S/List User Manual

LIST KEYWORDS

The normal OpenList modifiers may be used as required. The following keywords are specific to S/List.

AMV

The AMV (Associated Multivalue Group) qualifier is used in conjunction with the LIMIT clause to get around the historical problem of losing information from all multivalued columns when the LIMIT clause is present e.g.

LIST STAFF NAME ADDRESS INVOICE_DATE AMOUNT LIMIT INVOICE_ DATEÄ > "1/1/96"AMV "INVOICE_DATE, AMOUNT"

will NOT omit lines from the ADDRESS column when it trims down the other multivalues to satisfy the LIMIT condition.

See also OpenList Reference: LIMIT

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Average

There is no new functionality as such to report for the Average keyword, but a long standing problem with RLIST which led to figures in the Averaged column being omitted has now been corrected by S/List.

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Box

The BOX modifier is used to add lines around the columns and column titles, producing a boxed effect. It will automatically print the closing box line after the last row on the page. It may be used anywhere within the S/List sentence.

Figure 49: Inserting Box

LIST 10 PATIENT TITLE FORENAME SURNAME BOX

See also GRID

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Break-on

There are two new formatting options for Break-On, both of which are incorporated in the example below.

Break-On clauses can now be combined to good effect with a JustLen 0 format override, and this principle is also embodied in the example below.

Figure 50: Break-On clauses

LIST CUSTOMER NAME ADDRESS BREAK-ON TOWN "'RUU' Running Total ('C' so far)" Ä JUSTLEN 0 BREAK-ON TOWN "'DUV' Total ('C')" JUSTLEN 0 TOTAL AMOUNT AVERAGE Ä AMOUNT

See also JUSTLEN, GRAND-TOTAL

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Centre/Center

The CENTRE modifier is used to centre the report on the output. It will centre all columns within the width of the output device. It may be used anywhere within the S/List sentence. Note that it will not centre data or headings within columns. This is achieved be either modifying the dictionary items or overriding the dictionary items with a JUSTLEN OpenList modifier. Nor does it centre headings and footings; new format flags in the Heading and Footing commands themselves achieve this.

Figure 51: Centre Report

LIST 10 PATIENT TITLE SURNAME CENTRE

See also HEADING/FOOTING

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COLFONT

The ColFont modifier is used to modify the font of the column it follows in the S/List statement. It has the structure

FontName, Pointsize, Type

where:

Any or all types can be specified in any combination.

Any of these elements can be omitted and their order is irrelevant. E.g. ColFont "Arial,12,B,I" is equivalent to ColFont "B,Arial,I,12", and ColFont "14,I" will carry on using the font name specified by the master Font keyword (or Courier if no Font was specified) but it will change the pointsize to 14 and the face to italic for just this column.

The column header will default to the font of the column unless overridden using ColHdrFont.

Figure 52: Example of modifying font

LIST 10 PATIENT TITLE COLFONT 'AMHERST,18,I' SURNAME COLFONT Ä'CASPEROPENFACE,18,U'

See also COLHDRFONT, FONT, FTRFONT, HDRFONT

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COLHDRFONT

The ColHdrFont modifier is used to modify the font of the entire column heading block of the report. It has the structure

FontName, Pointsize, Type

where:

Any or all types can be specified in any combination.

Any of these elements can be omitted and their order is irrelevant. E.g. ColHdrFont "Arial,12,B,I" is equivalent to ColHdrFont "B,Arial,I,12", and ColHdrFont "14,I" will carry on using the font name specified by the master Font keyword (or Courier if no Font was specified) but it will change the pointsize to 14 and the face to italic for the column headings block.

See also COLFONT, FONT, FTRFONT, HDRFONT

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COLHDSHADE

The ColHdrShade modifier is used to modify either the shading or the colour of the entire column heading block of the report. It has various possible structures

See also COLSHADE, SHADE

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COLHEAD

ColHead functions identically to its OpenList equivalent with the sole exception that it now recognises an embedded 'L' option to permit multi line column headings to be created on the fly.

E.g.

LIST CUSTOMER NAME AVERAGE AMOUNT COLHEAD "Average'L'Amount" ID-SUPP

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COLSHADE

The ColShade modifier is used to change either the shading or the colour of the column it follows in the S/List statement. This change will be carried up into the heading of the column as well unless it is specifically overridden with a ColHdrShade statement. It has various possible structures n[%] Shades to that percentage of grey, just like Word for Windows Colour Can be any of the following predefined colours: RED, GREEN, BLUE, CYAN, MAGENTA, YELLOW, WHITE, ORANGE, PINK, DGREY, LGREY. (White is included to allow an easy override of any column colour which would otherwise spill over into the column heading area). These colours are useful for print previews on screen but note that unless you have a colour printer all you will get on a printout are various, often unintelligible shades of grey!

See also COLHDRSHADE, SHADE

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Font

The Font modifier is used to modify the default font for the entire S/List report. It has the structure

FontName, Pointsize, Type

where:

Any or all types can be specified in any combination.

