3. Working with the
user interface
This section highlights some common operations performed while
developing a template:
Creating, deleting, importing
and exporting
In the File menu you can find all the operations to be
performed on projects, these are:

- Create a new project. Use the „New..“ item.
Select new FO Report Project and follow the steps in
the wizard.

Enter a project name and press finish

- Deleting a project: press DEL on the project folder,
make sure you select the „Delete project contents on disk“
checkbox

- Importing a report. Use this to import single report files. A
new project will be created using the file name.

- Import a legacy report. These are .xrp files used in FO
Designer 1.*. Same as above but using legacy files instead.
- Save reports to the file system
- Export and import complete projects (including XML and schema
files).
Select export and File system. If you select „Archive File“ the
project will be exported to a zip file.

Last, select the objects to be exported and press finish:

Selecting objects
Objects in the areas can be selected in 3 ways:
- Single object selection: clicking on the object (the
properties of the object will be shown automatically
- Multiple object selection: click on several objects while
holding the SHIFT key pressed.

The selected object can then be resized or moved all together
using the mouse.
Operations on files
You may use the context menu to delete, copy or rename files or
whole projects however make sure that:
- If you copy a whole project make sure you rename the xre to
the same name as the project name.
Basically make sure the xre file has always the same name as
the project.
- You many have only one xre file per project. If you
need to copy the xre file, copy the whole project instead.
Operations on objects
There are other operations you can perform on the selected object
by using the context menu (mouse‘s right click)

The operations are not explained here in detail since they are self-explanatory
and quite standard in many windows programs. Additionally to the
operations listed the following operations can be performed by
using the keyboard:
- copy: control key + C
- cut: control key + X
- paste: control key + V
- delete: <del> key
Operations on areas
The areas item in the main menu allows the following
operations:

Both operations work using the Outline view.
- Inserting an first level area: select the master on the
outline view. The new area will be added as first level area.

- Inserting an area below an existing area: select the
parent area in the outline, for example „Detail“

the new area will be added below (as a subarea). In this
example „Detail area 3“ has been added below „Detail“

The preferences dialog
In the windows menu there are 3 items (4 if you install the SVN
plugin):

- the reset perspective will replace all the view in the
original position. This is useful if you have closed or moved
some views by mistake and want to return to the original
window layout.
- The Designer perspective will open the editor in case the
Welcome or SVN setup perspectives are open.
- Preferences: in this dialog the settings described below are
available

The settings are:
- Properties windows on left side: this is useful if
you are working with small screens (laptop). In this case the
properties of the object will be shown on the same position as
the project explorer (as a new tab), saving therefore display
space.
- Persist XPath dialog size and position: if marked the
desinger will remember previous size and position of the
dialog.
- Align to grid: align always new or moved object to
the grid
- Grid: normal or fine
- XML namespace processing setup. remove namespaces
from test XML files before creating the PDF.
- Escape invalid characters: this should always
selected in order to generate valid xsl-fo files.
- Oracle APEX encoding setup: select this option if you
are working with Oracle APEX. Do not use however this option
for the Oracle APEX Listener (ORDS) as print server.
- Activate digital signature. See section below.
- Ask before creating local files: self
explaning.
- Use project name as PDF file name: if not setm the
designer will always generate a report.pdf file.
- Local history page, Limit history size: set a limit
on the number of past reports (history) to be kept.
- Local history page, Days to keep files: older
copies will be deleted.
- Local history page, Maximum entries per file:
maximum number of past reports to be kept.
- Local history page, Maximum file size: larger
reports will not be kept.
- Mail page, Smtp Host and port (In the Mail subpage):
Setup for sending the PDF reports from the designer (see cloud
server section)
- Mail page, From email: sender email
- Mail page, User and password: smtp server
login data
- Server page, DB Server and DB Server port:(in the
Server subpage) this setup is required when working in teams
and there is a central J4L FOP Server together with a central
database.
- Server page, Printer server type:(in the Server
subpage) setup for remote PDF generation. Select one of
the supported servers. Make sure you select the right
server since when exporting the xsl-fo file the designer will
check if the functionalities in the report are compatible with
your target server.
- Server page, Printer server URL: use
for Oracle Apex: http://host:port/ords/_/fop2pdf or http://host:port/apex/_/fop2pdf
for local J4L FOP Server user: http://host:port/J4LFOPServer/Apex
for J4L Could Server use:
https://apex-reports/print/trial
Note: for Apex ORDS to work
you need to navigate to the /apex or /ords directory , locate
the defaults.xml file and add the following code:
<entry key="misc.enableOldFOP">true</entry>
- Server page, Connection timeout (secs):
timeout when connecting to remote servers for FOP generation
- Server page, Response timeout (secs): timeout
for the response from the remote FOP server.
- Server page, Ask before using the cloud server
for PDF: self-explaining
- Server page, Ask before using the cloud server for Excel:
self-explaining
The local history
The designer will keep a copy of the previous report each time
your click on the save button. The settings in the preferences
dialog will determine how many and how long the copies will be
kept.
In order to recover a previous version of the report, first
close the report then select the „Show local history“
in the context menu.

The local history window will open. You can use the context menu
„Get Contents“ to recover a previous version (make it
the current version) and replace the current one.
After getting a previous version you can open the report as
usual, you will be now working with a copy of a past version.

The report assistant
The report assistant is a report creation wizard that will take
you through the steps of creating the skeleton of the
report. By skeleton we mean:
- You can set the basic style and layout of the areas
- you can define some out-of-the-box master/detail relationships
- you can define up to three areas
What you need to do after the skeleton has been created include
(but not only) items as below:
- add report titles
- move/resize the fields to the desired size or position
- change the style of specific fields
- add borders , lines, images or barcodes for example
Look at the 2 videos below for a quick introduction