How to not KeepTogether a SubReport

[Jim Richmond]

I have a sub report that just consists of a detail section. It works fine in the main report but I want KeepTogether to be false for the sub report as it will alwaya move the subreport to a new page if it can't fit (which seems to be a majority of the time. I have set the detail section of the sub report to KeepTogether = false but it doesn't appear to be working. Is this possible?

Also just a comment on the report designer, the flicker and delay is pretty bad (moving controls around on the page). I have a decent machine but the report designer is borderline unusable. As I use it more and more, it is frustratingly slow at times (and jerky). Does anyone else see this (or is it me)?

Jim

[Svetoslav]

Hi Jim,

With the current version of Reporting you cannot control whether to "keep together" or not a SubReport item. However, it seems reasonable to be able to do this so we've logged this lapse in our bug base. The DetailSection.KeepTogether property is relevant only to the current section rendering not to the SubReport item or any other.

For now we definitely experience some problems with the report designer. Optimizing the designer performance is one of the tasks with top priority for the next release.

All the best,
Svetoslav
the telerik team

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[George Will]

Has this issue with "KeepTogether" been resolved? If so, with what version?

This problem is preventing our extensive use of the product.

[Svetoslav]

Hi George Will,

I am glad to inform you that we have already fixed the problem with the SubReport, always been kept together. The fix will be included in the upcoming version due in a couple of weeks.

Greetings,
Svetoslav
the Telerik team

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[Daniel]

Was this ever resolved? I'm using Q2 2008 and it seems to be still present. Also, reporting designer performance is way too slow, as Jim says it is very frustrating to work with.

Regards,
Daniel

[Steve]

Hello Daniel,

This issue has been fixed for the Q1 release. Please explain what is the problem that you experience and how to reproduce it. It might be best if you open a support ticket and attach the problematic report so that we can review it and advise you. Also, can you please define what do you mean by slow. Does this happen when you edit items, move them around in the designer, add them to the designer? Any additional information would be highly appreciated.

All the best,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[Daniel]

Hi Steve,

I'll try to make simplified project where it is reproduced, then submit a ticket. In short, I have report where master has one group with header/footer (footer displaying on each page), in detail section is subform. Subform contains detail items, which in case they don't fit to report's (group's) first page (gheader+detail+gfooter), all details are displayed on second page and there is only gheader+gfooter on first. On second page, there is only detail, without gfooter as it should be. Anyway, I'll see if I can reproduce it in small project.

As for performance, moving things around designer is ok in most cases, but preview is very slow, sometimes it doesn't even finish. Weirdest thing is that it fixes by itself by doing something small - like removing subform, then placing it on form again. Without property changes.

I'll be more consistent in observing and documenting these cases in the future so it can be of more value for you.

Regards,
Daniel

[Steve]

Ok Daniel, we would be expecting your report. As for the preview, we have been contacted with a similar inquiry once before, but the client was not able to provide a report that replicates the issue or guide us on how to proceed. Generally the more complex the report is, the slower it would show in preview, as the report is being rebuild in order to preview it. Which leads us to another question - what if you directly rebuild the solution and try viewing it in runtime? Do you get any kind of errors or blank page?

Kind regards,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[Daniel]

I usually manually build project before I go to preview. It's the report rendering that's slow. It's better with Q2 2008 though. Anyway, as I said I'll try to be more systematic in observing it, then my feedback should be of more value.

Cheers,
Daniel

[Daniel]

So, I had the time to make an sample project with master report/sub report. It consists of two projects - one is class library with reports and data itself, second is windows app displaying those reports in simple form with report viewer.

For simplicity, data are hardcoded as two DataTables. One is for master report (Accessed through ClassLibrary1.Data.DataSource.MasterTable), second is for sub report (ClassLibrary1.Data.DataSource.DetailTable). They are filled in static constructor of DataSource class. Again, this is done because of simplicity.

