Rave Reports Visual Designer

Anchors

Most visual components have a common property called Anchors. This powerful feature defines how the object will move when its Parent is resized. There are two Anchor values that are set, one for the horizontal and one for the vertical. The default Anchor is set to the top left corner of the Parent control. What this means is that when the Parent (e.g. a Section component) is resized, the component will stay the same distance from the left and top corner of the Parent. Two other Anchor values, Bottom and Right, are very similar in function (they will Anchor to the bottom right corner of the Parent).

The Anchor setting of Center will Anchor the Child component to the Parent's center. Stretch will actually resize the Child component so that it's sides stay the same distance from the Parent.  Stretch is most often used when you want a Child component to always match the width or height of the Parent. Two other special Anchor settings, Resize and Spread are useful for groups of components.  Resize will proportionally resize the components and the spaces between them as the Parent is changed.  Spread will proportionally resize the spaces only (the components will stay the same size) as the Parent changes. Drop down a Section component and place a few rectangles or Text components inside and change the values of those components to see how the Anchor property can affect things.

Anchors can be used to create adaptable Reports when combined with other Reporting features.  Imagine that a Report needs to be defined that can be printed in either landscape or portrait orientation or that the Report may be run on different size papers. Setting the Anchors properly will allow one Report to adjust to these changing conditions.  A typical table listing Report will be composed of a Region component; it's Band components and the Text and DataText components inside each band. If the Region component is set to Anchor Stretch on both vertical and horizontal and the Text and DataText components are all set to a horizontal Anchor of Resize, the Report will adjust to any of these changes.

Other changes, such as the printer's individual waste area, can also be solved with Anchors and will be discussed in the next section.

See Also:

Anchor Editor, Anchor property, Waste Fit more, Waste Fit property