Tutorial No.1 - The Film Listing Report
This report is a fairly simple listing of films but it will takes you through quite a few features of Reportico. The tutorial is split into 5 stages and the finished reports are already available in the tutorials directory as files tut1_1_films.xml,tut1_2_films.xml,tut1_3_films.xml, tut1_4_films.xml and tut1_5_films.xml.
Running the Tutorial 1 Report
Before you try to work through this tutorial, try running the final report first. Select Film Listing from the tutorials menu (Alternatively you can point your browser at the URL http://{SERVER_ADDRESS}/{REPORTICO_INSTALL_DIRECTORY}/run.php?project=tutorials&execute_mode=PREPARE&xmlin=tut1_films.xml). You should see the criteria entry screen for the Film List report. As it indicates, this is a simple report listing films in the DVD library database. Try a test run by pressing the Execute button. A list of all the films in the database will appear with country flags indicating where the film was made - you will learn how to include database graphics into the report in Part 5 of this tutorial. Notice that the Film Id column is padded with zeroes - this is achieved by reformatting the column using an Assignment that is covered in stage 3 of this tutorial. Finally notice the way that the report groups data by category with a group header of category title and group trailers containing a count and latest and earliest film year within category - groups are covered in stage 4.
Now experiment with PDF and CSV formats. Press the Back to return to the criteria entry screen, and re-run the report with the different Output formats selected.
Also run the report with the Debug Mode list box set to "Low". When you run the report, you will see the SQL statement used to fetch the data rather than the report output. This is a useful report debugging tool that provides more information about the report execution as you add more complexity. The debug option can be hidden from this screen for live deployment.
Finally try using the criteria entry options. Try using the expand keys ">>" to bring up the category list, select one or two categories and then press Execute. Only films from the selected categories are selected.
Overview of the Tutorial 1 Report
In setting up this report, you will gain experience of the following :-
Stage 1. Creating a Basic Report
In this section you create a new report and enter a simple SQL query to select from the film table. You will also learn a bit about labelling and formatting and how to set the report title and description.
Stage 2. Creating Report Entry Criteria
In this section you learn how to add report selection criteria and database lookups in the form of list boxes and checkboxes. You also learn how to make one criteria lookup dependent on another.
Stage 3. Working with expressions using assignments
You create additional reporting values based on the data returned from our query. You learn how to work with rolling minimum, maximum, sum and average values. You also learn how to incorporate assignments into criteria lookup displays
Stage 4. Working with Groups
You learn to print group headers and trailers. You also learn how to create group expressions such as group sums and group averages
Stage 5. Including database graphics into the report
In this secton, you learn how to include an image stored in a database column within your report.
