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Viewing and interacting with documents in MicroStrategy Web: Display modes

You can view and work with a document using several different display modes in MicroStrategy Web. In summary, you can create and modify a document in Design Mode or Editable Mode, and then switch to Express Mode to simply view and analyze the document. Use Interactive Mode to analyze and manipulate grid and graph reports. You can use Interactive Mode to analyze and manipulate grid and graph reports, or Flash Mode to work with Flash-only features like widgets. Each mode is explained in further detail below:

Display Mode

What You Can Do in It

Limitations

Express Mode

(formerly named View Mode)

Intended for document analysts that need to view information rather than create and edit documents. You can:

  • View the results of the document.

  • Use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a grid or graph report displayed on the document.

  • Sort grid reports, drill on them, and pivot report objects on them.

  • Change the view mode of Grid/Graphs (that is, whether they are displayed as grids or as graph).

  • Use links, which are connections to other documents, reports, or web pages.

  • Display the document in Full Screen mode, which allows you to maximize how much of the document that you can see.

  • Have better performance than all other modes.

  • Cannot create a new document.

  • Cannot edit an existing document.

  • Cannot manipulate or format Grid/Graphs, except to sort, pivot, drill, and change the view mode.

 

Internet Explorer 7 is required for the interactive functions of Express Mode. If you are using Internet Explorer 6 or earlier, you cannot interact with the document. You can instead view the results only, as you might in a static PDF file.

Interactive Mode

Intended for document analysts that need to interact with Report Services (RS) dashboards. You can:

  • Edit an existing document.

  • View the results of the document.

  • Use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a grid or graph report displayed on the document.

  • Format grid and graph reports.

  • Sort grid reports, drill on them, and pivot report objects on them.

  • Add totals.

  • Resize rows and columns.

  • Create metrics based on report objects already on the grid report.

  • Use links, which are connections to other documents, reports, or web pages.

  • Cannot create a new document.

  • Cannot format the layout and positioning of objects or the entire document.

  • Cannot format the Flash properties of widgets.

Flash Mode

Intended for document analysts that need to interact with widgets and other Flash features. You can:

  • Access and interact with features provided by Flash, such as widgets. Widgets are interactive Flash-only graphs, such as gauges and time series slides, that dynamically update when you select a new set of data.

  • Format widget Flash properties.

  • Edit an existing document.

  • View the results of the document.

  • Use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a grid or graph report.

  • Sort grid reports, drill on them, and pivot report objects on them.

  • Cannot create a new document.

  • Cannot manipulate or format grid or graph reports, except to sort, pivot, and drill.

  • If a graph report uses a graph type that is not supported in Flash, the graph is not displayed.

Flash Player version 10 is required to view and interact with documents in Flash Mode.

Design Mode

Intended for document designers, Design Mode displays the structure of the document, or the placeholders for the document objects, without the actual results. You can:

  • Create a new document.

  • Edit an existing document.

  • Quicker performance since document results are not displayed.

  • Add and remove dataset objects.

  • Insert controls such as Grid/Graphs, text fields, lines, shapes, and panel stacks.

  • Edit and format controls.

  • Format Grid/Graph containers only.

  • Pivot report objects on grid reports.

  • Use group-by.

  • Cannot view the results of the document without switching modes.

  • Cannot format all aspects of Grid/Graphs, including metric values and attribute headers.

  • Cannot format widget Flash properties.

  • Cannot use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a Grid/Graph.

  • Cannot use Page-by to group data.

  • Cannot sort grid reports.

  • Cannot use the Fit to contents/window features.

  • Cannot show or hide rulers.

Editable Mode

Intended for document designers, Editable Mode displays the actual results of the document, while still allowing you to edit the document. This allows you to make changes and immediately see how they affect the look and feel of the document. You can:

  • Create a new document.

  • Edit an existing document.

  • View the results of the document.

  • Add and remove dataset objects.

  • Insert controls such as Grid/Graphs, text fields, lines, shapes, and panel stacks.

  • Edit and format controls.

  • Format Grid/Graphs, including the formatting of metric values and attribute headers.

  • Use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a Grid/Graph.

  • Use page-by to group data.

  • Use group-by.

  • Use the Fit to contents/window features.

  • Sort grid reports, drill on them, and pivot report objects on them.

  • Use links, which are connections to other documents, reports, or web pages.

  • Show or hide rulers.

  • Performance reflects the fact that you see all document results as you work.

  • Cannot format widget Flash properties.

The following list provides some additional comparisons between various modes:

  • You can more quickly work in Design Mode than in Editable Mode since you do not have to wait for the results of your document to load in Design Mode. Editable Mode displays the results and updates them with changes that you make, so the performance is slower than in Design Mode.

  • All of the tasks that you can perform in Design Mode can also be performed in Editable Mode.

  • Editable Mode offers more functionality than Interactive Mode but is not available to all users, depending on their privileges.

  • Compared to Editable Mode, Interactive Mode is available to more users and provides slightly better performance. While Interactive Mode does not have all the functionality of Editable Mode, it still offers many features to allow you to obtain insightful information. For example, you can use selectors to flip through the panels in a panel stack or display different attribute elements or metrics in a Grid/Graph.

For more details about the different modes, see the MicroStrategy Web Help.

If a display mode is not available in MicroStrategy Web, that display mode has not been made available for the document. You can select the modes that are available for a specific document, and also the mode that the document initially opens in. For instructions, see Selecting available display modes for MicroStrategy Web.

In addition, to view and interact with a document in Flash Mode, Flash Player version 10.1 must be installed on your machine.

See the Troubleshooting Documents appendix in the Document Creation Help for descriptions of some common issues you may encounter when working in or switching to Flash Mode. The issues contain information about how Flash Mode is designed to work.

Although MicroStrategy Web does not provide a PDF view, you can still view or print the PDF by exporting it to a PDF. MicroStrategy Web allows you to do this easily, simply by clicking the Print icon on the toolbar. For detailed instructions to print a document, see the MicroStrategy Web Help or the Document and Dashboard Analysis Guide.

To open a document in MicroStrategy Web

The document opens in the default mode selected by the document designer. For details on analyzing documents in the different modes, see the MicroStrategy Web Help.

  1. From a project in MicroStrategy Web, navigate to the folder containing the document.

  2. Click the document name or icon. The document displays in its default display mode.

  3. To change the mode, click its icon on the toolbar.

    If the icon for a particular mode is unavailable, that mode has not been made available for this document. For instructions to make a mode available, using MicroStrategy Web, see the Document Creation Help.

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