The designer provides a preview mode for the editable report. To do this, simply switch to the corresponding tab in the designer window. The report template will be generated and displayed in the built-in viewer.

 

 

Preview event

Before previewing the report, there’s an option to perform necessary actions, such as connecting data for the report. For this, there is a special onPreviewReport event, which will be triggered before the report is previewed. The event arguments will contain the report intended for preview.

 

Example of connecting data on the client-side using JavaScript for report preview:

 

designer.php

 

<?php

use Stimulsoft\Report\StiReport;

use Stimulsoft\Designer\StiDesigner;

 

$designer = new StiDesigner();

$designer->onPreviewReport = 'previewReport';

$designer->process();

 

$report = new StiReport();

$report->loadFile('reports/SimpleList.mrt');

$designer->report = $report;

?>

 

...

 

<script>

function previewReport(args) {

let dataSet = new Stimulsoft.System.Data.DataSet("SimpleDataSet");

dataSet.readJsonFile("Data/Demo.json");

 

args.report.regData(dataSet.dataSetName, "", dataSet);

}

</script>

 

 

 

Example of modifying report properties on the PHP server-side before report preview:

 

designer.php

 

<?php

use Stimulsoft\Report\StiReport;

use Stimulsoft\Designer\StiDesigner;

 

$designer = new StiDesigner();

$designer->onPreviewReport = function (StiReportEventArgs $args) {

$args->report->ReportDescription = 'This is a report description from the PHP server-side.';

};

 

$designer->process();

 

$report = new StiReport();

$report->loadFile('reports/SimpleList.mrt');

$designer->report = $report;

 

$designer->printHtml();

?>

 

 

 

A detailed description of the available event arguments can be found in the Designer Events section.

 

 

Additional options

The report preview window in the designer is a fully interactive viewer that allows printing and exporting the report and supports working with report parameters. All interactive actions, such as dynamic sorting, drill-down, and collapsing, are supported. No additional settings are required to use these features in the report designer.