Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 Beta Update
Update – the ‘Legal Stuff’ section has been updated to describe the simplified EULA process.
Update – the runtime blog is Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 Runtimes.
Update – licensing blog is Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 Licensing.
Update – the Beta is Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 Beta Now Available.
June 21 Updated the dates.
Dates
The beta release has slipped a couple of weeks and we now plan to release it April 16th. In addition, we’re scheduling the production release for the first half of November.
Legal Stuff
An additional clickthrough EULA is required for this beta release. This is in addition to the EULA built into the installer. No personal information is required – it’s a simple accept/reject EULA. Once the software is in production, only the standard EULA built into the installer will be used.
Runtime Engine for the Beta
While the beta will not include a runtime engine, we will be documenting how to use the freely downloadable CR 2008 SP2 MSI and ClickOnce runtime in combination with CR for VS 2010 reports. We are testing this scenario with our beta release process right now. These are 32-bit runtimes only. Both 32 and 64-bit runtimes are in plan for the production release.
Whats New In The Beta Release Compared to CR Basic for Visual Studio 2008
The following new features will be in the beta release, and will be supported in the CR 2008 SP2 MSI runtime:
- Optional parameters. Parameters are no longer required to have a value. If you reference an optional parameters in a formula, you must check that it has a value first with the new HasValue() formula.
- Parameter Panel. The runtime engine supports a parameter panel on the left-hand side. You can optionally place parameters on the panel.
- Saved data selection filters. We’ve always been able to filter data with the record selection filter. This is used at the time that data is fetched. We’ve introduced a new saved data selection filter that will allow you to filter the data after its been fetched. This is very powerful when combined with the parameter panel, because it allows for filter of data in the report without triggering a data refresh.
- Sort controls. You can now create sort controls that sort the data in the report, again without triggering a data refresh.
- Dynamic and cascading parameters. You can now populate a list of values dynamically from a data source. You can create a multi-level cascade of list of values as well.
- Combine landscape and portrait pages in a report. Individual sections can have different page orientation settings.
- Size pages by pixels.
- Formula driven margin settings for the entire report.
- ‘Clamp’ page footers. If you have a report page with only a few detail records on it, this feature will ‘pull up’ the page footer so it’s right underneath the last detail record, making the report easier to read online.
- Hierarchical grouping. If you have a tree like record structure in your database, you can now create a group structure in Crystal Reports that mimics that structure.
Whats Different Compared to CR Basic for VS 2008
The major difference, other than the initial beta limitations is that there will be no merge module (MSM) runtime available with CR for VS 2010. The biggest reason for this is the complexity in embedding the VC runtime into our MSM. It no longer became feasible for us to embed the VC runtime into our MSM (we can do it for our MSI runtime), so that put the responsibility of embedding that dependency on the developer. This led to a lot of complexity at deployment time on the part of the developer. We’re adding new features to our MSI runtime to allow it to do much of what the MSM could do. I’ll blog more about this in the future.
Whats Planned for the Production Release
Future Blogs
We’ll be going into more detail on these powerful new features and how to make the most of them in the coming weeks.
Thanks for reading and for using Crystal Reports!
In a nutsheel: we need to be "hook" into the parameter window from our WPF app. Our WPF app currently has a CrystalReportsViewer embedded into a WinForms control in the WPF app. We load the report and we can obtain the list of parameters. This is all ok.
However, what we need to do additionally, is to be able to pass a set of "default" values to our parameters AND, after that's done programmatically, still display the parameter window for the report. Currently, however, after you do:
parameterFieldDefinition.ApplyCurrentValues(currentParameterValues);
it's as if Crystal says "Ok, we got the value, there's no need to show the parameter window anymore". This makes sense, but we need to still be able to show the window to the user because all we did (from our point of view) is to pass in default values.
Part 2 of what we'd like to accomplish is that after they change any of the parameter values, and click OK to move on, we'd like to catch the new parameter values in code.
