One of the many quirks of Reporting Services we've run across is the complete and utter lack of a CheckBox control or even something remotely similar.
We have a form that should appear automatically filled out based on information pulled from a database. We have several bit datatype fields. Printing out "True" or "False" just looks silly, as this is supposed to look like a form that has been auto-filled out, so we want to have a series of checkboxes and labels that are either checked or unchecked.
We are running SSRS 2005 but I'm not aware of SSRS 2008 having added a CheckBox control. Even if it did, we'd need to have an alternative for the time being. The best we've found so far is:
use Wingdings
use images
use text boxes with borders and print a blank/space or a capital X
All three approaches require IIF expression shenanigans.
The Wingdings approach seemed to work acceptably, and was the most aesthetically pleasing except that for whatever reason it didn't always print correctly. More importantly, PDF exports, also for whatever reason, converted all fonts (generally) to Arial and so we got funky letters instead of the Windings dingbats.
Images, being a pixel-based raster, don't do so well when printed along side vector stuff like text. Unless handled carefully, they tend to stretch, pixelate, and do other unprofessional looking things.
While these methods do work (some with limitations as mentioned above) none of them are particularly elegant.
Are we missing something obvious? Not so obvious? Does someone at Microsoft have a good reason why such a control was not provided in SSRS 2000, let alone 2 versions and 8 years later? This can't be the first time this issue has come up...
I, along with others in my shop, have used images, toggling the hidden attribute based on the field value (true or false). We haven't had any problems with blurring or scaling, unless we tried to increase the scale of the image beyond 100% obviously.
Another option I've used is similar to the wingdings idea, but I just use a plain old "X". On our forms at least, it is not uncommon for someone to use an X in a box instead of a check mark, so it looks completely acceptable. Plus, you don't have to worry about strange characters when printing.
As for why Microsoft does not include a checkbox control, I can't answer that as I've been wondering the same thing myself for a long time now.
I just wanna share the idea on this blog. SSRS: How to Display Checkbox on Report
First create a textbox
Then change the font family to Wingdings
Insert an expression on the textbox and write this expressions.
=IIF(Fields!Active.Value,chr(254),"o")
Fields!Active.Value could be anything from your query that should return a boolean value 1 or 0.
Then click Preview and see the checkbox ;)
More styles can be selected on the blog that I shared above.
Here is an example of my output
What I have used to display a check box (or ballot box):
1- create textbox (that will become your check box)
2- change font to Arial Unicode MS
3- in the expression window use:
ChrW(&H2611) for a filled-in checkbox
ChrW(&H2610) for an empty checkbox
Besides the different methods already presented, as of SQL Server 2008 R2 there's a built-in control that can be used for checkbox-alike functionality: the Indicator!
Have a look here for details on how to use it: https://web.archive.org/web/20190916105459/http://blog.hoegaerden.be/2012/08/04/displaying-checkboxes-in-an-ssrs-report/
To be able to use a field of type bit, you'll have to cast it to int first. This can be done either in the dataset query or by adding a calculated field to the dataset.
If you want the NULLs to come up as yellow, then you'll need to build the expression that way so it takes that requirement into account as well.
Here's a possible expression for a calculated field:
=Switch(
IsNothing(Fields!YourBoolean.Value), 50,
Fields!YourBoolean.Value = False, 0,
Fields!YourBoolean.Value = True, 100)
Depending on the meaning of your fields - is False good or bad - you may need to swap the zero and 100.
Another way to do thisd is go to "Placeholder properties" of TextBox and check Html - Interpret HTML tag as styles
Then in the Value - Expression put this line of code for checked:
="<font face=""Wingdings 2"" color=""green"">" & Chr(81) &"</font>" & "some other text"
Or this code sample for unchecked:
="<font face=""Wingdings 2"" color=""red"">" & Chr(163) &"</font>" & "some other text"
This way you can have checkbox and text in the same textbox.
Later edit:
If you are having problem displaying Wingdings 2 on Azure, then use Wingdings.
Apparently it works.
="<font face=""Wingdings"" color=""green"">" & Chr(253) &"</font>" & "some other text"
Or this code sample for unchecked:
="<font face=""Wingdings"" color=""red"">" & Chr(168) &"</font>" & "some other text"
You can also use a string calculated field like "[X]" or "[ ]". It's less pretty than the textbox with border but you don't have to put a specific control for the value and you can fill table or matrix with this.
