Hi everyone,

just as a quick hint what I have found out recently in WebFOCUS PDF Compound.
(Could not find this info by searching the forum or the WF documentation)

 COMPOUND LAYOUT PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
... 

In the WebFOCUS course we were told that using the PDF Composer you need to add PDF elements in the right order to create overlapping objects in the right z-order (from "older" to "newer" objects).
What I found out recently is that this is not entirely true. The z-order is determined by the objects names (case-insensitive) not the order in which you added them (or in which they appear in the source code).
Give it a shot: An object named "A-Box" will always appear below / behind a "B-Box".

If not yet known this could be quite worth knowing.

Cheers Linne

Is this a change in functionality or a bug ?

Have you got sample code ?

I'd love to try that out on previous versions.

Hi Waz,

actually I cannot decide whether this is a bug or a feature. I would opt for "undocumented feature" but I cannot tell if they have changed this between WF versions -

Yet if you know what to do, it can be quite useful:

Please feel free to check the following example (for me currently checked on WF 7.7.01)

 
SET HTMLARCHIVE=ON
COMPOUND LAYOUT PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
UNITS=IN, $
SECTION=section1, LAYOUT=ON, METADATA='0.5^0.5^0.5^0.5^4', MERGE=OFF, ORIENTATION=PORTRAIT, PAGESIZE=Letter,  $
PAGELAYOUT=1, NAME='Page layout 1', text='Page layout 1', TOC-LEVEL=1, BOTTOMMARGIN=0.5, TOPMARGIN=0.5, METADATA='BOTTOMMARGIN=0.5,TOPMARGIN=0.5,LEFTMARGIN=0,RIGHTMARGIN=0,', $
OBJECT=BOX, NAME='line1', POSITION=(0.625 0.521), DIMENSION=(2.917 1.667), BACKCOLOR=RED, BORDER-COLOR=RED, METADATA='Z-INDEX: 100; POSITION: absolute; BACKGROUND-COLOR: red; WIDTH: 2.917in; HEIGHT: 1.667in; FONT-SIZE: 1pt; TOP: 0.521in; LEFT: 0.625in', $
OBJECT=BOX, NAME='line2', POSITION=(2.083 1.354), DIMENSION=(3.333 1.875), BACKCOLOR=BLUE, BORDER-COLOR=BLUE, METADATA='Z-INDEX: 100; POSITION: absolute; BACKGROUND-COLOR: blue; WIDTH: 3.333in; HEIGHT: 1.875in; FONT-SIZE: 1pt; TOP: 1.354in; LEFT: 2.083in', $
OBJECT=STRING, NAME='text1', TEXT='<font face="ARIAL" size=18>A hidden text</font>', POSITION=(2.606 1.872), MARKUP=ON, WRAP=ON, DIMENSION=(2.083 0.521), style=bold, METADATA='', $
COMPONENT='DfltCmpt1', POSITION=(0 0), DIMENSION=(0 0), $
END
SET COMPONENT='DfltCmpt1'
TABLE FILE SYSCOLUM
" "
SUM TBNAME NOPRINT
IF READLIMIT EQ 1
ON TABLE SET PREVIEW ON
ON TABLE SET PAGE-NUM NOLEAD
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT PDF
ON TABLE SET STYLE *
END
COMPOUND END

 

Try changing "line2" to "aline2" or "text1" to "atext1" and see if in your version the z-order is changed. For me in 7.7.01 I could alter the z-order that way.

Cheers
Linne

Looks like it has always done it.

Tested and verified in 7.1.6, 7.6.6, 7.6.9 and 7.6.11.