Base Report Builder much better, but...

users
#1

Greetings,
Using LO 3.6.7.2 under Linux.
I have just worked with Base Report Builder for a few hours and I must admit, it is *much* faster now than the last time I worked with it. Congrats to the devs for fixing the sloth bug(s).

However, I still see that lines still are not supported. It appears as if I am inserting horizontal lines in my report, but they do not print. I do not see any way to make them thicker, in case that is the problem.

Second, the Report Headers do not seem to work as I expected. The Report Footer section seems to be okay, but the Report Header section is under the Page Header on each page. I expected them to be reversed - the Report Header first, followed by the Page Header, the latter which goes on each page, the former goes on the first page only. As it is, the Page Header and Report Header are the same thing, going on each page. Is there a way to move the Report Header to page one only or is this a known bug?

The first is a human readability issue and the second would save paper, making room for more record data without my full headers on each page. Neither one is a show-stopper for me, just a would-be-nice if it were fixed.

Thanks again.
Girvin Herr

#2

Hi Girvin,

However, I still see that lines still are not supported. It appears as
if I am inserting horizontal lines in my report, but they do not print.
I do not see any way to make them thicker, in case that is the problem.

I don't know whether this has been fixed yet in current release versions of 4.x, if Robert is reading, he might know more about that.

Second, the Report Headers do not seem to work as I expected. The
Report Footer section seems to be okay, but the Report Header section is
under the Page Header on each page. I expected them to be reversed -
the Report Header first, followed by the Page Header, the latter which
goes on each page, the former goes on the first page only. As it is,
the Page Header and Report Header are the same thing, going on each
page. Is there a way to move the Report Header to page one only or is
this a known bug?

There are many ReportBuilder bugs in successive release versions - some get fixed in one version and others appear, these then get fixed and still others appear or re-appear - it seems to be an ever-changing landscape. Your best bet to find out is Bugzilla, but I'm pretty sure that what you are experiencing is a known bug.

Additionally, the problem might depend on the distributor of the LO version you are using. Ubuntu PPA versions of LO, for example, tend to have their own additional bugs, especially in extensions (like the ReportBuilder).

Alex

#3

Hi Girvin,
I did also have the problem of horizontal lines not working. However, they do
appear correctly now under LO 4.1.2.3. My system is Linux-Mint-15, 32 bit.
But then - as I have mentioned before (and filed a bug report) - time-values
don't appear correctly both in Base as such and of course in report builder
as a consequence. Everything works o.k. when using JDBC (for the time being...)
It's a never-ending story!
Regards
Heinrich

#4

Alex

Alex,
For the record, I am using the binary RPM I downloaded from the LO website. So, I doubt this would be the problem. As I said, this is not a work-stopper for me, just a query (pun?) to see if anyone had a fix or work-around. It should get fixed sooner or later. I am primarily glad this version is running at a reasonable speed, unlike previous versions I tried to use and gave up for a 3rd-party report builder which had its own set of bugs. That report builder also had problems with inserting lines - option in the menu, but did nothing. However, it did do report headers properly.

Thanks.
Girvin

#5

Heinrich,
Thanks for the heads-up on 4.1.2.3 lines working. I plan to try 4.x when it gets to 4.1.5+. I will try that Report Builder at that time. I am currently using Slackware 14.0 Linux, 3.2.29 32-bit SMP kernel, MySQL 5.5.29, mysql-connector-java-5.1.18, LO 3.6.7.2 and KDE 4.8.5.

I am aware of the talk on this forum regarding the time values. I am using the MySQL Connector Java for my interface to my MySQL database, so I may not run into that problem, but I will look for it, since I do use times as well as dates. There is also a migration to mariadb in the future for me.

Thanks again.
Girvin

#6

Hi All

I've had some success at last!!

Using Shane Piper's Tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcudVETPePY I have got my sub-Forms working fine.

My last problem was with Opening a Form with a Button and again Shane has a Tutorial on this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zmd-zidIvg

But I have been unable to get it to work on LO 4.1.1.2.
Today I started my old machine running LO 3.6.5.2 and it works fine on that machine!!!
(Both machines running PClinuxOS)

The Macro is ...

REM ***** BASIC *****
Sub OpenStoryForm
const sNewDocumentName = "Database Name.Form Name"
oNewFormDocument = ThisDatabaseDocument.FormDocum­ents.getbyname(sNewDocumentNam­e).open
End Sub

We have tried with and without the <Database Name> and with and without the '.' between the two -
but no difference. Nothing happens at all when you click on the Button.

Has anyone seen this or knows of a reason for this?
I'm thinking of dropping back to LO 4.0 and see if it works on that.

Thanks for any info

IanW
Pretoria RSA