ActiveReports allows you to hide or show information from the data source in the Detail section of your report based on conditions in your data. This can be achieved by setting properties of the section in the Format event based on certain conditions.

This walkthrough illustrates how to create a report based on conditions that will show specific data from your data source at run time.

This walkthrough is split up into the following activities:

• Adding an ActiveReport to a Visual Studio project
• Connecting the report to a data source
• Adding controls to the report to contain data
• Adding code to retrieve data from the data source
• Adding conditions in code to the Format event
• Viewing the report 

To complete the walkthrough, you must have access to the NorthWind database (NWind.mdb).

When you have completed this walkthrough, you will have a report that looks similar to the following.

Adding an ActiveReport to a Visual Studio project

To add an ActiveReport to your project

1. Open a new project in Visual Studio.
2. Click on Project > Add New Item.
3. Select ActiveReports file and rename the file rptCondSH.
4. Click Open.

Connecting the report to a data source

To connect the report to a data source

1. Click on the yellow report DataSource icon in the Detail section. This brings up the report DataSource dialog box.
2. Click on Build...
3. Select Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider and click Next >>
4. Click on the ellipsis to browse for the access path to NWind.mdb. Click Open once you have selected the appropriate access path.
5. Click OK to continue.
6. In the Query field, type "Select * from products ORDER BY productname".
7. Click OK to return to the report design surface.

Adding controls to the report to contain data

To add controls to the report

1. Add a PageHeader/Footer section to the report.
2. Add the following controls to the PageHeader section:

   Control	Name	Text/Caption	Location
   Label	lblProductID	Product ID	0, 0
   Label	lblProductName	Product Name	1.0625, 0
   Label	lblReorderLevel	Reorder Level	3.8125, 0
   Label	lblInStock	Units In Stock	2.5, 0

3. Add the following controls to the Detail section:

   Control	DataField	Name	Text/Caption	Location
   TextBox	ProductID	txtProductID	Product ID	0, 0
   TextBox	ProductName	txtProductName	Product Name	1.0625, 0
   TextBox	UnitsInStock	txtUnitsInStock	Units In Stock	2.510, 0
   TextBox	ReorderLevel	txtReorderLevel	Reorder Level	3.833, 0
   TextBox	Discontinued	txtDiscontinued	Discontinued	5.291, 0

Adding conditions in code to the format event

To write the code in Visual Basic

• Right-click in any section of the design window of rptCondSH, and click on View Code to display the code view for the report. At the top left of the code view for rptCondSH, click the drop-down arrow and select Detail. At the top right of the code window, click the drop-down arrow and select Format. This creates an event-handling method for rptCondSH's Detail_Format event. Add code to the handler to:
  • Set conditions in the Format event

To write the code in C#

• Click in the Detail section of rptCondSH to select the section. Click on the events icon in the Properties window to display available events for the section. Double-click Format. This creates an event-handling method for rptCondSH's Detail_Format event. Add code to the handler to:
  • Set conditions in the Format event

  The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

  'Visual Basic
  Private Sub Detail_Format(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles _
  	Detail.Format
  	If  Me.txtReorderLevel.Value=0 And Me.txtDiscontinued.Value = False Then
  		Me.Detail.Visible = True
  		Me.txtDiscontinued.Text = ""
  		Me.txtReorderLevel.Text = "Need to Reorder"
  		Me.txtReorderLevel.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.DarkRed
  	Else
  		Me.Detail.Visible = False
  	End If
  End Sub
  

  //C#
  int m_dis;
  private void Detail_Format(object sender, System.EventArgs eArgs) {
  	m_dis = Int32.Parse(txtReorderLevel.Text);
  		if((short)txtReorderLevel.Value == 0 && m_dis == 0)
  		{
  			this.Detail.Visible = true;
  			this.txtDiscontinued.Text = "";
  			this.txtReorderLevel.Text = "Need to Reorder";
  			this.txtReorderLevel.ForeColor =
  System.Drawing.Color.DarkRed;
  		}
  		else
  		 {
  	        this.Detail.Visible = false;
  		 }
  
  }

Viewing the report

To view the report

1. Add the ActiveReports viewer control to a Windows Form.
2. Add the code needed to set the viewer document equal to the report document. See Using the ActiveReports WinForm Viewer for help.

Samples | Walkthroughs

 

 

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