Hello,

I have a report where the data is sorted BY Country and BY Region. It is a SUM report on sales and SUBTOTAL is applied to these two fields. The field sequence in Region, Country and Sales. After each Region there is a blank row, that makes a section break. I want a thick border around this section.

The format of the report is EXL2K. Please help.

Anant,

Locate the style manual and give it a read. You need to identify to what TYPE you need to apply BORDER styling.

T

Does the BORDER attribute carry over into excel? I may be wrong, but I think that the BORDER attribute is one of those that is NOT carried into Excel.

Darin,

Of course you are correct, but my intention was to get Anant to actually read some documentation as then he/she would be better informed, especially as the documentation for BORDER mentions PDF, HTML and PS but never mentions EXL2K or the Excel alternates. From this you can understand that BORDER (and some other styling syntax such as VGRID and HGRID) do not apply to EXL2K.

So you could say that my response was part of a crusade to get some folk to actually bother reading documentation or pushing their employers for some form of basic training. With the current fashion for outsourcing (such as RBS?) the outsourcing companies (OCs) are relying upon the good nature of Forum members to compensate for the OCs not supplying training to graduates who have no experience of WebFOCUS. Don't get me wrong, the "no training" fault lies with the companies and not the graduates.

It is commendable to supply assistance on technique and other such questions, but basic styling and syntax questions? Well I leave that to everyones character, but from my point of view some folks need to be guided to help themselves first. Otherwise they will never bother reading a manual or get some training (and therefore learn how to learn?), they will just think "I don't know how, can't be bothered to find out by reading manuals, so I'll just ask the Forum".

If more members take this approach then perhaps, as a group, we can persuade some OCs to actually supply basic training, and/or encourage some reading of manuals/previous postings before asking for help.

Obviously there are some grey areas in this "generalised" view, but you can often spot those that don't bother apart from those that have tried.

Ok, I'm getting off the soapbox now

T

Hear, hear, Tony. I am often frustrated after posting what should be enough information for the requester to look up the answer only to have it followed by another post with the exact code. I totally agree with you that folks won't learn unless they struggle a bit or make the effort to at least look something up in a manual. I've been doing FOCUS since 1984 and I still look stuff up!

So, continue fighting the good fight. I'm on your side. (Well, actually I'm over here and you're over there but you know what I mean.)

Tony...you must have needed a tall ladder to get off that box...

Ginny, Thanks for the support

Prarie, Only needed the ladder for the high horse

T

I am also in complete agreement with you Tony and Ginny. Whether or not I "give away" the solution by posting code usually depends upon my mood. (i'm not very generous in the mood). I'm probably guilty of saying too much sometimes, but it's usually if (IMHO) something needs to be clarified.

I absolutely learn and retain things better if I've struggled a little or had to look it up and read it. In this nice and helpful forum, it's just to easy from someone to post code which the user can cut, paste, and forget...

quote:

I've been doing FOCUS since 1984 and I still look stuff up!

Hear, hear to that, as well. I've been doing this for a while, and although there are many things I remember simply because I used them frequently or taught about them, I prefer to have the understanding so I can look up the syntax when I need it.

Besides, although the old grey filing system is very good at storing things, waiting for the tape to be recalled is a bit slow at times - if it can be found at all.

Karen,

I think that applies to most of the more experienced coders here!

I always think the most important thing to know about WebFOCUS is where the manuals are kept

T

Oh so right!

I have a hard copy and an electronic copy of the manuals. The hard copy is tabbed out with the items I use the most. The electronic copy is great for searching by key words.

But let's not forget the other sources - previously coded reports and especially "includes" for those snippets of code that get used over and over again.

Bottom line is that we may not remember the exact code, but we almost always remember where we say an example of the code.......if we took the time to search for or create it in the first place.

Couldn't agree more with you guys on this subject.
Users of this forum should at least perform a minimal search through this forum and through the most likely documentation available to us all before posting.
By doing so, they make the best use of the resources available, and as a very positive side-effect, make this forum one of the best resources for tips, tricks and solutions there is.