New Icons
The user interface for BI Query features new icons for buttons, toolbars, and windows.
For example, this is the new icon for BI Query User.
Revised Dialog Boxes
The dialog boxes for opening, saving, and retrieving BI Query resources (such as queries and data values files) have been updated to improve usability. For example, see the Open Query dialog box below.
NOTE: Previously, if you had a query open, and you selected the Open Query menu option, the query already open was cleared immediately, even if you clicked Cancel from the Open Query dialog box without loading a new query. Now, the current query is only cleared when a new query is actually opened or run.
When you first enter the Open Query dialog box, you will only see the Administrator-created queries, now called Shared Queries. To see only queries you created, click on My Queries.
NOTE: You can now create subfolders within My Queries (e.g., in the \User\Queries folder) to organize your queries more efficiently.
Clicking on External Queries lists all query files and subfolders in the last selected external folder. You can save queries to any accessible location on your system. Queries that are not stored in the Queries folder or one of its subfolders are now called external queries. You can open and run external queries, but you cannot link them to a button.
New/Revised Toolbars
See Appendix A for a side by side comparison of toolbars between BI Query versions 7.0 and 9.0
In addition to the existing Standard, Drawing, and Layout toolbars, the following new toolbars are available:
Navigation Toolbar Provides tools that help you locate items in the data model. Using the toolbar, you can navigate across or within data model windows, resize the contents of design windows, and find attributes that match a particular search string.
Query Toolbar Provides tools that let you edit or save the active query. Many of the tools on this were previously only available through the Query menu. The Query toolbar now has a button that changes when there is a group qualifier on a query, and another when Distinct is applied. Tools to combine, uncombine, and negate qualifications are also now available here.
Super Query Toolbar Provides tools to create and edit a super query. These tools were formerly available in the Super Query window.
Toolbar States
BI Query toolbars can now function in either of two ways:
- Floating—The toolbar appears in its own window anywhere within the main program window or desktop.
- Docked—The toolbar appears in a fixed position on an edge of the main program window.
You can display or hide any toolbar using the Toolbar command on the View menu. This function used to be in the Window menu.
New Query Window
The Query window has been redesigned and now records the attributes you have selected for a query (in addition to the qualification tree and the group and sort operations you have applied to the attributes). As you build a query by selecting attributes from data objects and applying qualifications and other operations, the information in the Query window automatically updates.
As with the new toolbars, you can now view the Query window in one of two states: docked or floating. When the Query window is docked, it occupies a fixed space on any edge of the main program window. When the Query window is floating, it appears in its own window within the main program window or the desktop.
Query Window Views
The Query window has two view modes:
Query View Presents the total query information in the same format as any attribute window. Once you have selected an attribute, it will appear in the window from then on until you delete the attribute. All attributes selected from all tables appear together in this same window. You can edit the query in Query View mode as you would in any attribute window.
SQL View Presents the actual SQL for the query, if the Show SQL String preference is set. If the Edit SQL String permission is also assigned, you can modify the SQL in SQL View mode. This is the only view of the query that was available in previous versions.
You can switch between the two view modes by clicking the Toggle Query Window button on the Query toolbar.
Freehand Query
You can now run a query written in SQL that is not tied to the graphical data model interface in a freehand query window, which you can access through the Query menu.
Data Model Navigation Tools
BI Query now includes the following tools that help you navigate across and within data model windows:
Navigation Buttons Lets you navigate through the window history list. To keep track of the order in which you visit windows in a data model, BI Query maintains a window history list. This list records which design, query, results, attribute, super query, and standard reports windows that you have opened (up to a maximum of 10 windows). The navigation buttons are available on the Navigation toolbar.
Design Window List Lists the design windows in the data model. To navigate to a particular design window, select it from the list. The list is available on the Navigation toolbar.
Multidirectional Scrolling Tool Lets you scroll the contents of the active design window in any direction (up, down, left, right). To access the scrolling tool, do one of the following:
- Click the Pan button on the Navigation toolbar.
- Click the middle mouse button in a design window.
Magnification Tools Let you control the magnification and position of items within the active design window. The following tools are available on the View menu and the Navigation toolbar:
- Actual Size—Resets the magnification of items in the active design window to their original size.
- Fit In Window—Increases or decreases the magnification of items within the active design window so that all items within the window are visible.
- Zoom In—Increases the magnification of items in the active design window by 10% per click.
