[dba-VB] VS2008: Report events

Gustav Brock Gustav at cactus.dk
Mon Sep 22 16:00:20 CDT 2008


Hi Shamil and Charlotte

Shamil, I certainly did consider using the built-in report designer of VS2008 as I found the ReportViewer Control to fit my needs completely. What first stopped me was, that the Report Designer does not feature an Events pane (thus the subject of this thread). Coming from Access I wondered how to carry out my simple task: to read in a picture from a file (filename read from a field in each record) to an imagebox but turning it upside down if a flag (a Boolean field in the record) was set. This can be done in two ways, either read the picture with code, turn it upside down as needed, then pass it to the imagebox, or read the picture into the imagebox, read the flag and - if set - read the picture off the image box, turn it upside down, read it back. A third last option is to read in the pictures to be turned upside down, turn them and read them back to temp files before calling the report which then, for each record, should display a turned picture from the temp file if it exists, and if not, read the original file into the imagebox. Not fancy, I know, but it should work as the pictures to be turned upside down are only one or two percent of all pictures.

Either way I looked for an event like OnFormat or OnPrinting to control this. Then I remembered that Charlotte and others had recommended to forget about the native report designer and head straight for a third party product. However, besides the task for the picture handling, most reports I create are really very basic and normally not under user or client control in detail.

Now, the links (below) provided by Shamil are extremely good. Study these carefully if you consider using the native Report Designer! 

If you can only manage one link, pick the first which really sets the scene:

  http://www.gotreportviewer.com/ 

It's easy to find limitations of the native designer but on the other hand it has some very strong features. How to weight these is up to you, but for my part - having become a bit more familiar with the report designer - I have decided to save the bucks and stay with it. 

Should you decide for this too, study this link - which I received from William - for a free tool which should expand the Report Designer with a WYSIWYG Report Designer plus it has a sample db option:

  http://www.fyireporting.com/products.html 

If you check it out, please share your experiences.
 
Thanks for all the input - really helpful!

/gustav


>>> shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru 22-09-2008 21:16 >>>
Hi Charlotte,

Yes, I understand but an open question of this thread (at least for me) -
are the current Gustav report's layout to be developed and the events to be
processed when report is previewed/printed "standardized" enough to be
designed within one of the built-in VS report designers/engines or it's
worth/the only option for Gustav is to spend some money to purchase
third-party tools, and time to learn third-party tools, and then implement
*exact* layout Gustav's customers wanted to have and exact report's
previewing/printing/manipulation events? I mean if customers are not going
to invest *their own* money in purchasing for Gustav company third-party
tool as well as to invest in Gustav's learning this tool, then I'd recommend
to the Gustav's customers to standardize their report's layouts - that would
be win-win (less expensive) for all the involved parties, with reports'
layout still being good and advanced enough because VS report designer
(RDL(C) based) is a modern reporting tool:

- http://www.gotreportviewer.com/ 
- http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/vsreportcontrols/threads/ 
- http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/30424/1954 

And my guess (coming from my experience what is that to deploy CR reports,
and what is that to deploy VS RDL(C) reports) - my guess is that the many
options (based on the same report design/data source) to deploy VS (RDLC)
reports are so advanced that they beat all and every other modern reporting
tools...

Just my opinion...

Thank you.

--
Shamil

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com 
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Charlotte Foust
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 10:38 PM
To: Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] VS2008: Report events

That works if you're creating the layout and can decide what it looks
like, Shamil.  When you're at the mercy of a client's desires, you may
not be able to do that.  Standardizing layouts sort of pre-supposes that
the layouts will be straightforward.  Our clients, at least, have a very
different opinion on that.

Charlotte Foust 

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com 
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil
Salakhetdinov
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 11:02 AM
To: 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.'
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] VS2008: Report events

Hi Gustav,

Yes, they are identical - and the question is - why you do not consider
using built-in report designer of VS (the one use RDL)? - I mean are you
going to "sacrifice" your time and money, and use some third-party
reporting solution with VS, or you maybe better standardize your
reports' layouts (if needed) to fit VS Report Designer, and then you will joyfully (and free
out of VS box) use unlimited power of different deployment scenarios VS
reporting supplies you with?

Thank you.

--
Shamil

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com 
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 4:34 PM
To: dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com 
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] VS2008: Report events

Hi Robert

But the designer of SSRS and the report designer of VS are pretty much
identical, both produce reports in XML format according to RDL:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Reporting_Services 

/gustav


>>> robert at webedb.com 22-09-2008 13:50 >>>
Since I have never used the native report designer, I probably do not
know what I am missing. :-)  I have had no problem doing the data
manipulation in stored procedures and doing the reporting in SSRS.



At 12:00 PM 9/20/2008, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:13:49 +0200
>From: "Gustav Brock" <Gustav at cactus.dk>
>Subject: Re: [dba-VB] VS2008: Report events
>To: <dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com>
>Message-ID: <s8d42446.049 at cactus.dk>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
>Hi Robert
>
>Reporting Services running at the SQL Server sounds like a very good feature.
>So have you learned to live with the missing features of the native 
>report designer of VS or are your reports just not that complicated?
>
>/gustav




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