8.3.3 Managing Interactive Grid Column Attributes

Column attributes enable developers to control the display, features, and behavior of interactive grid columns. Developers can use these attributes to alter nearly all aspects of column behavior, including altering the layout and appearance, creating validations, defining column links, creating column filters, and adding support for export and printing.

Note:

Some settings are configured at runtime by the report developer and saved as part of the primary or alternate report (for example, column display order, the columns the report is sorted on, and column widths. To learn more about save options, see "Saving Interactive Grids."

Topics:

See Also:

"Managing Pages in Page Designer"

8.3.3.1 Editing Grid Column Attributes

To edit interactive grid Column attributes:

  1. View the page in Page Designer:
    1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
    2. Select an application.
    3. Select a page.
    Page Designer appears.
  2. In the Rendering tab, locate the region and expand the Columns node.

    The columns appear in the Rendering tab.

  3. Select a column to edit.

    The Property Editor displays the attributes for that column. Attributes are organized into functional groups. To expand or collapse these groups, click the Show Common, Show All, Collapse All, and Expand All icons.

  4. To search for an attribute, enter a keyword search in the Filter Properties field. The groups and attributes containing the term appear.
  5. Edit the appropriate attributes.

    Tip:

    To view help for an attribute, select the attribute in the Property Editor and click the Help tab in the central pane.

  6. To edit the column heading:

    1. Locate and expand Heading.

    2. Edit the Heading, Alignment, and Alternative Label attributes.

  7. To control how the column value displays and for editable grids how the column value is edited:

    1. Locate and expand Identification.

    2. Select the Type.

      Different settings are available depending on the selected Type. In an editable grid, select the Type Display Only to make a column uneditable. Choose the Type Hidden for primary key columns that should not be seen or other columns that are only used in templates such as icon or detail view, link targets, or columns of type HTML Expression.

  8. To control how users can manipulate a column:

    1. Locate and expand Enable Users To.

    2. For Sort/Control Break/Aggregate/Group By, select Yes or No. Selecting Yes, enables users to use this column in sorts, control breaks, aggregates, and group by.

      Tip:

      Enabling these operations can cause performance issues, especially on large data sets or where appropriate column indexes are not available.

  9. To save your changes click Save. To save and run the page, click Save and Run Page.

8.3.3.2 Defining a Column as a List of Values for Filtering

You can define an interactive grid column as a list of values to improve the speed of built-in filter tools.

To define a report column as a list of values:

  1. View the page in Page Designer:
    1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
    2. Select an application.
    3. Select a page.
    Page Designer appears.
  2. In the Rendering tab, locate the region and expand the Columns node.
  3. Select the desired column.
  4. In the Property Editor, locate and expand Column Filter. Specify the following:
    1. Enabled - Select Yes or No to specify whether users can filter this column.
    2. LOV Type - Select how to derive the list of values for the filter when a user clicks on the column header or in filter dialogs. See Page Designer Help for more details.
  5. To save your changes click Save. To save and run the page, click Save and Run Page.

8.3.3.3 Creating a Column Link in an Interactive Grid

Use Column Attributes to create a link from a report to another page in your application or to a URL.

To create a column link to another page:

  1. View the page in Page Designer:
    1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
    2. Select an application.
    3. Select a page.
    Page Designer appears.
  2. In the Rendering tab, locate the region and expand the Columns node.
  3. Select the desired column.

    The Column attributes appear in the Property Editor.

    Tip:

    To control the amount of information that displays, click the Show Common, Show All, Collapse All, and Expand All buttons.

  4. Expand Identification. From Type, select Link.
  5. Expand Link and click No Link Defined.

    The Link Builder - Target dialog appears. The Target Type you select determines the steps that follow.

  6. To create a link to another page, in the Link Builder - Target dialog:
    1. Type - Select Page in this application.
    2. Page - Specify the target page number.
    3. Set Items - Select a Name and Value to specify session state for an item.
    4. Clear Session State, Clear Cache - Specify the page numbers on which to clear cache. To specify multiple pages, enter a comma-delimited list of page numbers.
    5. Rest Pagination - Select Yes to reset pagination for this page.
    6. Advanced, Request - Specify the request to be used.
    7. Click OK.
  7. To create a link to another page in another application, in the Link Builder - Target dialog:
    1. Type - Select Page in a different application.
    2. Application - Specify the application.
    3. Page - Specify the target page number.
    4. Set Items - Select a Name and Value to specify session state for an item.
    5. Clear Session State, Clear Cache - Specify the page numbers on which to clear cache. To specify multiple pages, enter a comma-delimited list of page numbers.
    6. Rest Pagination - Select Yes to reset pagination for this page.
    7. Advanced, Request - Specify the request to be used.
    8. Click OK.
  8. To create a link to a URL, in the Link Builder - Target dialog:
    1. Type - Select URL.
    2. URL - Enter the URL address.
    3. Click OK.
  9. To save your changes click Save. To save and run the page, click Save and Run Page.