Usage Notes for Active Technologies

The following apply to browser support.

• Active PDF (APDF) is an Active Technologies output format. It is not supported in Microsoft Edge®, since APDF requires the Adobe Reader plug-in that supports Flash Player.
• ActiveX, a technology from Microsoft, is not supported in Microsoft Edge. Any Active Technologies feature that requires the use of ActiveX controls is therefore not available in Microsoft Edge. These features include the following, which are accessible in other browsers at run time, using the column drop-down menu on an active report:
  • Send as E-mail (supported only in Internet Explorer)
  • Save Changes (supported only in Internet Explorer)
  • Export to XML (Excel) when active cache is disabled
• If you are using a Firefox® browser and you export an AHTML report to Excel, the file extension that displays is incorrect (for example, .xls.xls). You can override this default value using the settings of the browser. Specifically, if you click the Always ask me where to save files radio button, which is located under Options, you will be prompted, upon download, to either open or save the file. You can then provide a name and extension for the file.

The following apply to Active Technologies reports.

• At run time, when fields are added to, or removed from, an active report that includes drilldowns that pass parameter values, the drilldowns are disabled. This is because the parameter values that are passed may no longer apply.
• If multiple report components with different security passwords are included in an AHTML document, the password for the last report component is used.
• Active reports employ left and right cell padding, by default. This enables you to view the active report consistently, without the concatenation of any values or spacing issues related to the cell padding. In cases where these settings are not defined in the StyleSheet, the default settings for the left and right cell padding are used.
• By default, Active Technologies displays the name specified in the Master File to identify a column in an ACROSS group on a tabular active report that has only one display field. With the following SET command, you can display the title specified in the Master File, instead of the name, to identify the column:

  SET ACRSVRBTITL = ON

  Active Technologies derives the title from the TITLE attribute in the Master File (for example, TITLE = 'Product ID'). It derives the name from the FIELDNAME or FIELD attribute (for example, FIELD = PCD).

• The Sort Ascending, Sort Descending, and Restore Original options are accessible on a column drop-down menu on an active report. When active cache is enabled on the active report, the Restore Original option does not return the report output to its original state after sorting the data. Instead, you receive the following message: Warning: Original sort could not be determined.

• When using active content in Cache Mode, filtering may not work properly if the content contains a text field (for example, TX50). As a workaround, consider using an alphanumeric field (for example, A50).

The following apply to Active Technologies charts.

• When working with filters in an AHTML chart, certain filtering options do not display if you have only one column on which to filter and it has a decimal format which includes a decimal point. In this case, the Filter Chart and Exclude from Chart filtering options are not available in the chart tooltip at run time.
• As of Release 8.2 Version 02, the new chart attribute syntax has been applied to the following chart types: Dual Bar and Line, Tag Cloud, Streamgraph, Mekko, Funnel, and Pyramid. This process adds additional relevant field containers for these chart types, which can be used to specify fields in a specific area of the chart. For example, Horizontal Axis, Color, and Tooltip are field containers that are part of the new chart attribute syntax.

  In , specific field containers display for each chart type. For more information on the underlying syntax used to create each chart type, see the Creating HTML5 Charts With WebFOCUS Language manual.

• When you run an active chart, the output displays a chart toolbar with a number of options that you can select. These options are represented by icons. The active chart toolbar provides an Aggregation icon that allows you to select the aggregation method (that is, the type of calculation, such as Sum or Avg) that will be used on the selected data in the chart.

  If you run an active chart that does not have a measure field to which an aggregation method can be applied, the Aggregation icon:

  • Appears on the chart toolbar, but cannot be selected.
  • Displays None as the aggregation method. None is dimmed on the label. It indicates that there will be no aggregation performed on, or applied to, the selected data in the chart.
  Once you run the active chart with data that applies to an aggregation method, the Aggregation icon is activated. Its label reflects the aggregation method currently in use (for example, Sum).

• The new chart attribute syntax has been applied to the following chart types: Dual Bar and Line, Tag Cloud, Streamgraph, Mekko, Funnel, and Pyramid. This process adds additional relevant field containers for these chart types, which can be used to specify fields in a specific area of the chart. For example, Horizontal Axis, Color, and Tooltip are field containers that are part of the new chart attribute syntax.

  In , specific field containers display for each chart type.

The following applies to Active Technologies tools.

• The comma inclusion edit option is not implemented in Rollup tables and Pivot tables when active cache is enabled.

The following apply when using the Export to Excel functionality.

• When using the Export to Excel option while creating and generating an active report with active cache enabled, the request will be generated in XLSX format rather than EXL2K. This applies to the following browsers: Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome.

  The export behavior is controlled by the WebFOCUS Reporting Server, and an ActiveX plugin is not required for Internet Explorer. When the export is performed, an Office Open XML document is produced, which you can download and save in the required format (default is .xlsx).

• When using the Export to XML (Excel) option with active cache disabled, the export behavior is controlled by the active JavaScript layer.

  An ActiveX plugin is required for Internet Explorer. This is used to export the output directly into Microsoft Excel, enabling you to save the document in the required format (.xlsx or .xls depending on the Microsoft Excel version installed).

  In Firefox and Chrome, when the export is performed, an MS Office XML document is produced, which you can download and save in the required format (the default is .xls).

  In Microsoft Edge, the Export to XML (Excel) option is not supported. The option is available with active cache disabled, but when the export is performed, the output is displayed as text inside the browser window.

The following apply when using mobile devices.

• The Chrome browser "Force enable zoom" Accessibility setting on Android mobile devices overrides a website request to prevent zooming. If this setting is enabled when executing an AHTML report on an Android mobile device using Chrome, it interferes with active report functionality, such as Freeze Column and manual resizing. The Accessibility setting needs to be disabled for active reports to be fully functional.