FF! 8.0 Development Notes

Build 361 is no longer available. Download build 362 instead: http://www.foxfirereporting.com/livedesign/ff80362.zip

The major changes are in the Output tab. Foxfire! now has built-in support for Word and RTF output and more improved Excel options. Try it out and give me your views on the new layout options interface. We'll be publicizing more of the features in the next few posts.

Here's what's changed:

Modified Output screen to show newer options better.

Note: When you choose a format of Data File - Excel but then specify you want a Formatted request, it displays a message with some details about what will be changed and then changes the request to an Excel Spreadsheet with Formatted output.

Created separate output UIs for Text files, Data and XML to more accurately show the options available

Added support for new Excel Charting functions. Users can now specify if a legend should or should not appear; extra category titles and other plotting options.

Updated layout to show Form layouts better. When you switch to a Report-Form layout, it actually re-formats the preview area to show the fields in "form" layout mode.

Updated Previewer so that if you are using the Master/Detail layout, you can actually see what it will look like. Master/detail reports by page actually reverse the Groups and Page Headers so the Group details appear before the Column Headings.

Both Master/Detail reports only ever show ONE group summary as well. This is now properly depicted in the preview.

This is being released primarily for the Southwest Conference demo so we can see the functionality of the new output layouts.

Note that the zip file includes several BMPS so be sure to unzip it with Folders intact.