- Zoom Out—Decreases the magnification of items in the active design window by 10% per click.
Find Tool Locates attributes within the data model. For a given search string, the tool finds any attributes with names that match the string, opens the corresponding attribute windows, and selects the matching attributes.
Labels Support Re-Introduced
As with earlier versions of BI Query, you can now create labels from results sets. Each row in the results set forms the content of one label. To format labels, you can choose from a range of standard Avery label formats available from Avery Dennison Corporation. You can also create your own customized labels and save their specifications for use with other results sets. You may need a postscript printer driver installed.
New Menu Commands
See Appendix B for a side by side comparison of menus between BI Query versions 7.0 and 9.0
A newly added View menu contains commands that let you do the following:
- set the magnification of items within the active design window
- enable or disable the status bar
- open or close the Query window and any toolbar
- open, close, and clear the Message window
BI Query also features the following new commands in existing menus:
Close All Results Command
You can now close all open results sets using the Close All Results command on the Results menu. You can also access the command by right-clicking in any results set.
Select/Deselect All Command
The Select All command on the Edit menu has been updated and renamed Select/Deselect All. If the active window is an attribute window or the Query window in Query View mode, you can run this command to select all attributes in the window (if all attributes are not already selected) or deselect all attributes (if all attributes are selected).
Invert Selection Command
The new Invert Selection command on the Edit menu lets you automatically unselect the attributes you have selected, and select the attributes you don't have selected.
Selected Attribute Command
The new Selected Attribute command on the Query menu opens a submenu of commands that apply to the attribute currently selected in the Query window (in Query View mode). The subcommands let you change the position of the attribute within the query and create or edit a calculated attribute.
Export Command
The new Export command on the Results menu lets you export the current results set to the application you have configured in the Export Options dialog box.
Troubleshooting Super Queries
To help you understand the operations that BI Query performs to process a super query, you can now run a super query in Troubleshooting mode. In Troubleshooting mode, BI Query halts the processing of the super query after performing each operation; you can then view the outcome of each operation. Upon your prompting, BI Query will either resume the super query or cancel it. To troubleshoot a super query, click the Troubleshoot Super Query button on the Super Query toolbar, and then run the query.
Data Model Summary Command
The Print All command on the File menu has been updated and renamed to Data Model Summary. You can use this command to produce a report that summarizes information about the data model and its associated files, including information about design windows, data objects, attributes, connection files, queries, ornaments, and prompts. The report is a tab-delimited text file that you can open in a text editor or spreadsheet program for easy formatting, sorting, and printing.
Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
Results > Filter > Compute now works correctly.
Users can now delete dynamic relationships that they create.
In previous versions of BI Query, if you selected the Save Column Headings results option and you pasted a single cell from a BI Query result set into another application (such as Excel), you would not only get the header for the selected column, but any subsequent column headers as well. Now, only the selected data and column header appears in the application.
BI Query's process for renaming queries with filenames not matching their internal names has been improved. Extra queries backups don't get created and messages like "BIQ failed to make a backup for 'Untitled2.qry' before renaming it to long name 'Untitled12.qry'. Continue renaming?" don't appear anymore.
BI Query Reports
String Mask Formatting
Using special characters, you can specify a template string to format data. For example, a database may store telephone numbers as 13-character strings (such as 6135554355x26). To format this data as a recognizable phone number, you can create the following template:
(###) ###-####_ Ext. \#*
If you apply this template, BI Query Reports formats the value as (613) 555-4355 Ext. #26.
Page Numbering Enhancements
Reset Page Numbering After Page Breaks>
For any band to which you add a page break, you can now also have the page numbering begin at 1 again on the following page.
Keep With Previous
The report footer band that appears once at the bottom of the table now has a "Keep With Previous" option, which is selected by default. When this option is selected, the report footer band ignores any manual page breaks. This reduces the likelihood that the report footer band will be orphaned on the final page of the report.
Landscape Option in Presentation Designer
When using Presentation Designer to create a presentation, if you choose a Table, you can now select which orientation (portrait or landscape) you want.
Ability to Select Multiple Reports in the Open Dialog Box
When using the Open dialog box to open a report, you can now select multiple reports.
Mouse Scroll-Wheel Support
If your mouse has a scroll wheel, you can now use the scroll wheel to scroll up or down within a report.
Default Data Formatting
The default data format now passes from BI Query to BI Query Reports.
Excel Exporting
You can now export the report to a native .XLS file.
>
