Report Column

A report column defines which property values are listed in the corresponding printed column of a report. The column definition includes attributes for formatting the values of the column and the order of the columns within the report.

Each column defines a property of the object type in the parent reports target collection to be printed in the report. Included in the column definition is the label for the column in the report table. Basic formatting can also be defined for the column, including whether or not the column label should be in bold text, whether or not to word wrap the text within the column, alignment of the values within the column, and the width of the column as a whole.

As an alternative to selecting a property whose value will be displayed in the column, format strings or format text may be specified. To make use of this behavior a column should not be selected, but rather the Format attribute should be set to specify the value to be displayed for each object. This attribute may contain format strings referencing the properties of the object, as well as plain text. This attribute may also be set via the return value of a rule, which will be expected to build the entire string to be displayed in the column for each object.

Report Column Attributes

  • Name: Contains the unique internal name for the report column definition. This value must be unique among report columns within the same report.
  • Label: Contains the column label for the header row of the report table.
  • Object Property: This attribute references the object property to be printed in the column for each object instance in the target collection.
  • Bold Label: This attribute specifies whether or not he label for the column should be printed in bold text. When true the label will be printed with bold text.
  • Wrap: This attribute specifies whether or not the values of the column should be word wrapped. If true the values printed in the report will be word wrapped to fit in the space of the column. If false, the column width will be expanded to allow for the size of the text.
  • Alignment: This attribute specifies the alignment of the text within the column. The options for this attribute are “Left Justified,” “Right Justified,” or “Centered.”
  • Column Width: This attribute specifies the width of the column. The units for this attribute are the number of average sized characters. If left set to Auto, the width of the column will be set by evenly spacing all Auto Width columns within the report, after space is allocated for all columns with a defined width.
  • Format: This attribute can contain a combination of format strings and standard text to specify the format of the values printed in the column. Alternately the value printed in the column can be the return from a rule definition. If a rule is used for this attribute, it will be evaluated once for, and the context of each object instance within the reports target collection property. It is expected to return a string value. If this attribute is set either format text or a rule definition, the Object Property attribute should be set to None.
Parent topic: Module-Level User Interface Definitions Overview