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Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Getting Familiar with the New CFREPORT Tag Syntax
  3. Introducing the ColdFusion Report Builder
  4. Building a Sample Report
  5. Building a Query for Your Report in the Query Builder
  6. Formatting Your Report
  7. Browsing Your Report

Building Reports with ColdFusion MX 7

Introducing the ColdFusion Report Builder

The ColdFusion Report Builder is a tool you can use to create ColdFusion report files (CFR files) that the report engine will consume. The Report Builder is only available to Windows users, even though the reports themselves can run on most platforms to which ColdFusion deploys (Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, HPUX, and AIX specifically—HPUX and AIX are only supported through pure Java deployments).

When you run the Report Builder for the first time, the Server Setup Wizard helps you configure Report Builder to work with ColdFusion Server. You can modify all of the settings in the Server Setup Wizard from the preferences screen, or you can run the wizard again.

ColdFusion reporting uses a banded-report writing paradigm. In other words, each section of the report is separated into different bands; a section, or band, is a printable region of the report. Each band has its own rules that specify when and how to print. The Report Builder lists each of these bands in the work area from the top to the bottom in the following order:

  • Report Header
  • Page Header
  • Column Header
  • Detail, Column Footer
  • Page Footer
  • Report Footer

There is also a special band called "Watermark" that prints in the background of every page. You can get more information about the different bands by using the integrated help system from the Help menu.

The Report Builder layout has four main areas (see Figure 1):

  • Workspace
  • Properties panel
  • Fields
  • Parameters panel
  • Text Styles panel
Report Builder layout

Figure 1. Report Builder layout

Use the Workspace in the middle of the screen to place your images, labels, or text—anything—that you want to print. When you select an object or text in the workspace, the Properties panel in the upper right displays the properties available for that object. The Fields and Parameters panel below the Properties panel displays the fields (either from your database or ones that the report calculates) and parameters that are available for your report. Lastly, use the Text Styles panel to set text attributes in your report quickly and easily.

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