Gustav Brock
Gustav at cactus.dk
Sun Mar 1 12:25:38 CST 2009
Hi Shamil et al First, Visual Studio 2008 Express is a free download and is highly recommended in version SP1 for any prior version of VS. So, if you have VS2008 installed but haven't updated to SP1 you should do so. Then, the Report Designer and the Report Viewer have a history dull to most people. Here is an attempt to clear up the mess (may require a free registration to SQL Server Magazine which I can highly recommend) by William Vaughn: http://sqlmag-pwf.texterity.com/sqlmag/200903/?sub_id=D3TX03joiTtMl&folio=14 <quote> NAVIGATING MICROSOFT'S REPORT DESIGNER MAZE There are at least four people over in Building 35 on the Microsoft campus who actually understand the reasoning behind the evolution of Report Designer. Each reinvention of Report Designer seems to cause stress to the compatibility between versions. I've laid out the particulars of each Report Designer, but that still doesn't help us understand why we can't do what we've been told to do when creating SSRS reports. Confused? Join the club. Report Designer in Visual Studio (VS) 2003 with the Reporting Services add-in tacked on with binary duct tape. This designer can only work with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2000 RDL reports. This version of VS doesn't support the ReportViewer control. Report Designer in VS 2005. This designer can't see or work with SSRS 2008, but it can import SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services RDL reports and interface with SSRS 2005. It does support the first-generation ReportViewer control, which can cross-pollinate with SSRS 2005 RDL reports. Report Designer in VS 2008. This designer also can't see or work with SSRS 2008 nor can it even open SSRS 2005 projects. lt still supports the first-generation ReportViewer control and can cross-pollinate with SSRS 2005 RDL reports. Report Designer in VS 2008 SP1. This designer does work with SSRS 2008 and even opens SSRS 2005 projects, which it converts to the VS 2008 format. It supports first-generation ReportViewer control projects and can cross-pollinate with SSRS 2005 RDL reports but not SSRS 2008 RDL reports. Report Designer Launched by the SSRS BI Tools. This new VS Bl designer is specifically designed to work with SSRS 2008 and also SSRS 2005 projects, which it converts to the VS 2008 Bl format. It doesn't support Windows Forms or ASP development at all, so the ReportViewer control isn't an issue here. </quote> I have only worked with the designer and the viewer for VS2008 SP1 but find them to be excellent on their own. Reports in VS using these tools will represent some challenge for an old horse Access report geek as most of us are, but once you figure out the "logic" it is quite clever - but different. One surprise, though, is that the syntax for code/expressions in Report Designer is not C#-stylish but VB(A)-stylish. The Report Designer _is_ very powerful in cooperation with the ReportViewer because this is available for both WinForms and WebForms. This means that once you can design a report with this tool, you can create a report that can be viewed, zoomed, searched, browsed, printed, and exported to Excel and PDF files at nearly zero code from a web page running on an ASP.NET webserver (IIS). This solution is way ahead of any other web printing/exporting solution I've met on the web. However, I have not worked with the SSRS BI Tools as Shamil has, so I cannot tell if it has some features that makes it a better choice for this project. The link by Shamil is for the SQL Server 2005 version. Here is the link for the 2008 version: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173767.aspx /gustav >>> mcp2004 at mail.ru 01-03-2009 11:21:54 >>> Hi John, Yes, I'd do that in C#. As William mentioned here many times for C# there are much more public sources with many samples of all kinds of .NET Framework-based application programming. For me one important additional advantage of C# is that I can post C# code in newsgroups and anybody can use it by copy and paste into their projects without line wrapping issues. (As far as I know VB10 also gets "divorced" with the need to use line continuation char but current VB8 (VS2008) version still uses it)). And the project we're going to do will have just a few manual coding I expect so it shoudln't be an issue for you to collaborate in this project as the main activity would be forms/reports design very similar to MS Access, and learning by doing how to make such projects in a distributed environment - for the latter we all will be at the beginners level... Visual C# 2008 Express Edition should be OK if it supports .NET Framework's ReportViewer control design mode. If Visual C# 2008 Express Edition doesn't support .NET ReportViewer control design mode then SQL Server Business Intelligence Design Studio can be used to design reports - this version for MS SQL 2005 have to be used: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173767(SQL.90).aspx But designing reports on SQL Server Business Intelligence Design Studio and then porting them into Visual Studio could result in some additional manual work... How can we check does Visual C# 2008 Express Edition support .NET Framework ReportViewer control design mode or not? Do you have VB 2008 or Visual C# 2008 Express Edition installed? Yes, I'd keep this project discussion here on AccessD, maybe switch to AccessD-VB as Gustav proposed when we will get the team of 5 developers settled. Do we have now you in our team? Is it now Gustav, Mike, Shamil and John? That would be great if you can join us! Thank you. -- Shamil