The Panel Set component is one of the few features of SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards that looks really cool at first, but is something you most likely won't use. The purpose of this component is to create a showcase of images and/or Flash (.swf) files in one window. The user is able to zoom in on each panel. Unfortunately, the SWF files that are created with SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards are not supported and cannot be displayed, which instantly decreases the value of the component.
For this recipe, we need some images and/or SWF files. Make sure these files are of the following types: .jpg, .png, .gif, .bmp, or .swf.
- Drag a Panel Set component into the canvas.
- In the General tab of the properties pane, select Layout2:
- Click on the Import button in the Content area and click on the Click to Add Images button in the upcoming window. Browse to your image or SWF file and click on Open. The file is now added to Panel 1. Repeat this step to add another file and close this window by clicking on OK:
- Click on the button on the far right-hand side of the Drop-Down Menu Labels field. Enter a label for each file you just added:
- Select Panel 2 and repeat steps 3 and 4 to add some images and/or SWF files to this second panel.
- Now switch to the Behavior tab. In the Selected Item area, select Panel 1 and set the Item field to Image 1. Do the same for Panel 2:
- Preview the dashboard.
- Click on the maximize buttons:
- Now click on the little arrow next to the maximize button to show the menu labels. Select a label to switch to another image or SWF file:
As we saw in this recipe, the Panel Set component lets us display a set of panels to show multiple images and/or SWF files. There are even 27 different layouts to choose from with up to 10 panels each.
The lack of support for SAP BusinessObjects Dashboard SWF files has already been mentioned, but there are more problems with this component. First, it does not have any selector capabilities, so even if you want to use this component to build a dashboard, it only functions as a sort of product catalog. It is very difficult to make it interactive and let it pass data through to other components.
Another problem is performance-related. The more (high-resolution) images you embed in the component, the bigger your final dashboard SWF file will become. Big SWF files take longer to load and therefore decrease your dashboard's performance. So if you are using this component, make sure you test your final dashboard on different computer setups to check whether the dashboard's performance is acceptable for users.
In the following sections, there are some additional features that are available with the Panel Set component.
In the recipe, we embedded the images/SWFs in the Panel Set component. Another way to show these files is by using the By URL option for Content Type and linking to them using URLs. You can enter these URLs by putting them in the spreadsheet and binding to these cells. Or, you can add them as labels by clicking on the button on the far right-hand side. The Drop-Down Menu Labels field can be entered in the same way:
