Options in Discoverer Viewer and Discoverer Plus

Both Discoverer Viewer and Discoverer Plus provide options pages that allow developers and end users to modify the behavior and characteristics of how reports are run and displayed in these environments. Discoverer Plus has options that control things like these (discussed in detail in the following section):

• If queries in Worksheets are run automatically

• How NULL values are displayed

• The default values for data, headings, and totals

• Whether automatic querying, fan traps, and multiple join path detection are enabled or disabled

• What default EUL is used

• Query Governor settings

Discoverer Viewer has options that control preferences:

• Query Governor settings These options set limits on how many resources (disk I/O, CPU time, etc) can be used by a query.

• Worksheets These options set how NULLs are displayed, the number of rows per page.

• Summary Data These options determine when to use summary data.

• Fan-Trap Detection This setting detects and prevents certain queries that could return ambiguous results.

• End- User Layer You can select a default EUL for Discoverer to use each time you create a new connection to your database.

• Locale Selection You can select the locale that you want Oracle9 i AS Discoverer to use when displaying text and presentation options (Figure 5-44).

  
  Figure 5-44: The Presentation Options page in Discoverer Viewer

Discoverer Plus Options

To see the options available to developers in Discoverer Plus, select Tools Options from the menu in Discoverer Plus. The Options window is displayed with six tabs along the top:

• General This tab allows developers to define when the query associated with a Workbook is run, options for scheduled Workbooks, and if the graphics on Wizard pages should be displayed.

• Query Governor One of the most powerful features of Discoverer, the Query Governor allows developers to define thresholds for Discoverer reports. This is invaluable, as end users can manipulate reports in such a way as to use up large amounts of database resources (CPU time, I/O, etc.). The Query Governor can be used to limit the execution of reports beyond various time thresholds and retrieved numbers of rows thresholds.

• Sheet Format This page defines various formatting options on Discoverer Worksheets, including how null values are displayed, how many rows are displayed per page, and if drill-down items are displayed in inline or outline format.

• Default Formats Allows developers to define defaults formats (font, font size , alignment, text color, background color , etc.) for data, heading, and total fields.

• Advanced Allows developers to enable or disable automatic querying of Worksheets and the detection of fan traps and multiple join paths.

  Note  

  From Oracle s Documentation: Fan traps occur when the data items in two folders are not directly related but do have a relationship based on the data items in a third folder. Multiple join paths occur when two tables can be linked in more than one way.

• EUL Allows developers to specify a default EUL to use each time a connection is established to a database.

Discoverer Viewer Options

To see the options available to end users in Discoverer Viewer, select the Preferences icon on the top right of any Discoverer Viewer page. An HTML page is displayed with six sections:

• Query Governor One of the most powerful features of Discoverer, the Query Governor allows end users to define thresholds for Discoverer reports. This is invaluable, as end users can manipulate reports in such a way as to use up large amounts of database resources (CPU time, I/O, etc.). The Query Governor can be used to limit the execution of reports beyond various time thresholds and retrieved numbers of rows thresholds.

• Worksheets This page defines various formatting options on Discoverer Worksheets, including how null values are displayed and how many rows are displayed per page.

• Summary Data Defines when summary data should be used.

• Fan-Trap Detection Defines whether Discoverer will detect queries that could return ambiguous results.

• End-User Layer Allows end users to specify a default EUL to use each time a connection is established to a database.

• Locale Selection Allows end users to select the locale that OracleAS Discoverer will use when displaying text.