Any of these elements can be omitted and their order is irrelevant. E.g. Font "Arial,12,B" is equivalent to Font "B,Arial,12", and Font "8" will carry on using the default Courier font but it will change the pointsize to 8 for all sections of the report which are not specifically overridden using one of the further modifiers below.

See also COLFONT, COLHDRFONT, FTRFONT, HDRFONT

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Footing

Footing functions identically to its OpenList equivalent with the sole exception that it now recognises an embedded 'C' option to centre the footing in the available output area.

See also CENTRE/CENTER, FTRFONT, HEADING

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FTRFONT

The FtrFont modifier is used to modify the default font for the footing of the S/List report. It has the structure

FontName, Pointsize, Type…

where:

Any or all types can be specified in any combination.

Any of these elements can be omitted and their order is irrelevant. E.g. FtrFont "Arial,12,B" is equivalent to FtrFont "B,Arial,12", and Font "8" will carry on using the default Courier font but it will change the pointsize to 8 for footing section of the report only.

See also COLFONT, COLHDRFONT, FONT, HDRFONT

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Grand-Total

Grand-Total functions identically to its OpenList equivalent with the sole exception that it now recognises an embedded 'B' and/or 'I' option to print out the final text and totals in the Bold/Italic face of the relevant column, regardless of the "normal" column settings.

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Grid

The Grid modifier is used draw lines between individual rows on the report. It can be used to good effect in conjunction with the BOX modifier. It has no other associated syntax at this time.

Figure 53:Inserting a Grid

LIST 5 SYSREPOSPOPUPS TITLE ID-SUPP GRIDSee also BOX

See also BOX

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HDRFONT

The HdrFont modifier is used to modify the default font for the heading of the S/List report. It has the structure

FontName, Pointsize, Type…

where:

Any or all types can be specified in any combination.

Any of these elements can be omitted and their order is irrelevant. E.g. HdrFont "Arial,12,B" is equivalent to HdrFont "B,Arial,12", and Font "20" will carry on using the default Courier font but it will change the pointsize to 20 for the footing section of the report only.

See also COLFONT, COLHDRFONT, FONT, FTRFONT

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Heading

Heading functions identically to its OpenList equivalent with the sole exception that it now recognises an embedded 'C' option to centre the heading in the available output area.

See also CENTRE/CENTER, FOOTING, HDRFONT

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JustLen

JustLen is syntactically identical to its OpenList equivalent, but the use of a JustLen 0 (or JustLen "L#0") override can now lead to altered behaviour. For one thing, it actually does completely suppress the column, unlike RLIST. Equally impressively, if the suppressed column had a break-on clause applied to it, the break text will automatically be moved to the first non-zero width column encountered to the left. The break text however, will "remember" the font attributes of its suppressed column, allowing bold, italic and different sizing effects to be incorporated in a single column. Please see the example provided for Break-On earlier in this manual for an illustration of this effect.

See also BREAK-ON

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Keep Together

This keyword prevents multivalued output from beginning at the bottom of one page and continuing at the top of the next. S/List determines whether it has enough space for the next data set before it begins printing it, and throws a page if not!

N.B. For backward compatibility this desirable behaviour is not automatic, and the keyword must be specified for each report individually if required.

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Portrait&Landscape

By default, S/List output will assume the attributes of the current Windows printer unless told otherwise and this is subject to change by other packages outside of the S/List environment. To ensure that a report prints out in the appropriate format, simply include the relevant Portrait or Landscape modifier.

See also PRINTER, SCREEN

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Printer/(P)

Like RLIST, report output will be sent to the screen unless told otherwise. Use either of the above commands to send output to the current Windows printer instead.

See also PORTRAIT & LANDSCAPE, SCREEN

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Screen

Since S/List report output will be sent to the screen anyway unless told otherwise, this command may seem redundant at first glance. However, the default print preview mode takes over the entire display area of the screen and does not therefore permit the user to observe any progress messages or gasbars such as those provided by the S/List Assistant. The Screen modifier actually tells S/List to present its previewed output in a smaller display area, allowing observation of such progress indicators. In addition, it takes one optional parameter which scales the size of the previewed output to enable an entire page to be viewed.

E.g. SCREEN 45% will create a sub-screen for preview which should show all of an A4 page in landscape orientation. Some trial and error may be required depending on your screen resolution.

Note that certain fonts may not be displayed accurately in a scaled print preview, although they will print out correctly.

See also PORTRAIT & LANDSCAPE

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Shade

The Shade modifier is used to change either the shading or the colour of all (alternate) columns in the S/List report.

It has various possible structures

Any of these options can be preceded by the keywords ODD or EVEN to limit the application of the shading to alternate columns. You may like to include the throwaway word COLUMNS for clarity when defining this clause.

E.g.
SHADE 10%
SHADE CYAN SHADE ODD COLUMNS MAGENTA
COLSHADE EVEN 255,120,50

See also COLHDRSHADE, COLSHADE

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Text Justified Columns

Instead of the erroneously formatted output given by RLIST...

The S/List output is now more logically formatted

In addition, paragraph formatting of OpenInsight CR/LF delimited text data is handled correctly.

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