first order detail at run-time.

Select all the text. On the toolbar, set the Font Size to “20”. Make the text bold and underlined. Using the handles on the textbox, expand the box so that all the text is visible on one line.

Drag two more Text Box elements onto the left side of the header. Insert the following text:

Text

Customer:

[OrderCustomerCompanyName]

Bold the text in the first box, and expand the second text box.

Configure a few more text boxes shown next.

Employee:	[OrderEmployeeLastName]
Order Date:	[OrderOrderDate]
Required Date:	[OrderRequiredDate]
Shipped Date:	[OrderShippedDate]

This is how the header may look in the report designer.

Create five more pairs of text boxes in the next column.

Address:	[OrderShipAddress]
City:	[OrderShipCity]
Region:	[OrderShipRegion]
Postal Code:	[OrderShipPostalCode]
Country:	[OrderShipCountry]

For reference, see the next picture.

Footer

Insert the following text box pairs in the left side of the footer area:

Ship Name:	[OrderShipName]
Ship Via:	[OrderShipViaCompanyName]

On the right side of the footer, add placeholders for Subtotal, Freight, and Total.

Subtotal:
Freight:	[OrderFreight]
Total:

The footer will look as in the following screenshot:

The Subtotal and Total fields need to be calculated. Right-click on the text box to the right of “Subtotal”, and press Expression.

Specify the following expression:

Property	Value
Expression	=Sum(Fields!ExtendedPrice.Value, "OrderDetails")

Press OK to insert the expression into the text box.

Right-click on the text box next to “Total”, and press Expression. Specify the following expression:

Property	Value
Expression	=Sum(Fields!ExtendedPrice.Value, "OrderDetails") + First(Fields!OrderFreight.Value, "OrderDetails")

Press OK to save.

The last step is to perform some minor changes to the rendering of data.

Labels: Application Builder, Reports, Web Application Generator

Saturday, December 15, 2012Print Subscribe

Order Form Sample–Part 33

Let’s prepare the report template for customization.

On the Project Designer toolbar, press Develop to open the project in Visual Studio.

In the Solution Explorer, double-click on ~\Reports\OrderDetails_report1.rdlc file.

The default report template includes all the fields present in the view.

Let’s start over with a clean slate. Press Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut to select all elements in the report. Right-click and press Delete.

The report implementation strategy requires either filtering or grouping of data.

Strategy	Description
Simple Filtered Report	This template requires data filtering for accurate presentation of data. It is easier to implement.
Report with Multi-Level Grouping	This template groups order details first by CustomerID, and then by OrderID. The data does not have to be pre-filtered for accurate presentation. The report customization is more complex.

Labels: Application Builder, Reports, Web Application Generator