Remove Line When Blank?

[marcus1981]

Hello,

 

I want to be able to remove a line in my report if its value is blank. For example, an address may have the parameters: address1, address2, address3, city, postcode. In my report this may be displayed as:

 

$P{address1}

$P{address2}

$P{address3}

$P{city}

$P{postcode}

 

Now this works fine. However, if say address3 comes back as null or blank i get a gap between address2 and city. Is there a way of removing such a line if this is to be the case? I've had a play with things like Remove Line When Blank etc but am having no joy :(

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[schaibaa]

As far as I understand it, iReport will not do this for you -

 

If you wanted to get super techical, you could do two different sets of lables, etc and use print when expressions to know which one to display. For example, print 2_line_address_version when address3 is null

print 3_line_address_version when address3 is not null

 

Any way you do it, you'll have some whitespace at the bottom or between address and city.

 

Someone please correct if wrong.

[EuzkoArima]

Hi, I'm not an expert user, but AFAIK the "Remove Line When Blank" is for what you describe. I'm used that in couple of reports and worked ok. I've no idea of which other thing could be interfering. :S

[gombs]

hi,

 

the option only operates when the field2 don't touch field3. Maybe you should set positiontype on Float...

naturally it works...:cheer:

[jmurray]

gombs is on the right track but hasn't explained it clearly...

 

 

The Remove Line When Blank setting is working properly for you, it's just that the following fields are not shifting up. This is usually caused by their Position Type being set to "FixRelativeToTop".

 

 

Only the first element in the vertical stack should be set to FixRelativeToTop, the rest of the elements in the band should be set to "Float" so that they can be moved up if any empty element is removed.

[marcus1981]

Thanks guys i've got this working now :)

 

However i now have another related query.

 

Give this setup:

 

$F{Name}

$F{Add1}

$F{Add2}

$F{City}

$F{Postcode}

 

$F{Telephone}

 

Ok so i've not got it to shift up if say add2 is blank. However is there a way to make say telephone FIXED in its position?

[jmurray]

Yes, leave it "FixedRelativeToTop" Everything that is set to Float will float up, everything that is FixedRelativeToTop/Bottom will stay exactly where you placed it at design time.

[marcus1981]

Hi yes your totally correct.

 

I'm sorry i didn't explain myself very well. By ticking keep fixed to top etc will keep it fixed in position in relation to the other items. However i think my problem may be more with the band height. When items are removed the band heigh seems to shrink. Is there a way of ensuring the band heigh stays the same regardless of this?

 

Basically I'm trying to print out some shipping labels. If i remove the blank lines all the items move up. This is causing the band height to shrink and then the labels are out of position. So is there a way to force the band height to remain constant but allow the items inside to remove when blank etc?

 

I really appreciate the advice given on this :)

[jmurray]

This might sound really, really dumb but it should work (sorry, unable to test it at the moment).

 

 

Build yourself a rectangle element that is the same height as the minimum band height that you need. Set its borders to "none" and its foreground and background colors to white. Make sure you "Send it to back" so that it doesn't get in the way.

 

 

Now everything can float all it likes, but the band height should stay fixed.

 

 

I can't understand why the band height would shrink if you have a Text Field "FixedRelativeToTop/Bottom" at the bottom of the band. I'll check it out on Monday.