Watermark and Relative Positioning

building reports webintelligence
1

Hi All,

I have created a watermark by removing the background colors for table rows from the defaultconfig.xml file.

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Then, I place a cell behind the table with my watermark. I know that I can set the background image to get the watermark, but I cannot figure out how to make this dynamic.

The next step is to repeat the watermark cell on every page.

So, since the table has transparent rows in the body, the cell placed behind the table is visible and the text in the body is superimposed on the watermark.

This works great for the first page.

However, on subsequent pages, the table is placed relative to the watermark cell, which places it 0,0 from the left and bottom edge of the watermark. Now my watermark cell has turned into a header cell. It seems that WebI does this with other structures as well, but I didn’t care because I could always insert a blank row to properly space the blocks.

Any ideas on how to keep the table placed over the watermark cell on every page.

Thanks for any ideas…
8)

Robert Schmidt (BOB member since 2002-11-15)

2

As far as I know, the only way to make this work is put the image in the background of the report, instead of in a cell.

MichaelWelter :vatican_city: (BOB member since 2002-08-08)

3

Okay, I have finally done this in Desktop Intelligence.

I have a header table in a section, I then have a detail table in the same section. So, I have two tables in the section. The detail table is placed relative to the header table (0 px from the bottom of the header table).

I created a cell that is about the same width of the section and is under only the detail table. In this cell I repeat the watermark text several times, with a formula similar to the following:


=Char(13)  + Char(13)  + Char(13) + "Watermark" + Char(13)  + Char(13)  + Char(13) + "Watermark" + Char(13)  + Char(13)  + Char(13) + "Watermark"

I then send the cell to the back and bring both the header and detail tables to the front. I set the cell’s (in the table) shading to None and it works perfect…

… till about the fourth page into the section. :cry:

We all know that for some reason, even though a table is placed relative to another that InfoView may shift the table down 10 pixels or so on subsequent pages. Normally, the relative positioning will fix this behavior. However, with the watermark cell the relative positioning is preempted by another concern that Business Objects has, which is overwritting the master cell for the section. (Problem in version 6.5).

It seems as the way they fixed the overwritting of the master cell is to bring any cells in the section to the front and place the table at a reasonable offset from the top of the cell. It doesn’t worry about this until about the forth page into the section. I have my thoughts as to why, but will withhold that for now.

I am wondering if there is any way to tell Business Objects not to compensate for any cells in a section and to allow the table to be superimposed on the cell?

Any help is appreciated.

BTW, Michael… Do you know how to make this dynamic? The reason for this exercise is that the watermark will vary for different customers.

Thanks,
Robert

Robert Schmidt (BOB member since 2002-11-15)

4

Problem: This is a report with three levels of summary data that need to be positioned relative to the report in differing ways. Summary one is Askar data that needs to be positioned at the bottom of each page. Summary two is pub data that needs to appear after the last detail row of each break, and above the Askar data. Summary three is header information that needs to appear before the details rows of each break, and at the top of each page.

In addition to summary placement, a dynamic watermark needs to appear under the detail rows of the break.

Solution: A solution that met all requirements of the problem is not obtainable in Web intelligence. This is due to the lack of the CurrentPage context keyword, which is necessary to properly display the Askar data in the footer of each page. Therefore, we used Desktop intelligence to solve the problem.

Askar positioning solution: Since the Askar data is to be displayed at the bottom of each page, we considered placing it in the footer of the page. Two problems needed to be solved before this was possible. The first problem is that Desktop intelligence does not allow for tables to be placed in the footer. This was solved by using freestanding cells. Second, the footer has report scope and not break scope. Since each new break in our report starts on a new page, we solved the scope issue using the context keyword CurrentPage, as in = Max( in CurrentPage).

Pub Data solution: Since this data is to appear after the last detail row in each break, it is natural to place it in the footer section of each break. The accommodate for the multiple rows of data, we inserted rows into the footer.

The Header solution: This was done by inserting multiple rows into the break header and repeating the header on each page.

The Watermark solution: Because of the way InfoView treats freestanding cells on a report, which is after x pages into the report InfoView may move the cell to the front of the report and place all tables below the start of the cell, which ruins the effect of the watermark and destroys the format of the report, we decided to use a table to hold the watermark text. The water mark text can be different for each break in the report and is defined by a field in the data provider. We placed the table just under the first data row of the break, deleted the header, and sized the data cell to the maximum size of the body of the details section. We then formatted the text to be cyan, removed the borders, and placed it behind the data table. We also repeated the table on each page.

Robert

Robert Schmidt (BOB member since 2002-11-15)

5

How is this done please?

twofivepie :uk: (BOB member since 2008-10-16)

6

Sorry, this would be a solution in DeskI, if The CurrentPage context keyword actually worked. I don’t want to mislead anybody with this solution, until I can find an example of the keyword actually working…

Robert Schmidt (BOB member since 2002-11-15)