- About the ROM specification
- About the ROM schema
- About the rom.def file
- About the primary ROM elements
- About the report item elements
- About the data elements
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
About the report item elements
There are many types of visual report components. Every type of visual report component has a corresponding ROM element that derives from the ReportItem element. Visual report components are called report items.
About the report items
There are top-level and lower-level report items. The top-level items are items that can contain other items. Examples of top-level items include:
Grid
A grid contains a set of report items arranged into a grid with a fixed set of columns and a variable number of rows. Each cell in the grid can contain a single lower-level item or a container of items.
List
A list contains a set of arbitrary content based upon data retrieved from a data set. A list is appropriate when some report items require a sophisticated layout and then repeat that layout for each row in a query.
Table
A table contains a tabular layout of data retrieved from a data set.
Lower-level layout items have properties that describe their behavior and appearance in various ways. These items are not structural and do not contain other items. For example, the Image element is a lower-level element.
Understanding the report item element properties
The elements that derive from ReportItem are called the report item elements. Every report item has an entry in the palette, the visual BIRT Report Designer component that the report developer uses to build a report layout.
Each visual component has its own set of properties in addition to the properties it inherits from ReportItem. The types of inherited report item properties include:
- Method, which defines executable code.
- Property, which, includes such values as names and dimensions.
- StyleProperty, which defines style-related characteristics, such as color and font size.
Slot, which contains Type elements that define its contents, as shown in the following element definition.
<Slot name="reportItems" displayNameID="Element.FreeForm.slot.reportItems" multipleCardinality="true"> <Type name="Label" /> <Type name="Data" /> <Type name="Text" /> </Slot>