Report Bands


The Advanced Report Designer is a "band-oriented" designer. That is, objects that appear in the report appear in one of several bands. The types of bands available are:

A report consists of, at a minimum, Page Header, Detail, and Page Footer bands. In addition, Stonefield Query creates a Summary band to hold report totals, although you can remove this band if you wish, and there is one Group Header and Group Footer band per grouped field. Bands are shown as an area in the designer window with a grey bar below it; the name of the band appears in the grey bar. For example, in the image below, the Detail band is everything between the grey bar labeled "Page Header" and the grey bar labeled "Detail."

To change the height of a band, click the band's grey bar and drag it up or down. You can also change the height in the Properties dialog for the band (discussed next). You cannot make a band smaller than the bottom of the lowest object in the band.

Properties Dialogs

Each band has its own Properties dialog where you can change certain things about the band. To access the Properties dialog, double-click the grey bar or choose Edit Bands from the Report menu, then select the band you wish to edit.

The Page Header, Page Footer, Group Footer, Column Header, Column Footer, Title, and Summary bands have similar Properties dialogs.

These dialogs have the following options:

The Group Header Band Properties dialog has some additional options. On the General page, the Group expression setting specifies the expression used for the data group. The Data Grouping page has the same options as the Data Grouping page in the Report Properties dialog.

The Detail Band Properties dialog has an additional Band page with more options.

All band dialogs have an Other page where you can enter a comment about the band. Click the Edit comment button to display a dialog in which you can enter the desired comment.