ActiveReports 14 .NET Edition
ActiveReports 14 User Guide / Concepts / Page Report/RDL Report Concepts / Toolbox / Shape
In This Topic
    Shape
    In This Topic

    The Shape report control is used to display one of the available shape types on a report. You can add a shape report control to a report by dragging it from the toolbox and dropping it onto the report design surface. 

    In the ShapeStyle property of the Shape report control, you can select Rectangle, RoundRect or Ellipse, or you can use an expression to assign fields, datasets, parameters, constants, operations or common values to it. You can highlight different sections or parts of a report using a shape report control. For example, you can use a Rectangle as border around different report controls or the entire page or you can use an Ellipse to highlight a note on your report.

    Shape Dialog

    Properties for the Shape are available in the Shape dialog. To open it, with the Shape control selected on the report, under the Properties Window, click the Property dialog link.

    The Shape dialog lets you set properties on the report control with the following pages.

    Note: You can select <Expression...> within many of these properties to open the Expression Editor.

    General

    Name: Enter a name for the image that is unique within the report. This name can be called in code. You can only use underscore (_) as a special character in the Name field. Other special characters such as period (.), space ( ), forward slash (/), back slash (\), exclamation (!), and hyphen (-) are not supported.

    Shape Style: Choose Rectangle, RoundRect or Ellipse from the dropdown list.

    Rounded Rectangle: When the Shape type is set to RoundRect, you can specify the radius for each corner of the shape independently. Drag the handlers Handleravailable at each corner of the shape to set the value of the radius at each corner.

    Note: To enable specific corners, check the CheckBox available near each corner of the Shape control.

    Appearance

    Background

    Color: Select a color to use for the background of the Shape.

    Image: Specify the background image of shape using Expression or Data Visualizer, or directly open the image file on your system.

    Note: For Page/RDL reports, if the Hatch and Gradient background styles are set using Data Visualizers, these are not displayed at design time.

     

    Border

    Style: Select a style for the border.

    Width: Enter a value in points to set the width of the border.

    Color: Select a color to use for the border, or select the <Expression...> option to open the Expression Editor and create an expression that evaluates to a .NET color.

    Visibility

    Initial visibility

    • Visible: The shape is visible when the report runs.
    • Hidden: The shape is hidden when the report runs.
    • Expression: Use an expression with a Boolean result to decide whether the shape is visible. True for hidden, false for visible.

    Visibility can be toggled by another report control: Select this check box to display a toggle shape next to another report control. This enables the drop-down box where you can specify the TextBox control which, if clicked, toggles the visibility of the shape.

    Navigation

    Document map label: Enter an expression to use as a label to represent this item in the table of contents (document map). 

    Bookmark ID: Enter an expression to use as a locator for this shape. You will then be able to provide a bookmark link to this item from another report control using a Jump to bookmark action.

    Data Output

    Element name: Enter a name to be used in the XML output for this shape report control.

    Output: Choose Auto, Yes, No, Contents Only to decide whether to include this Shape in the XML output. Choosing Auto exports the contents of the Shape report control.

    See Also