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Why are some team concert work item fields not wrapping when printed?


Ian Jessett (3142) | asked Nov 12 '13, 6:43 p.m.

We are using RTC 4.0.3 with a custom work item.

A requirement for our solution is to be able to print individual work items ... I know, dark ages stuff but this is the way these guys want it right now and it is a logical requirement as they transition from a paper based process.

This seems simple enough as there is a print feature in both the web and eclipse interfaces of RTC that prints all attributes from each of the tabs. For the built in work item types all seems to work OK - the printed page shows all fields and wrapping for the long text strings is good enough to keep all the text on the page.

However, I am creating a new work item type and I have experimented with the existing "Description" attribute in the existing "com.ibm.team.workitem.section.description" section. I have tried placing this section in each slot of the different tab layouts (I know this is an unrealistic scenario but it illustrates the wrapping problem that I see with my custom attributes but I am showing here that it also occurs with built in attributes and sections). In each case I moved the description section to the slot, saved the process template for the project area and created a new work item, printed it off, at no point did I have the same description section present in more than one location in the work item.

When I do this, I find that the wrapping on print is affected as follows:
  • com.ibm.team.workitem.section.description section in Overview Layout
    • wraps OK if in the Details slot
    • not wrapping if in the Discussion slot
    • wraps OK if in the QuickInformation slot
    • wraps OK if in the Description slot
  • com.ibm.team.workitem.section.description section in Custom Attributes Layout
    • wraps OK if in the Left slot
    • wraps OK if in the Right slot
  • com.ibm.team.workitem.section.description section in Links Layout
    • not wrapping if in the Attachments slot
    • wraps OK if in the Links slot
    • wraps OK if in the Subscribers slot
  • com.ibm.team.workitem.section.description section in H Layout
    • not wrapping if in the Top slot
    • not wrapping if in the Left slot
    • not wrapping if in the Right slot
    • not wrapping if in the Bottom slot
(ignored the History and Approvals tabs because these have no ability to select sections)

In the "not wrapping" cases the printed page shows the description attribute on a single line truncated on the right. This is independent of the browser in use - I tried several versions of each of IE, FF and chrome before I realised that the source html that is being printed contains a "noWrap" in the class definition for each of the description fields in the "not wrapping" cases above (the "noWrap" is not present in description fields for the "wraps ok" cases).
 
I have had a quick scan of the 4.0.4 and 4.0.5 release notes and searched for wrapping issues in this forum but have not dug anything up yet. Unfortunately our custom work item is sufficiently complex that we have to use the H Layout. Based on the above findings the Custom Attributes layout is a potential workaround but this is not really appropriate for our field types.

I have confirmed this problem on two different systems (both are based on RTC 4.0.3, one is Windows 8 with Derby databases, the other is Windows 2008 server with DB2 databases). Is this a known problem? Am I missing something fundamental like long strings are not allowed in certain slots (even though they display fine on screen)?

I am interested to know if anyone else has encountered this problem and more importantly how they managed to fix it!!!

Also interested to know if there is any way you can define additional custom layouts.

... 

2 answers



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Ian Jessett (3142) | answered Mar 06 '14, 6:26 a.m.
I have confirmed that all of the above have been resolved in RTC 4.0.6.

The com.ibm.team.workitem.section.description section now wraps ok when printed irrespective of the slot and layout. 

This was checked for all of the slots in the Overview Layout, Custom Attributes Layout, Links Layout and the H Layout.


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Millard Ellingsworth (2.5k12431) | answered Nov 22 '13, 7:18 p.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER
There is an old, unaddressed work item related to printing and wrapping of long strings: https://jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.workitem.viewWorkItem&id=186037

You can certainly add your information to that item (I'll add a link to this post) and presuming you are entitled to support, press for it to be addressed. As you note, not many folks print this stuff, so it's not going to bubble up the stack unless you help it.

Comments
Ian Jessett commented Nov 22 '13, 7:44 p.m.

Thanks Millard, the client I am working with does indeed have support and I raised a PMR early last week (see PMR 35771,101,616 created 14-Nov-2013).


Current status: problem has been acknowledged as repeatable by IBM Support (18-Nov-2013) although wording is "behaviour", not yet acknowledged as a defect :) It has since been escalated to the IBM development team and they have also acknowledged "the same behaviour".

I will continue to post IBM PMR feedback here as I receive it.


Millard Ellingsworth commented Nov 25 '13, 11:39 a.m.
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER

And if you are tracking the work item, we're seeing some new action there. That ball is at least rolling. [I'd appreciate it if you would be so kind as to accept my answer.] 

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