The Picture Box control is intended to display images of numerous formats in a report. An image can be loaded from an external file, from a bound data source, or from a web location using the specified URL.
The following image formats are supported: BMP, DIB, RLE, JPG, JPEG, JPE, JFIF, GIF, EMF, WMF, TIF, TIFF, PNG and ICO.
To quickly load an image from an external file, use the control's Smart Tag .
To bind the control to a data field containing images, right-click the corresponding Field List item, and then drag and drop it onto a report. This will invoke the Context Menu, where you can choose the Picture Box, and it will be automatically created and bound to the selected data field.
In the Property Grid , the Picture Box control's properties are divided into the following groups.
Appearance
Background Color
Specifies the background color for the control.
Borders, Border Color and Border Width
Specify border settings for the control.
Formatting Rules
Invokes the Formatting Rules Editor allowing you to choose which rules should be applied to the control during report generation, and define the precedence of the applied rules.
Padding
Specifies indent values which are used to render the contents of the control.
Style Priority
Allows you to define the priority of various style elements (such as background color, border color, etc.).
Styles
This property allows you to define odd and even styles for the control, as well as to assign an existing style to the control (or a newly created one).
Behavior
Anchor Vertically
Specifies the vertical anchoring style of the control, so that after page rendering it stays attached to the top control, bottom control, or both. The property setting is useful for data-bound controls located between upper and lower controls, which are allowed to resize depending on their contents.
Keep Together
Scripts
This property contains events, which you can handle with the required scripts.
Sizing
Defines the sizing mode of a contained image. To quickly adjust the image size and position within the control, click its Smart Tag, and choose Sizing.
The image sizing settings are briefly described in the following table.
Mode
Description
Normal
The image is placed in the upper-left corner of the control. The image is clipped if it is larger than the Picture Box which contains it.
Stretch Image
The image within the control is stretched or shrunk to fit the size of a Picture Box.
Auto-Size
The Picture Box size is adjusted to that of the image it contains.
Center Image
The image is displayed in the center of the control. If the image is larger than the Picture Box, the outer edges are clipped.
Zoom Image
The image is sized proportionally (without clipping) for best fit into the control.
Squeeze
If the dimensions of a Picture Box exceed that of the image it contains, the image is centered and shown full-size. Otherwise, the image is resized to fit into the Picture Box's dimensions.
Visible
Specifies whether the control should be visible in print preview.
Data
(Data Bindings)
If the current report is bound to data, this property allows you to bind some of the control's properties (Bookmark, Image, Image URL, Navigation URL and Tag) to a data field obtained from the report's data source, and to apply a format string to it. For more information on this, refer to Display Values from a Database (Bind Report Elements to Data).
Image
Specifies an image to display in the Picture Box control.
When you click the ellipsis button, you will see the Open File dialog that enables you to specify the file to load. Then, this image is embedded into a report and saved within this report, so it is always available. Note that this increases the size of a saved report definition. If you want to save only the image path, and not the image itself, use the Image URL property instead.
Image URL
Specifies the URL of the image to display in the Picture Box control. It supports both absolute and relative paths. A relative path may be related to the Web site or to the current Web page. In the second case, the path to the image must start with the "~" symbol. Setting a relative path makes it easier to move the entire application to another directory on the server without having to update the code.
Tag
This property allows you to add some additional information to the control; for example its id, by which it can then be accessible via scripts.
Design
(Name)
Determines a control's name, by which it can be accessed in the Report Explorer, Property Grid or via scripts.
Layout
Location
Specifies the control's location, in report measurement units.
Size
Specifies the control's size, in report measurement units.
Snap Line Margin
Specifies the margin (in report measurement units), which is to be preserved around the control when it is aligned using Snap Lines, or when other controls are aligned next to it.
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