Adding a New Column

The Custom Reports topic takes you through the steps involved in customizing a report.

When you click the Add button on the report customization window, the following window appears:

This window allows you to create a full description of the column you wish to add to the report.

Check Is a blank column to insert a narrow, blank column in the report. This is usually not necessary for reports that are viewed on the screen. But when you print a report that has a right-justified column followed by a left-justified column, those columns will appear very close together. Sometimes the report will be easier to read if you insert a blank column between them.

The Data Item box tells DMB which piece of information from the database is to be displayed in this column. The Presentation box describes how that item should look.

Choosing data items

The information in the DMB database is divided into groups such as batting stats, pitching stats, and player information. The Group pulldown list includes those groups that are available for this type of report, and selecting a group is the first step in defining a data item.

When you select a group, DMB fills the Item pulldown list with all of the items (statistics, ratings and other attributes) that belong to the selected group. Choose the item you wish to display in this new column.

When you choose an item that is available for both real-life and your simulated DMB seasons, the Source pulldown list enables you to indicate which source to use for this new column.

If you choose the batting splits group, you must also select a Split type. Otherwise, DMB won't know whether you want to use batting versus left-handed pitching or pitching versus left-handed batters, or one of the other splits.

Presentation

When you choose an item for this column, DMB populates the presentation attributes with default values that are appropriate for the selected item. In many cases, these will work very well for you, but if you want to change them, you can.

Use the Title box to change the text that displays as the column heading.

Set the Width in characters. DMB allocates exactly this much space on reports that are printed or saved to a file. When displaying reports on the screen, DMB translates this value into a number of pixels and sets the column width accordingly.

Set the Alignment for the column's data to Left, Center, or Right.

Choose whether to Sort this column in Ascending or Descending order.

When you are happy with your selections, click OK to add this column and return to the report customization window.