The Panel control is a container that frames separate report controls to allow them to be easily moved, copied and pasted, and visually unite them in the report's preview (with borders or a uniform color background).
Currently, there are several limitations on Panel usage. One of them is that Panel cannot shrink, and therefore cannot suppress the white space that appears when the controls inside are shrunk or collapsed. Also, the Panel cannot cross bands, as Cross-band Line and Cross-band Box can do.
In the Property Grid, the Panel's properties are divided into the following groups.
Appearance
-
Background Color
Specifies the background color for the control.
- Borders, Border Color and Border Width
Specify border settings for the control.
- Formatting Rules
Invokes the Formatting Rules Editor allowing you to choose which rules should be applied to the control during report generation, and define the precedence of the applied rules. To learn more on this, refer to Conditionally Change a Control's Appearance.
- Padding
Specifies indent values which are used to render the contents of controls contained in a Panel.
- Style Priority
Allows you to define the priority of various style elements (such as background color, border color, etc.). For more information on style inheritance, refer to Understand Styles Concepts.
- Styles
This property allows you to define odd and even styles for the control, as well as to assign an existing style to the control (or a newly created one). For more information on style inheritance, refer to Understand Styles Concepts.
Behavior
- Anchor Vertically
Specifies the vertical anchoring style of the control, so that after page rendering it stays attached to the top control, bottom control, or both.
Note that if the Anchor Vertically property is set to Bottom or Both, the Can Grow property (see below) values are ignored, and don't participate in calculating a final height value of this control.
- Can Grow
When this property is set to Yes, the control's height can be automatically increased, if required, to display the text. If there are other controls below the current control, they will be pushed down to prevent them from overlapping. Note that if a control overlaps the growing Panel by even one pixel, it will not be pushed down by the growing Panel.
- Keep Together
Specifies whether the contents of the control can be horizontally split across pages. In other words, if the control occupies more space than remains on the page, this property specifies whether this control should be split between the current page and the next, or whether it will be printed entirely on the next page. This property is in effect only when the control's content does not fit on the current page. If it does not fit on the next page either, then the control will be split despite this property's value.
- Scripts
This property contains events, which you can handle with the required scripts. For more information on scripting, refer to Handle Events via Scripts.
-
Visible
Specifies whether the control should be visible in print preview.
Data
- (Data Bindings)
If the current report is bound to data, this property allows you to bind some of the control's properties (Bookmark, Navigation URL and Tag) to a data field obtained from the report's data source, and to apply a format string to it. For more information on this, refer to Display Values from a Database (Bind Report Elements to Data).
- Tag
This property allows you to add some additional information to the control; for example its id, by which it can then be accessible via scripts.
If the current report has a data source, the Tag property can be bound to a data field obtained from the data source. To do this, expand the (Data Bindings) property and in the Tag.Binding drop-down selector, select the required data field.
Design
- (Name)
Determines a control's name, by which it can be accessed in the Report Explorer, Property Grid or via scripts.
Layout
-
Location
Specifies the control's location, in report measurement units.
-
Size
Specifies the control's size, in report measurement units.
-
Snap Line Margin
Specifies the margin (in report measurement units), which is to be preserved around the control when it is aligned using Snap Lines, or when other controls are aligned next to it.
-
Snap Line Padding
Specifies the padding (in report measurement units), which is to be preserved within the control when controls it contains are aligned using Snap Lines.
Navigation
- Bookmark and Parent Bookmark
These properties are intended for the creation of a hierarchical structure within a report called a document map. For an explanation and help, refer to Add Bookmarks.
If the current report has a data source, the Bookmark property can be bound to a data field obtained from the data source. To do this, expand the (Data Bindings) property and in the Bookmark.Binding drop-down selector, select the required data field.
- Navigation URL and Navigation Target
Use the Navigation URL property to specify a URL for web browser navigation when a user clicks the control. The web browser displays a page in a window or a frame as specified by the Navigation Target property. Note that a URL should have an appropriate prefix (e.g. "http://"). You can create cross-references within the report by assigning the name of the target control to the Navigation URL property, and setting the Navigation Target property to "_self". For more information, refer to Create Hyperlinks.
If the current report has a data source, the Navigation URL property can be bound to a data field obtained from the data source. To do this, expand the (Data Bindings) property and in the Navigation URL.Binding drop-down selector, select the required data field.
