Shape

Shape report control is a graphical element that allows you to display different shape types in a report. It has no data associated with it. You can use the control in several ways to enhance your reports:

• Mark visual boundaries or highlight specific areas of a report with rectangles, rounded rectangles, or elliptical shapes.
• Highlight different sections or parts of a report using a shape report control. For example, you can use a Rectangle as a border around different report controls or the entire page or you can use an Ellipse to highlight a note on your report.

Some properties of the Shape control are described below. Note that you need to enable Advanced Properties Mode to view all properties.

Background

Color: Select a color to use for the background.

Image: Select an image to use for the background.

Border

Width: Enter a value in points to set the width of the border.

Style: Select a style for the border.

Color: Select a color to use for the border from Color Picker, Standard Colors, or Web Colors.

Shape Style: Select a style for the shape from the following:

Rectangle	RoundRect	Ellipse
Rectangular shape.	Rectangular shape with round corners.	Elliptical shape.

Rounding Radius: Radius for the round corners of the shape. This property is valid for the RoundRect shape style.

Layout

Style: Choose from the list of available styles and set to apply a style to the control.

Use Case

Let’s say that we already have a report displaying a catalog of products grouped by categories as shown below. Please see List topic for designing this report.

We can enhance the appearance of this report by using Shape controls. We will use two Shape controls - one to highlight each category of products, the other one to visually mark the boundaries of the List data region with the 'Products' data. Both shapes will use a rectangular shape with round corners for a more powerful visual effect.

The final report will be as shown:

1. Drag-drop the Shape control onto the report’s designer, such that it surrounds text boxes [CategoryName] and [Description].

2. Set the following properties of the Shape control to some suitable values, for example:

   • Border Width: 2pt
   • Border Style: Solid
   • Border Color: Green
   • Shape Style: RoundRect
   • Rounding Radius: 5pt for each corner

   Note: Since Shape control overlaps the previously added controls, it hides them in the design area. In such a case, you may need to decrease the value of Layout > Z-Index to some suitable value.

3. Drag-drop another Shape control, on the List data region, and resize it to surround the List data region.

4. Set the following properties of the Shape control to some suitable values, for example:

   • Border Width: 2pt
   • Border Style: Solid
   • Border Color: Green
   • Shape Style: RoundRect
   • Rounding Radius: 15pt for each corner

   Your report should look like the following in the design area:

   

5. Improve the appearance of the controls.

6. Preview.