At least there is some solution for the checkbox. I'm still looking for full justification for my text (In fact I'm looking for another solution than SSRS know).
ACCESS 97 could make this kind of thing but not SQL SERVER 2012.
I think there is a bug with SSRS and embedding font characters above 128 (some thing todo with ANSI encoding). Basically you can use 1-128 fine, the rest show up as tall rectangular blocks.
I like NY's idea of the textbox with a border and an optional X - this sounds simple and effective.
This is building on Dragos Durlut's answer. I don't have a high enough reputation to comment but I can answer...
I needed a checkbox as part of text that is passed as a parameter. The parameter contains HTML and is used in a placeholder set up just like Dragos suggests: HTML - Interpret HTML tags as styles.
Instead of having to switch between the HTML and the strings, you can use the HTML Escape Codes (& + # + CharCode + ; --> ¨)
="<font face='Wingdings'>¨</font> Empty checkbox"
Since mine is a parameter, it just pass in the string:
<font face='Wingdings'>¨</font> Empty checkbox
If you need the checkbox selected, you would pass in either ý or þ instead:
<font face='Wingdings'>ý</font> filled with an x
<font face='Wingdings'>þ</font> filled with a checkmark
Related
Hi I have a report that i used a wild card search parameter so that i can pull record that contains a certain text.
For example: I need to search for subscription for Mary Johnson so on the keyword search box i just type "John". This set-up is working fine, but now I need to color that search keyword when found for each row. so i need assistance on expression code that mimics SQL syntax of LIKE in SSRS expression. I started to change the font color with =iif(Instr(Fields!ReportRecipients.Value)=Parameters!Keyword.Value,"Maroon","Black"), but it didnt work.
Please advise.
Sample
TOJo.eger#m.com; ruth.tuker#m.com;sandrae.espe#m.com; dan.gay#m.comIncludeReportTrueRenderFormatPDFSubjectDaily Report for IBC Medicare? was executed at #ExecutionTimeIncludeLinkFalsePriorityHIGH"
You can use some .net string functions directly in SSRS expressions. In your case you can use the Contains() function like this.
=IIF(
Fields!ReportRecipients.Value.Contains(Parameters!Keyword.Value),
"Maroon",
"Black"
)
If you are dealing with HTML and only want the search term to be highlighted then you can simply use this as the Value expression. You must leave the text box color properties as default.
=REPLACE(
Fields!ReportRecipients.Value,
Parameters!Keyword.Value,
"<span style=""color:red;"">" & Parameters!Keyword.Value & "</span>"
)
Finally, right-click the placeholder, choose properties and select Mark-up type as HTML
In this example, I used a country list and searched for the word "land", here's the results. The first column just uses the first method I described. The second column adds HTML tags.
I'm using Report Builder 3.0. Long story short, I want to make the font bold for the text in the red box that you see in the image below:
Basically, it's just one expression in the legend field of my value, however, for clarity's sake (for my end users) I wish to make the "title part" bold. I found the following solution for textboxes in a tablix using Html by checking off the "HTML – Interpret HTML tags as styles." checkbox within the Textbox's properties. (http://www.sqlchick.com/entries/2010/10/31/using-different-formats-within-a-single-textbox-in-ssrs.html)
However, I can't find anything similar for graphs! I mean if MS thought about it for tables, I presume they must've given it some thought for a chart setting too.
Thanks to all!
p.s. As an aesthetic solution to my problem, I did think of simply creating a new title field, moving it to the exact same location and formating it. But I'm surious whether there'd be some more "proper" way of doing this.
I'm using the same approach for one of my charts.
STEPS.
Select the Chart series to open property pane. In my case, the chart series name is TWR Chart Series
Select the color property and select to build the expression.
I'm posting one of my expression. You can build your own expression base don your field names etc.
=IIF(Fields!ProductID.Value = 1 OR Fields!ProductID.Value = 6,"#00425E",
IIF(Fields!ProductID.Value = 3 ,"#6B8797",
IIF(Fields!ProductID.Value = 5 OR Fields!ProductID.Value = 7,"#799179",
IIF(Fields!ProductID.Value = 4 AND Fields!sort.Value=99,"#6bb1be","#48597B"))))
If used sensibly, you should get your desired results.Good luck.
I am working on rdl reports and as I had to add multilingual support, I need to be able to change the column headers' text by the selected language parameter.
