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RREADME - R&R Report Writer for Xbase, Version 6.0 This file contains information about new features in R&R Version 6.0 and corrections that were not available when the R&R documentation was printed. CONTENTS Summary of New Features in R&R 6.0 (for users upgrading from previous versions of R&R) Functions - COPY Function - LOOKUP Functions Runtime - /FD Command Switch - /A Command Switch - Report Output with no Records - /I Documentation Change Graphics Support - Cropping - F4 support - Printing on Novell LAN FoxPro Support - Collation sequences - Using FoxPro Extended Memory EXE RRSETUP SRT File Changes Mouse Support Summary of New features ======================= The following sections describe the new features that are available in R&R Version 6.0. 1. Extended Memory Support R&R Version 6.0 is a DOS-extended version of the R&R Report Writer. There are two new files included in this R&R release, RRP.EXE for the interactive and RRUNP.EXE for the runtime, which are protected mode executables. To run the interactive R&R, you will need RR.EXE, RRP.EXE, and an RR.CNF and RRUSERS.DAT file. To run the Runtime, you will need RRUNTIM.EXE, RRUN.EXE, RRUNP.EXE, an RR.CNF and Runtime Control File. The files which should be executed are RR.EXE and RRUN.EXE; do not directly execute the protected mode executables. 2. Inclusion of Graphics Image Files in Reports R&R Version 6.0 includes support for including graphics image files in your reports. Image file types supported by R&R 6.0 are BMP (Windows Bitmap), TIF (Tagged Image File), PCX (PC Paintbrush), EPS (Encapsulated PostScript), GIF (CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format), TGA (TARGA), WMF (Windows Metafile), WPG (WordPerfect Graphic), DCX (Intel FAX format), PCT (Macintosh PICT), and JPG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). To insert an image file into your report, use the /Field Graphics Insert command. This will put you into FILES mode so that you can select the graphic image file to insert into your report. (See page 108 in the Field Command Chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 3. Snaked Column Reports R&R Version 6.0 contains support for Snaked column reports. In these reports, the report data will flow from the bottom of one column to the top of the next column on the same page (similar to the format of a telephone book). R&R will snake everything between the page header and page footer of the report. This includes body lines, group headers, and group footer lines. To enable snaked column support, select the "Columns Across:" entry from the /Print Options Record-layout and enter a value greater than 1. For example, a 4 in this field will print 4 snaked columns per page. The Record Width field in this screen determines how wide each snaked column will be. (See page 172 in the Print Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) Note that the snaked column reports is designed specifically for printer (and print file) output. Snaked Columns will be displayed properly in Print Preview. For Print Destination Display, you will see an approximation in successive column-by-column form (i.e. columns will not appear side-by-side in /PDD). 4. Avery Labels Support R&R Version 6.0 allows easy preparation of Avery Labels reports, with automatic definition of all print layout parameters. Avery Labels can be chosen from a menu by using the "Select label" entry from the /Print Options Record-Layout screen. Choosing this option will cause R&R to display a menu of pre-defined labels, or allow you to specify your own label settings. Select your Avery Label by part number from the Select label menu. R&R will then set all of your print options according to the specifications for that label. This includes the page size and margins on the /Print Options Page-Margins screen, as well as record width and height, and records across. Choose User-defined from the label list to make settings for a label not found in the list, or for any other reason. (See page 171 in the Print Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 5. Report Templates Report Templates are partially complete reports that serve as starting points for other reports. R&R 6.0 supports templates in their own libraries, recognizable by the RT1 extensions. Templates and template libraries have the same format as reports and report libraries except that templates do not require a master file. All of the template operations are available in the /Report menu. (See the Report Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 6. Conditional Totals There is a new menu choice for /Field Total Options Condition. Selecting this allows you to choose a total field and enter a "condition expression." The formula you enter here is in the same format as that of any valid R&R calculated field expression (condition expressions may not themselves be total-related). The relevant total is only updated if the specified condition is true. (See the Field Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 7. Report Annotations You can now attach 80-character descriptions to your reports with the /Report Annotate command. You enter your annotation after the "Enter annotation" prompt; R&R will then display the annotation on the line following the report name in the report specification. R&R will save the annotation when you save the report, and it will appear on line 3 of the control panel when you highlight the report in the report list. The "Last Saved:" information about the report is now displayed on line two of the control panel. (See the Report Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 8. Calculated and Total Field Annotations /Field Calculate Annotate and /Field Total Annotate allow you to enter an 80-character description for a calculated or total field. If you annotate a calculated or total field, you will see the annotation in the control panel when that field is highlighted in a field list, or on the layout. You can also modify these annotations from the Field Modify (F4) box, and they are displayed in report specifications. (See the Field Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 9. Auto-creation of totals from marked fields The menu presented after marking a group of fields in the report layout now includes a Total command, with which you can create totals for all of the marked fields. You specify the total type (sum, count, etc.) and the reset