This is why we're thinking of "hooking" into the parameter window...just like we can hook into the CrystalReportViewer refresh button like this:
CrystalReportsViewer.ReportRefresh += new CrystalDecisions.Windows.Forms.RefreshEventHandler(CrystalReportsViewer_ReportRefresh);
Our app is a WPF C# .NET 3.5 desktop application. Any assistance or direction will surely be appreciated.
Kinds Regards,
William Sanchez
Please repost this question there and the community experts will reply.
Thanks, Blair
which verion(s) of the .Net runtime will be supported for UFL design?
With the VS2010 download, I assume I can author my UFL's to target .Net 4.0.
Now what about reports that are authored using stand-alone Crystal Reports developer? What is the minimum version of Crystal Reports that will support a UFL that targets .Net 4.0?
We are currently using Crystal Reports 2008 SP2 (Full Version) & VS 2008,
What will we need to install in order to continue using CR 2008 as we do now, or does the above quote mean that after upgrade to VS 2010 we don't need to do anything if we already have CR 2008 SP2?
Thank you,
David
RPTs created with CR for VS 2010 can be read and edited with CR 2008. You will get a warning message in CR 2008 that the report is made in a later version and features might be lost. However there are no new features in the CR for VS 2010 RPT file format that CR 2008 won't understand.
RPTs created with CR 2008 can be read and edited by CR for VS 2010.
The beta of CR for VS 2010 will leverage the CR 2008 SP2 runtime engine. The readme of the beta will describe how to set that up. Some config file work will be required to point to the correct assemblies.
The final release of CR for VS 2010 will have it's own runtime MSI files - both 32 bit and 64 bit.
Thanks, Blair
The person was asking if CR 2008 full product version retail version would work with VS2010. A yes or no answer would be good.
Its April 16th ! Can we have a link to register and download the beta please ?
this is the time for change all reports of my new version of my software to ms report services.
I download CRfVS2010, installed (what a long time), generate error on runtima, ok, I need to configure my application to x86 or x64 (not supports "any CPU",wf), change all references, run and genereta a lot of errors:"file not found","sap bussines file do not exists", etc.
man, y prefer suffer the pain in the *** dropping CR completely of my application, despite of around 300 reports, hell, I rebuild all on report services.
for all the other developers, good look with this "bussinesmen".
Thanks!
Tomorrow (Monday April 19), we will publish a deployment guide that will describe how to configure your application to use the existing CR 2008 SP2 runtime for MSI-based deployment with these reports. This solution will support 32-bit Winform and Webform apps. The runtime engine for 64-bit apps and apps that want to use the WPF viewer will be available with the production release in late June.
Thanks, Blair
Thanks, Blair
This is not clear to me about this subject... I appreciate your help about it.
Thanks,
Fabio.
There are some key differences between the free CR Basic for VS 2008 and CR for VS 2010 beta when it comes to runtimes.
- There will be no merge modules supported for CR for VS 2010 (both beta and production).
- 64-bit runtime is coming with the production release of CR for VS 2010.
Either one of these differences might cause an issue for you.
In VS 2008 we used to install the Crystal Reports Redistributable available through Visual Studio 2008.
Will there be a different install for just the dotnet runtimes? As said earlier this was free.
thanks
https://sapmats-us.sap-ag.de/download/download.cgi?id=7OR5L8XPEHF0G8AD9PGP9MQ1PH0G58Y9KTWCEZU319ODDY0XOL
For sample code on loading a report and viewing it in the WPF viewer, download from the following link (will be available in ~30mins). (Please remember to change the path to the .rpt file in the source code.)
https://sapmats-us.sap-ag.de/download/download.cgi?id=5BM1KNRK29NBF9K04LG3C9KBGH65UK9O4FUUI5CHZ4JQQRKSHY
The file is not in the given url, please advice me the corrct path
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and Runtimes Now Available
We are in November, any ETA for the production release?
I'll update the blog as well.
Thanks, Blair