I added this very basic custom expression to the header:
=IIF(Parameters!Language.Value="EN", "Date", "DateInDifferentLanguage")
but when I export the report to CSV this is completely ignored, moreover, the column header will be the assigned value's name.
I tried to search for solution for almost 2 days, but the only thing I found that I should use the DataElementName property. Well, for static values it works, but as the text is parameter-dependent I have to use custom expressions and this property does not allow me to use anything like that.
Hopefully, there will be no difference in the solution for grouped columns.
So, my question is: is it possible to add parameter-dependent custom expressions to grouped/not grouped columns?
EDIT: I just realized that you can't set the DataElementName property by expression. I'll leave this up in the off-chance that it may help in some way.
If you're wanting different expressions based on a parameter, try this:
Make sure you can see your Report Data. View -> Report Data(at the bottom)
Start by creating the parameter. Right click Parameters folder in the Report Data window -> Add Parameter... Let's call it 'Language'.
In the available values tab, click Specify Values. Add values for your languages, so the label will be what you want the viewer to see, make the value the same.
Label: English
Value: english
In the Expression you're trying to modify, simply put the available expressions you want in an SWITCH() block.
SWITCH(Parameters!Language.Value = 'english', [do english things],
Parameters!Language.Value = 'spanish', [do spanish things],
Parameters!Language.Value = 'chinese', [do chinese things],
True, [do english things])
today i had a discussion with my colleague. The question was whether to use the additonal value attribute for a single HTML checkbox or not.
My preffered way is using a single checkbox without a additional value attribute and in backend doing a check like if
if (request.getParameter(checkboxName) != null)) {
...
}
My colleague argues that is would be more transparent using a single checkbox with a additonal checkbox value attribute like value="true" and doing a backend check like
if (Boolean.valueOf(request.getParameter(checkboxName))) {
...
}
As we want to make a small convention about our internal checkbox handling im now trying to find a "best practise" but couldn't find yet. I saw so far only examples with multiple checkbox with the same name. In this case of course it makes sense for me to use different values.
For me it seems to be a bit overhead using a value attribute in case of a single checkbox since i get always a String with "on" if its activated/checked.
We are using a Java Servlet/JSP MVC environment and im not 100% sure if this "on" comes from ServletRequest.getParameter.
I see reasons for following either method, which means there's probably no noticable difference between them. Whichever you pick will work out fine; just make sure you pick one. You could flip a coin or do a thumbwar or something.
As long as a single approach is consistently used, both will work. Yours is less code and doesn't require boolean conversion, the other´s html is more consistent with multiple checkboxes but will also break if you put the wrong value for whatever reason.
You could always do a bit of both and insert values in html for clarity but check for != null in the code and get the best of both options.
It makes no difference server-side as long as you are not checking the parameter for having a specific value. By HTML5 definition, which just establishes the longstanding practice as the rule, a checkbox element has the value on by default. This means that your server-side code cannot distinguish between data coming from <input type=checkbox name=foo> and data coming from <input type=checkbox name=foo value=on>.
I have SSRS solution for SQL 2005 and 2008.
I am showing output in the form of chart- column chart with each column representing different database.
Is there a way to display each column in different color?
Regards
Manjot
You can use a formula to set the colour of each column, but that would work best if you knew what the individual series values ('databases'?) were going to be.
Right-click on your chart and bring up its properties. Now switch to the Data tab and select the first item in the Values list. Click the Edit... button to show the properties for the values (the columns) in your chart. Over on the Appearance tab there's a Series Style... button which takes you to another dialog.
On this new Style Properties dialog, switch to the Fill tab. That's where you set the colour for each of your columns. This can be a formula, so you might make it something like:
=Switch(
Fields!Database.Value = "master", "Blue",
Fields!Database.Value = "msdb", "Red",
"Green")
If you don't know in advance which 'databases' are going to be represented on the chart, this method won't work very well. In that case you might be able to come up with a formula which hashes the database name and comes up with a colour to match. That sounds like an interesting challenge, so add to your question if you need help doing something like that.
Edit
I just got a hash-based-colour-scheme working. It's a pretty nasty piece of code, but it did manage to get me a unique colour for every (string valued) column. Perhaps someone can come up with a better algorithm and post it here. Here's mine:
="#" & left(Hex(Fields!Database.GetHashCode()), 6)
So that's getting the HashCode for the string (a numeric value) and converting it to hex, then taking the leftmost six characters and prepending it with a "#" sign. That gives us a string that looks like a colour value (eg #AB12F0).