A very useful function of any reporting tool is the ability to turn certain sections of the report on or off depending on the needs of the user. For example, you might want to only show certain sections of a report, or choose to hide the data rows and only show group headings and totals (useful if the user just needs a summary and not the whole thing), or you may want to only show group headers and sub totals where there is more than one data row. This is all pretty basic stuff and you would expect even the most basic of reporting tool to support this function.
You can use a DataBinding to the visibility property to turn it's visibility on and off. This works in so much as it makes whatever you have specified either visible or invisible but it does not support the collapsed function that is standard with most WPF controls. By just making data rows invisible, the report will just show white space (in practice this could be many pages of white space). Obviously, just making areas of the report invisible without collapsing them is rarely of practical use.
Does Infragistics Reporting currently support this collapsed functionality and I've just missed it, or is it something that is likely to be added in the future.
Hi,
Reporting is a rendering/design tool that can be integrated into applications by using Report Viewers.
There is already the capacity to use Conditional Formatting in the design tool to set properties based on the results of the evaluation of conditional expressions. You might like to review this documentation.
http://help.infragistics.com/NetAdvantage/reporting/2013.1/CLR4.0?page=How_to_Use_Conditional_Formatting.html
As described in the documentation this includes “Most of the properties of every control and sections in the report based on the data associated to the report”,…” including visibility, color and font properties, etc.”
Let me know if this is what you had in mind?
Hi Marianne,
Thank you for your reply.
I must apologise for not being clear enough in my original post.
Yes, I am aware that the Infragistics Reporting is a rendering and design tool that can be integrated into reports by using Report Viewers. I have been using it since the very first beta versions and I am aware of both what it is and many of its capabilities and limitations.
I thought I had made it clear that the question was not about whether it was possible to change the format of report objects based upon criteria but rather the way in which the visibility property has been implimented. The question posed was; 'Why Doesn't Infragistics Reporting Support Collapsed as a Visibility State?', not; 'Does Infragistics Reporting support conditional formatting?
Yes, through conditional formatting you can make parts of the report visible or invisible. This works in so much as it makes whatever you have specified either visible or invisible but it does not support the collapsed function that is standard with most WPF controls. By just making data rows invisible, the report will just show white space (in practice this could be many pages of white space). Obviously, just making areas of the report invisible without collapsing them is not always of practical use.
Does Infragistics Reporting currently support this collapsed functionality and I've just missed it, or is it something that is likely to be added in the future?
Here are some examples of scenarios where you might want to use a visibility state of collapsed rather than invisible:
Imagine that you have a report of sales figures grouped by salesman. the user might want to be able to print out the entire report or they may just ant to have the group headers and totals. If the visibility property supported collapsed then the report would simply show a header row and a total for each salesman. By only supporting the Visibility=false then the data rows are all essentially still there just invisible so the report will still be many pages long with the occasional subtotal and group header in the midst of masses of blank space.
Another example might be where you wanted to print out information about a particular salesman. The user may want to have the option to print various details such as, address, contact details, sales figures for the last week/month/year, a photograph, appointment list, telephone call statistics, pipeline summary, etc. If the user were to select only a couple of these options then conditional formatting could be used to specify the areas as Visible=False. However, the report would be filled with lots of blank space where the un-selected options would be if their visibility was set to true.
If Infragistics reporting supported Visibility=Collapsed (as is standard for most WPF controls) then it would be very helpful when producing anything other than the most basic of reports. This is not particularly new or ground-breaking functionality, it has been in most if not all reporting tools for twenty years or more.
I sincerely hope the original question is now clear. It wasn't 'Does Infragistics Reporting support conditional formatting?', rather 'Does Infragistics Reporting support visibility=collapsed?'. And, if it does not, why not and when will it?
Many thanks for your assistance.
Your idea of supporting “Collaped” for the Visibility property of elements within Reports would be considered a new feature for the NetAdvantage Reporting product.
You can suggest new product ideas for future versions (or vote for existing ones) at <http://ideas.infragistics.com>.
The Product Ideas site allows you to suggest new product features, new functionalities in existing products and controls, and even request new controls and products altogether. Members of the Infragistics Community can then vote for the features and suggestions they want to see added to the products, resulting in the most popular features bubbling up to the top. When planning new releases, our Product Management team will look at the most popular features and use your feedback to prioritize upcoming work.
This new Infragistics Product Ideas site is simple to use and we encourage you to take a look at it today:
1) Log into the Infragistics Product Idea site at http://ideas.infragistics.com (creating a new login if needed).
2) Navigate to the product / platform channel of your choice (e.g. WPF, Windows Forms, ASP.NET, HTML5 / Ignite UI, iOS / NucliOS, etc.)
3) Add your product idea and be sure to be specific and provide as much detail as possible. Explain the context in which a feature would be used, why it is needed, why it can’t be accomplished today, and who would benefit from it. You can even add screenshots to build a stronger case. Remember that for your suggestion to be successful, you need other members of the community to vote for it. Be convincing!
The Product Idea site puts you in the driver’s seat and you can even track the progress of your ideas at any time, see how many votes it got, read comments from other developers in the community, and see if someone from the product team has additional questions for you.
Thank you for your suggestion. I’m sure there are others who would also like to see your idea implemented in our product.
Hi Travis,
Good. Our management team pay attention to the most popular ideas and respond to our customers' requests.
If you go to this general site you can also see the other Reporting ideas. You might want to vote for some of them as well.
http://ideas.infragistics.com/forums/211536-reporting
I already voted. thanks
It looks like others agree with you about adding Collapsed. There is a Product Idea that I think you should add your vote to. It appears that the idea is under review.
http://ideas.infragistics.com/forums/211536-reporting/suggestions/4276112-add-collapsed-to-the-visibility-property
Please let me know if I can help you further.
This is pretty ridiculous that this is not supported. I honestly can't even believe this is the case. Makes Reporting nearly useless.