Report Viewer

Overview

Elliott Report Viewer is a Notepad-like program for viewing Elliott report files while providing additional Elliott functionality.  Using Report Viewer, you can:

• Email the report
• Print the report
• Save the report to Spooled Reports

By design, there is no ability to edit these files – this tool is for viewing files only.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Use the following keystrokes in addition to normal text-editing keystrokes:

ToolBar Actions

Open File… (Ctrl+O)

This provides a standard File Open dialog you can use to view a different report from the current one.

Save to Spooled Reports (Ctrl+S)

If this program was launched from running a report to the screen in Elliott, you can use this option to save the report in the spooled reports folder.  If this program was not launched from the print-to-screen option in Elliott, this ToolBar button will not be displayed.

Save As…

This provides a standard File Save dialog you can use to save the current report to a new location.

Go to next Elliott process:  Press this button or F9 to go to the next open Elliott process on your computer.

Email…

This provides the ability to email the report, using Elliott email functionality.

Print…  (Ctrl+P)

This provides the ability to use the Elliott printing function to print the report to one or more specified printers.

Mark a rectangle to copy

After you click this button, you can use your left mouse button to draw a rectangle on the screen.  When you release the mouse button after drawing the rectangle, you can copy the contents of the rectangle to the clipboard.  Note:  You can also use the right mouse button to do the same thing without clicking this button.

Copy to Clipboard (Ctrl+C)

If some characters are highlighted in the text area, or you have drawn a rectangle around some text, you can use this button to copy the specified text to the clipboard for use in another program.

Change font…

Click on this area to start a standard Font dialog to change the font of the report on the screen.  Only fixed-pitch (non-proportional) fonts will be shown.  After you select a font, the screen will be resized to attempt to fit the width of the report.

Increase font size (Ctrl+B)

Click this button to use the next bigger point size in the current font family.

Decrease font size (Ctrl+S)

Click this button to use the next smaller point size in the current font family.

Find text (Ctrl+F)

Type a string you wish to find in the report.

• Press the Enter key, or press the Find next button, to find the next occurrence of the string.
• Press the Shift+Enter key, or press the Find previous button, to find the previous occurrence of the string.

Go to Page (Ctrl+G)

Type a page number and press the Enter key to go to that page in the report.

Previous page (Ctrl+PageUp)

Press this button to go to the top of the previous page.

Next Page (Ctrl+PageDown)

Press this button to go to the top of the next page.

Help (Shift-F1)

This displays the help document for Spooled Reports Manager.

Screen Location, Size and Font

When a file is opened, the program will try to use an optimal window size as follows:

1. If the column width of this report matches approximately the width of a previously viewed report, the previous font and window height, width and location will be used.
2. If there is no approximate match to a previously viewed file, the program will make an educated guess at the necessary width and height for best viewing of the report, using a standard font.

If you adjust the size or location of this program’s window, or change the font, that information will be saved for potential matching to future reports of the same approximate width.

Drill Down Improvements

Notes, eContacts and Attributes

In Elliott V8.0, wherever you drill down to a specific Note, eContact or Attribute, a separate process will be launched for you to view or edit this object.  At the same time, because we are launching a new process, you can select multiple Notes, eContacts or Attributes and launch them simultaneously.  This provides more flexibility to compare similar objects and copy-and-paste among them.  One side effect of this capability is, for example, when you add a new note -- because you are adding it in a separate process -- the System does not know when you are done.  As a result, after adding the note, that note is not reflected in the Note list immediately.  You will need to press F5, or exit the note list and come back up again, for that list to refresh.

Legacy Screen Drilldowns

In Elliott V7.5, it was sometimes possible to drill down repeatedly until you reached a point where the drill downs could go no further.  In Elliott V8.0, limitations on drilling down from one level of information to another have been removed.  Now, you no longer will be stopped when you want to drill down to a screen that has already been drilled down to.  Where a drill down would cause a recursion error, Elliott will automatically start the drill down in a new process.  Optionally, pressing the Control key with the drill down key in many Legacy Screens also will launch a new process.  This is especially useful for side-by-side comparisons.  For example, in the stock status inquiry screen, after bringing up an item, you will notice that you can use the “F3” key to drill down to the “ATP Inquiry Screen.”  Now you have two options when you press the F3 key:

• F3 will drill down to the ATP Inquiry in the current window.
• Ctl-F3 will start a new window for the ATP Inquiry

The biggest advantage of the new Control + Key capability is that it allows you to drill down to a window and make it an independent window.  This allows you to drill down to multiple windows and compare the information side by side.

Not all potential drill down areas are supported with the Control key combination.  If you feel a particular drill down area needs the Control key combination support, you may give us feedback.

eContacts Processor

This program, also known as Mass Email, has been redesigned to make the user interface more intuitive.  It is now template-centric, with the expected Open, Save and Save As…functionality at the bottom:

Open will display the list of templates for you to use as a starting point.  After making changes, you can Save the template or use Save As… to save your work to a new template.

In addition, the Email From name and address can be customized with Elliott variables to provide more personalized email (see below).  When using SMTP for email, HTML can be pasted into the body of the message, allowing richer email content for your customers.

Also, when using SMTP, you have the option to send a blind carbon copy of the email to yourself.

Macros in V8.0

External macros, where other programs like Notepad can be controlled from within Elliott, are not different between V7.5 and V8.0.

Internal macros, where Elliott can be controlled from the command line or from an external file of Elliott command strings, operate nearly the same as in V7.5, but with two important differences:

• The Elliott Control Center must be running before starting an internal macro.  If you see a message like the following after launching an internal macro, you need to login to the Control Center and try again:

• The name of the process to start on the command line has changed from EL700 to EL800P.  Note the letter “P” in EL800P.  You would do this from <root>\Bin folder.  An example follows:

                        EL800P /CO:01 02 /F:CUSNLIST

The above example starts the internal macro located in the file <root>\Macro\CUSNLIST.MAC .  It specifies company 01 and will run in Accounts Receivable (02).

Other Elliott Executables

Below are additional executables that you may start from the command line to do specific Elliott V8.0 functions.  They are located in the <root>\Bin directory. 

• EL800P.Exe:  This program is used internally to start a task from the Control Center.  It also may be started to run an internal macro (see Macros in V8.0, above).
• DDF2BTR.Exe:  This program can be used to make sure the internal definitions of selected PSQL database files match the DDF definitions to ensure the database is ODBC compatible.  By default, it will only rebuild any Btrieve files whose DDF definitions are mismatched with the file index structure, but you can force the rebuild by using the /F option. If you simply type the executable name on the command line without any parameters, you will see the following information to help you understand how to operate this utility: