Rave Reports Visual Designer

Project Tree Panel

The Project Tree panel is a very informative part of the Rave designer and it also provides an easy way to navigate the reporting project structure.

For now just the parts of the Project Tree will be examined. More details are covered in the "Main Screen" "Project Tree Panel" section. There are three main nodes in the Project Tree: Report Library, Global Page Catalog, and Data View Dictionary. Each of these nodes (and any sub nodes) can be expanded or collapsed by clicking on the plus/minus symbol. Sub-nodes can be created and added, by selecting a desired option (New Report, New Global Page, and New Data Object) from the Project Menu.

The Report Library node is where all of the reports within the project are contained. Each report will have one or more pages. Each of those pages will normally have one or more components within them.

The Global Page Catalog node is where reporting templates are managed. The reporting templates can contain one or more components. These reporting templates can then be reused via Rave's unique mirroring technology. This could include items such as letter headings and footers, pre-printed forms, watermark designs or complete page definitions that could be the foundation for other reports.

The Data View Dictionary node is where all the data connections for reports are defined. A data view retrieves data from the application through data connections installed within that application.