Report Designer is a one-page Oracle APEX application that consists of several regions. While information is displayed in every region, only one region can be edited at a time. When a user starts modifying data in one region, all other regions get read-only and are greyed-out. The regions stay in a read-only state until the button Save is clicked or the page is reloaded. The regions are outlined in the picture below:
At the top of the page, there is a toolbar with buttons:
- Previous report – reloads the page and selects report definition whose report precedes the selected report code (if any)
- Next report - reloads page and selects report definition whose report succeeds the selected report code (if any)
- Reload page – reloads the page and selects report definition with the same (currently selected) report code. All unsaved modifications will be lost. This may be used to dismiss unwanted changes when something went wrong. It’s also recommended to reload the page when saving or another process has resulted in an error.
- New – creates a new report definition.
- Save – saves changed in the modified region.
- Report definition actions – opens a dropdown menu with four actions on report definition:
- Copy – opens a dialog to enter names of the original (source) and new (target) reports. After Copy is clicked, a new report definition is created having the same components, CustomXML Tree nodes, and node attributes as the original report definition.
- Import – opens a dialog to select a report definition file from the disk. After the file is selected and the Import button is clicked, a new report definition is available for usage and modification.
- Export – starts downloading the selected report definition. The format of the export file is MS Excel which makes it possible to view and modify report definition files in 3rd party software. Notice that report templates (in MS Word format) are not automatically exported. So to transfer them to the new application or DB instance, you have to manually download and upload them.
- Delete – deletes the selected report definition with all its components.
- Prepare Empty Custom XML – opens a dialog to see and download Empty CustomXML file.
- Generate & Download – opens a dialog where you can enter up to 5 report parameters and:
- Download CustomXML – start downloading CustomXML file which is generated based on selected (on CustomXML tab) CustomXML component and entered report parameters. This feature may be useful for debugging purposes.
- Download Image – start downloading the Image file which is generated based on entered report parameters and selected (on Images tab) Image component. Technically speaking, a dynamic SQL statement specified for the image component is bound to report parameters and executed. The result BLOB is downloaded. The dynamic SQL statement must follow the special structure. Download Image feature may be useful for debugging purposes.
- Download report – start downloading the report document which is generated based on the whole report definition and entered report parameters. This feature may be useful for testing purposes.
- Help - opens a dialog with hyperlinks to Report Designer reference materials.
Below the toolbar, there is a Report Definition (report header) region where you see and modify Report Code, Report Description, and Filename for downloading.
Under report definition there are three tabs:
- Custom XML – Here you add, change and delete CustomXML components. For each CustomXML Component, you can define a Custom XML Tree. The three regions below allow you manipulating with nodes and attributes of the tree:
- CustomXML Tree – is a read-only region representing tree structure.
- Node Details – is an editable region where node properties are modified has two buttons:
- Add Node – creates a new node, assigns as a parent the node selected in the tree.
- Remove Node – deletes currently selected node with all its attributes.
- Node Attributes - is an editable grid where you add, modify or delete node attributes.
- Images – If your report contains an image, here you add and modify PL/SQL code that selects image blob given the entered report parameters.
- Report Templates – Here you upload prepared in MS Word template which is styled, formatted, and has Content Controls mapped to CustomXML attributes.