level for the new totals. If either of these settings is not allowed for one of the marked fields, an error message identifying the field is given and the cursor is positioned to the troublesome marked field after the error message is acknowledged. After the totals are created, they are automatically inserted into a new band line of the appropriate type (e.g. summary area for grand totals), and at the top of its band area. The totals are positioned "below" the fields being totaled, assuming a columnar report format. (See page 115 in the Mark Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 10. Reverse Scrolling in Preview and in Print to Display Reverse scrolling is available in /Print Preview and in /Print Destination Display output. There is now a PgUp key entry in the Preview "help" text. Special keys "cursor up", "cursor down", "page up", and "page down" are active during the print to display menu. Cursor down has the same effect as does "Line", page down has the same effect as does "Screen", cursor up moves back one line, and page up moves back one screen. (See pages 178 and 411 of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 11. Print Current Page being Previewed You can now print the current page being displayed by the /Print Preview command. This is done via Control-P. (See page 182 of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 12. Data Dictionary Enhancements R&R Version 6.0 supports several new data dictionary features. In addition to the existing TABLE_NAME, FIELD_NAME, COMMENT, and EXTENDED data dictionary fields, R&R now supports FORMULA, FIELD_HIDE, FILTR_HIDE, and INST_HIDE fields. FORMULA is a memo field used to specify the formula for a "predefined" calculation. It must consist of a valid R&R calculated field formula, containing only references to fields in the specified TABLE_NAME, constants, udf's, and built-in functions. The other new fields are all logical fields. Fields for which FIELD_HIDE is "true" will be treated by R&R as if they were not present in the specified table. Fields for which FILTR_HIDE is "true" will not be available in the interactive query interface presented by the runtime. Fields for which INST_HIDE is "true" will not appear in instant report layouts, or in layouts created via the Global Layout commands. (See the Distributing Reports chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 13. Additional Functions The following functions have been added in R&R Version 6.0: AGED(date,days1,days2) returns True if date is aged between days1 and days2 number of days, inclusive. FUTURE(date) returns True if date is in the future. HALF(DATE) returns the calendar half-year of the date specified. LIBNAME() returns the pathname of the current report library. MONLEN(Date) returns the length in days of the month in date. OVER(date, days) returns True if date is over days days old NDOW(date, dow) returns the date of the day indicated by the next dow date following date. PAST(date) returns True if date is in the past. PDOW(date, dow) returns the date of the day indicated by the most recent dow date preceding date. REPNAME() returns the name of the current report, or the string "None" if there is no name defined for the current report. UDFNAME() returns the pathname of the UDF Library that is currently open for this report, or the string "None" if there is no UDF file currently open. (See the Calculated Field Expressions chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 14. Instant Report Field Selection When creating a report, R&R will generate an instant report and ask if you would like to use the instant report. The valid answers to the prompt are No, Yes and a new option, Select. If you pick Select, the screen is cleared and a multi-select field list is displayed. Select multiple fields from this list by hitting the space bar to select/ deselect the currently highlighted field. An item is selected if there is a check mark in front of the name. When you are done selecting the fields for the instant report, press Enter. You will then see an instant report with a body line consisting only of the fields you had selected from this menu. (See the Report Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 15. Changing the Reset Level of Selected Total Fields R&R will now allow you to change the reset level for a group of totals. This is useful when you need to insert, delete, or change group fields in your report. Instead of editing a large number of totals to change the total reset level, you can use the /Field Total Batch-Reset-Change command to select multiple total fields and change their reset levels in a single operation. (See the Field Command chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 16. New Runtime Control Field and User Prompts in Runtime Inserting a '?' in specified runtime control fields will cause the runtime to prompt the user for the values to be used for those fields in the report. Relevant fields are RI_PRINTER, RI_SCOPE, RI_QUERY, and a new runin field, RI_REPPICK. RI_REPPICK is a single-character field. If this field contains a '?', R&R will prompt the user to select a report from the RI_LIBRARY library. (See the Developing Applications section of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 17. RRSETUP Changes The Defaults screen in RRSETUP.EXE has been broken up into two screens, Files-Directories and Other-Defaults. Default image directory, Default image extension, and Default template library have been added to the Files-Directories screen, and Pages of backward scrolling information has been added to the Other-Defaults screen. (See Appendix B of the "Using R&R" manual for more details.) 18. New Printer Drivers There are several new printer drivers available with this release: the Canon BJ-300, HP4Si and several landscape drivers for the Canon LBP series of printers. You can use RRSETUP to configure and select these new drivers. 19. New FIFs There are several new font files available with this release: the HP DeskJet 550 (landscape and portrait) and the HP LaserJet4Si (PCL mode and PostScript mode using code pages 437 and 850) fonts are all available. Use RRINSTAL to select these new font files. 