Use colors in a report

In my last post, I talked about the use of colors in a grid. You can use the discussed example to add some spice to your forms.
But the same can be applied to reports as well. Anyone remembers those old dot matrix printers, with that huge stacks of print paper? The paper had green lines, in order to improve the readability.
You can get the same effect, with almost any report in Ax. This is some coding I did a couple of years ago for a user that complained about his report, saying the characters where "all dancing around on the paper".

Create a static method on a class, for example the Global class. (this way you can reuse this code on multiple reports)

static void SetReportLine(ReportSection _ReportSection)
{ int controlcount;
int counter;

int usecolor;
int oldcolor;

object reportobject;
;
controlcount=_ReportSection.controlCount();
oldcolor=_ReportSection.foregroundColor();

if(oldcolor==WinApi::RGB2int(255,255,255))
usecolor=WinApi::RGB2int(220,255,220);
else
usecolor=WinApi::RGB2int(255,255,255);

_ReportSection.foregroundColor(usecolor);

for(counter=1;counter<=controlcount;counter++) { reportobject=_ReportSection.controlNo(counter); reportobject.backgroundColor(usecolor); } }

Now all you have to do, is call this static method from your report. Call it from the executed section in the report, before the call to super, like this

public void executeSection()
{ ;
Global::SetReportLine(this);

super();
}


The result will look something like this:








Eco tip: Again, don't overdo the use of this effect. As all coloring needs to be printed, ink is used. The darker you color your lines, the more ink gets used. So this tip isn't that eco friendly, as it is retro style.

How to use color in a grid

How to color records in a grid is a common user request that can be found on the web.


Actually, this is quite simple to achieve in Ax, with only a small modification. The trick is to override the displayOption method on the form's datasource.



Non-overriden, it looks like this:



public void displayOption(Common _record, FormRowDisplayOption _options)
{
super(_record, _options);
}



By using the options object, an object of class FormRowDisplayOption, you can set the background color.



_options.backColor(myColor);





You can use the record information from _record to set any background you want, where each row in the grid can have a different background color.


For that reason, it may be better to change it's type to the specific table used in the datasource.


Like this:





public void displayOption(CustTable _CustTable,FormRowDisplayOption _options)


{ int myColor=WinApi::RGB2int(50,255,50);
;

if(_CustTable.Currency=='EUR')


_options.backColor(myColor);



super(_CustTable, _options);
}



In the example above, we color code our customers in the form CustTable. (Remember: Changes go in the methods of the form's datasource.) Customers with currency EUR get a green color.


The result looks like this:





By using colors, you can enhance the visual representation of your data. Making it easier for users to grab their attention, focusing them on certain data. The data gets processed faster.

Just make sure you don't overdo it, making it hurt your users eyes ;-)