The Scheduler's Report Designer

• Aug 02, 2022
• 5 minutes to read

This topic describes the scheduler’s report designer – a dialog used to manage the report format.

An end-user uses the report designer to modify the report’s settings: specify the print range, select a print style, and specify the appearance and style of the scheduler’s report.

When working with the Print Preview dialog, an end-user can open the report designer in the following manner:

• By clicking the Design Report button on the toolbar.

• By double-clicking within the blank rectangles of the client clipping area in the Print Preview dialog.

• By using the Ctrl+D shortcuts.

• By selecting the File menu’s Design… item.

The TcxfmSchedulerReportLinkDesignWindow class is responsible for the report designer implementation. In code, the report designer is invoked using the TcxfmSchedulerReportLinkDesignWindow.Execute method.

The report designer dialog contains four tabbed pages (described in the order of tabs). Associated API elements are given in parentheses.

• Print Ranges contains Start and End combo boxes (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintRange.PrintFrom and TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintRange.PrintTo properties). These options allow an end-user to edit the report’s date range.

• Print Styles contains the print styles combo box and a set of corresponding options for each print style.

Eight print styles are provided to an end-user – five Time View print styles (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.Daily, TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.Weekly, TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.Monthly, TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.TimeLine and TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.Yearly properties), the Tri-fold (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.Trifold property), the Details (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.Details property) and the Memo print style (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.Memo property).

Time View print styles share the following settings:

• Layout (see the TcxCustomSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyle.Layout property) – allows an end-user to specify how many pages are to be per period;

• Resources per page (see the TcxCustomSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyle.ResourceCountPerPage property) – allows an end-user to specify how many resources are to be per page (except the Yearly print style);

• Task pad and notes panes (see the TcxCustomSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyle.ShowTaskPad, TcxCustomSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyle.ShowNotesAreaBlank and TcxCustomSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyle.ShowNotesAreaLined property) – allow an end-user to specify whether the task pad, plain notes and lined notes panes are to be included in the report.

The Daily, Weekly and TimeLine print styles have common options – the report’s start and end times (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintRange.TimePrintFrom and TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintRange.TimePrintTo properties).

The Weekly, Monthly and TimeLine print styles have the option Don’t Print Weekends – which allows end-users to specify whether weekends are to be included in the report (see the TcxCustomSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyle.DontPrintWeekends property). Additionally, the Weekly print style contains the Arrange option – allows an end-user to specify how days in the report are sorted (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkWeeklyPrintStyle.Arrange property).

In the Monthly print style, the option Print Exactly One Month Per Page – allows an end-user to specify whether the page contains one month exactly or encompasses the dates in adjacent months (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkMonthlyPrintStyle.PrintExactlyOneMonthPerPage property).

The TimeLine print style (TcxSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyles.TimeLine) allows end-users to specify the optional visibility of time scales and page headers in consequent pages (Primary Page Scales Only and Primary Page Headers Only), and also the optional visibility of nonworking time (Work Time Only).

The Yearly print style exposes one option – Primary page headers only – to specify whether to show the page header and month headers only in the first page of the scheduler’s report (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkYearlyPrintStyle.PrimaryPageHeadersOnly property). It is in effect if the layout of the scheduler’s report is two pages per month (see the TcxCustomSchedulerReportLinkPrintStyle.Layout property).

The Tri-fold print style has options which allow an end-user to specify what views are to be included in the report’s three sections (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkTrifoldPrintStyle.LeftSection, TcxSchedulerReportLinkTrifoldPrintStyle.MiddleSection and TcxSchedulerReportLinkTrifoldPrintStyle.RightSection properties).

The Details print style contains the option Start a New Page Each: – this option is used to specify whether to use pagination mode and if so, the type of pagination mode – by days, weeks or months (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkDetailsPrintStyle.UsePagination and TcxSchedulerReportLinkDetailsPrintStyle.PaginationMode properties).

And lastly, the Memo print style has the following options: Start Each Item On New Page and Print Only Selected Events. The first option is used to specify whether one user event is to be displayed per page (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkMemoPrintStyle.StartEachItemOnNewPage property) and the latter option is used to specify whether only the selected user events (or all the user events) are to be displayed within the specified print range (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkMemoPrintStyle.SelectedEventsOnly property).

• Formatting contains the following options:

• Look and Feel combo box – this option is used to specify the report appearance.

• Suppress Background Textures checkbox (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkOptionsFormatting.SuppressBackgroundBitmaps property) – this option is used to specify whether to show or hide the background bitmaps in the report.

• Suppress Content Coloration checkbox (see the TcxSchedulerReportLinkOptionsFormatting.SuppressContentColoration property) – this option is used to specify whether to display the report in monochrome or in color (when in preview mode).

• Styles contains the Use Native Styles checkbox which allows the specified styles to be applied to the corresponding report elements (see the corresponding properties of the TcxSchedulerReportLinkStyles class). An end-user can also create and store the sheets of the specified styles which then can be loaded into the report designer, if necessary.