Horizontal Alignment

[2006 IR Open Discussion]

By: Eric Everman - eeverman

Horizontal Alignment

2003-03-24 15:26

Hi-

 

I am just coming back to JR for a new project - thanks for this great reporting library.

 

I am trying to align labels and content, where the content can be multiple lines like this:

 

label: content line 1

content line 2

label: content line 1

...etc...

 

My problem (as has been discussed in other posts) is that "Float" positioning does not push items down if they are not below each other horizontally, so my labels and content end up misaligned. I know its possible to use an invisible line under each label/content pair to force the behavior I need, but I think this has got to be a common problem - couldn't there be a cleaner (and more obvious) solution?

 

It seems like there are many ways the API could be modified to allow for this behavior, the simplist being to allow "Float" to push an item down even if it does not 'overlap' horizontally - this seems to me to be the intuitive interpritation of how Float would work. Alternatively, a "FloatAll" value could be added that would have the new behavior.

 

Even better would be some type of sub-band that could have a streachable height, allowing its contents to occupy their own space - like a mini subreport.

 

Any possibility of making this issue easier to deal with in future releases?

 

Thanks for your help,

 

Eric Everman

 

 

 

 

By: Teodor Danciu - teodord

RE: Horizontal Alignment

2003-03-25 00:50

 

Hi,

 

I'm thinking about allowing the use of multiple

<band> tags in a report section, in order to

eliminate the need for dummy groups as explained

in the "Tips&Tricks" section on the site.

This would also solve the alignment issue that you

mentioned here.

 

But since this is a major change, it will affect those

who use the JasperReports API.

The existing XML designs will remain compatibles,

but those who create report designs

programmatically will probably be affected.

This is especially the case for the GUI tools

like iReport.

 

I have to ask or at least worn them about such

changes.

 

Thank you,

Teodor