Standard and Legacy Formatting
New releases of WebFOCUS often introduce improved ways
of formatting reports. Some of these new features are advances over
earlier features that performed similar formatting, but with fewer
options or less functionality. The new feature becomes the standard,
and the earlier one is then considered a "legacy" feature.
When you create a new application and have a choice between using
a standard or a legacy feature, we encourage you to use the standard
feature. When you are maintaining an earlier application that incorporates
a legacy feature, you may choose to retain the legacy feature to
save time, or to convert the application to the standard feature
in order to leverage its new functionality.
As an example of the difference between
standard and legacy formatting, consider the standard and legacy
methods of laying out a report on a page:
-
The standard way is
to specify the page margins using TOPMARGIN, BOTTOMMARGIN, LEFTMARGIN,
and RIGHTMARGIN. (You can apply these keywords as StyleSheet attributes
or SET command parameters.) You can specify the margins in inches,
centimeters, or points, as determined by UNITS (which you can also
issue as a StyleSheet attribute or a SET command parameter). This
is simple, and enables you to design reports the same way that you
design other kinds of documents.
-
The legacy way is
to specify the height of the report output on the page, measured
in report lines (using the LINES parameter of the SET command);
and the width of the report, measured in characters (using the WIDTH
parameter of the SET command). The top and bottom margins will each
be half the difference of the page height and the report height,
measured in character lines; the left and right margins will each
be half the difference of the page width and the report width, measured
in characters. This legacy method limits you to using a monospace
font, such as Courier.