There are three master reports and one detail report. Their naming should distunguish them clearly. All master reports are basically the same, just with changed properties to display faulty (or unexpected) behavior.

First report (MasterReport1) with PrintOnEveryPage property set to "false" on both group header & footer. Here is problem with page layout of rendered reports with items (sub reports) exceeding one page (i.e. group report becomes 2 or more pages long). One every other then first page (per group), size of detail secion is ignored and group footer is rendered right after items (detail/sub report) is done. Here we expected group footer to be at the bottom of page it is rendered on. Is it achievable?

Second report (MasterReport2) with property PrintOnEveryPage set to "true" on group header. Same problem with multipage reports (group) and group footer as in first report. Also, if there is enough items in subreport to fill the page, group header and items (sub report) are rendered one on each other. Expected behavior - group header and detail not overlapping, rendering similar to first page of each group on each page. No overlapping.

Third report (MasterReport3) with property PrintOnEveryPage set to "true" properties on both group header & footer. Preview is never made, I was never patient enough to wait more then one hour. Expected behavior - for multipage group reports, each page should have both header and footer so every page has the same layout, just the number of displayed items (detail section/sub report) is different.

I hope you get better picture of what I mean and how to address it now. If I can clear any unclarity, I'd be glad to do so.

Best regards,
Daniel

project/solution for download - http://mf.ederon.net/telerik/TelerikReporting1.zip

[Svetoslav]

Hello Daniel,

Thank you for the detailed description - it helped a lot.

If I've understood you correctly you need the group footers to be printed at the bottom on every page (including the last that the group spans on although it may be half empty - like the last page of the MasterReport1). Unfortunately this scenario is not possible with Telerik Reporting. For more information on the report sections please see Understanding Report Sections.

The 2nd and 3rd reports experience the same problem caused by the PrintOnEveryPage enabled for the group (header/footer) sections in combination with a subreport that spans on two or more pages. We are aware of it, currently working on it and I hope it will be fixed not later than the Q3 release at the end of the year.

Kind regards,
Svetoslav
the Telerik team

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[Daniel]

Hi Svetoslav,

I'm aware of report sections meaning, but I fail to see why is it impossible to have group footer properly aligned at the bottom of a page. Maybe you can describe me those obstacles so I understand it better. As of now, I'm able to do what I need just in one page long reports (last decument of MasterReport1). Why is it possible there, but impossible in the others? If there was a problem with aligning group footer to the bottom of a page, it shouldn't work at all.

I'm migrating handful of reports from Access to telerik. All these things were possible to achieve in Access and it'd be a shame if I couldn't do the same in telerik.

Regards,
Daniel

[Steve]

Hello Daniel,

The Group Footer will show at the end of the document only in the case, where the data in the previous sections does not exceed the current page (as in the page of MasterReport1). In all other cases, it is forced off the current page to the next one where the spanning subreport ends and since it does not know that this has happened it would show immediately after it. As you can see there is no second group footer on that page.

Best wishes,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[Daniel]

Any chance you can make it that it realizes it is not on the first page and there is subreport/detail section with defined height?

[Steve]

Hi Daniel,

Well this is part of the thing - this is no longer "the detail" section that is created for every row of the database, this is the subreport data spanning itself on more pages. And since the group footer was not able to show itself on the page it was supposed to, it shows immediately after the content is over.

Greetings,
Steve
the Telerik team

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[Daniel]

What about something like this: user woud be able to set behavior of detail section (or directly subreport object itself, you tell) whether the data (subreport) schould just overflow its boundaries set in master report or whether it is restricted by subreport/detail's proportions for each page. Then it'd be rendered in bunches of same sized blocks footer would be albe to rely on.

[Rossen Hristov]

Hello Daniel,

We might consider implementing your idea, but we cannot give an exact time frame for that. Thank you for the understanding.

Greetings,
Ross
the Telerik team

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[Daniel]

Thanks for letting us know Ross. I'll keep tuned in.

Regards,
Daniel