20. Converting Indexes used in Reports If you are changing your applications to convert from using an untagged index format to tagged index files (e.g. converting NTX indexes to NSX), and have reports which had been saved using the old index files, you just need to set the default index extension in your CNF file to the new index type and ensure that your tag name matches the name of the index. If this is the case, when R&R 6.0 retrieves your old report, it will automatically use the new tagged index file. Functions ========= 1. COPY() Function Do not attempt to sort a report by selecting a calculated sort field whose expression includes the COPY function. R&R will not sort multiple copies of a report differently. 2. LOOKUP() Functions All the LOOKUP functions pay attention to the /Print Options Record- Layout "Print Which Records" setting when they determine which records to return from a file. In addition, if the arguments to the functions do not include full paths for the database or index files, R&R will look for the files in the same directory as the master database used in the report. This is the only directory it will search. Runtime ======= 1. /FD Command Switch The /FD (Field Description) command switch is available in the Runtime, enabling you to specify or override Runtime use of a data dictionary file. For example, the following command used from within your application program uses the runtime control file RRUNIN and selects the dictionary file CUSTDICT.DBF: RUN RRUNTIME RRUNIN CUSTDICT/FD (See the Distributing Reports chapter of the "Using R&R" manual for more details on using data dictionary files with your reports.) 2. /A Command Switch In order to identify what area of memory to swap out to a disk file, RRUNTIME attempts to identify its caller. Under some circumstances, it may not be able to identify its calling program. In such cases, the new /A command switch may be useful. If you are calling Runtime from an interactive database program, such a dBASE, FoxBase, or FoxPro, RRUNTIME will usually identify its calling application correctly and swap it to disk to free as much memory as possible for RRUN. If you are calling Runtime from an executable program compiled with Clipper or another programming language, you can identify your program to Runtime by appending its name and /A to the command line you use to invoke RRUNTIME. For example, if your application is a C program named PAYABLE and its runtime control file is RRUNIN.DBF, you might invoke the Runtime version of R&R via a command line such as: RRUNTIME RRUNIN 1 PAYABLE/A This ensures that RRUNTIME identifies memory belonging to PAYABLE as the memory that should be swapped to disk before it invokes RRUN to produce the report. 3. Report Output with No Records You can now override the Runtime feature which allows printing of title and summary lines on reports when no records are found. To cause the Runtime to not print any information when no records are found, execute the Runtime with the /H switch. 4. /I Documentation Change The documentation of the /I switch for the Runtime states that an argument of "USER2/I" will result in a status file named #RRUSER2.DBF and temp files of the form #RRUSER2.*. This should state instead that the status file is called RRUSER2.DBF and temp files are of the form #RUSER2.*. Graphics Support ================ There are two additions to the documentation of the support for graphics image files, and one additional item to note about this support. 1. Cropping In addition to Stretch and Zoom scaling options, R&R 6.0 also supports a Crop scaling option. When scaling is set to "Crop" for an image being inserted, the image is inserted at its original size, and no image scaling is performed. If you change the height and width of the image to be smaller than those of the original image, only the top left portion of the image that fits into the specified dimensions is inserted and printed. 2. F4 When using F4 on an image whose scaling option is set to Zoom, selecting either height or width will cause R&R to prompt for both parameters. The resultant values may be adjusted by R&R to maintain the proper aspect ratio for the image. 3. Printing on Novell LAN If you are experiencing problems printing graphics in Novell LAN environments, you may need to modify your CAPTURE statement to include the NoTabs option. (See the Utilities chapter of your Novell "Print Server" manual for more details about this option.) FoxPro Notes ============ 1. Collation sequences FoxPro 2.5a and 2.6 CDX's contain collation information and translation of index keys based on the selected collation sequence - Spanish, Dutch, General, Icelandic, Machine (the default), Nordan (Norwegian/Danish), and Swefin (Swedish/Finnish). Using CHARACTER keys for any sequence other than Machine is not supported by R&R 6.0, since that changes the format of the index key values within the CDX. 2. Using FoxPro Extended Memory EXE If you encounter "Insufficient Memory" errors when trying to execute the R&R Runtime with FoxPro's FOX.EXE or FOXPROX.EXE, this may be due to FoxPro having allocated all of extended memory or DOS memory, leaving none for the DOS-Extended R&R. You can resolve this through the use of the /M switch on FOX, or with the MEMLIMIT or DOSMEM variables in your FoxPro CONFIG file, or by executing FOXPRO.EXE instead of FOXPROX.EXE. RRSETUP ======= There is one addition to the documentation of RRSETUP. There is a new option, "Xbase platform limits CHAR fields to 254 characters?". The default is "Yes". This change removes the restriction that your default index extension had to have been NTX for you to use RI_FILTER expressions of greater than 254 characters. SRT File Changes ================ If you are using an .SRT file to change the way in which R&R sorts and compares character data, note that there is a new RR.SRT variable, CHARSET, that allows you to specify which IBM Code Page your computer is using. The value of this variable controls how R&R sorts and compares the last 128 characters in a font's character set. Instructions for using this and other SRT variables are found in the RR.SRT file itself. Mouse Support ============= The description for changing field width in Appendix E of the "Using R&R" manual (page 458) states that you need to drag the first character in the field to increase or decrease width. The character to be dragged depends on field type and alignment. For right-aligned character fields or numeric fields, you need to drag the first character in the field. For left or center aligned character fields or for left, right, or fully justified word-wrap fields, you need to drag the last character in the field. R&R report Writer for Xbase, DOS Version 6.0 RREADME Version 6.0