Playing with CRVS2010 Beta 2 - What I found out...

[former_member183750]

To start off with, to download CRVS2010 Beta, see the blog Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and Runtimes Now Available

I installed CRVS2010 Beta 2 on a Windows 2008 Server - 64 bit and WIN XP 32 bit. No install issues. Honest! Note that these were clean images that never had any other version fo Crystal Reports installed. As CRVS2010 is a Beta, I'd recommend the same approach. I can almost guarantee that you will run into issues if there is (and possible even if there ever was) another version for Crystal Reports installed on your computer when installing CRVS2010. If there was another version of CR installed, make sure you  unistall, delete any left over folders and registry entries for Crystal Reports and / or Business Objects.

A few things I did find out:

1) There is a new viewer API that lets the developer specify which export file formats will be available to the end user. The following code would expose only PDF and RPT file formats from the viewer export menu.

private void ViewReport_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            crystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = rpt;

            // set up the format export types:
            int myFOpts = (int)(CrystalDecisions.Shared.ViewerExportFormats.RptFormat |          CrystalDecisions.Shared.ViewerExportFormats.PdfFormat |
           CrystalDecisions.Shared.ViewerExportFormats.RptFormat);
           CrystalReportViewer1.SetAllowedExportFormats(myFOpts);
        } 

One issue I reported to QA for a fix; CSV and the new secured RPT file format (RPTR) are ignored. I am not sure if RPTR will actually be available at RTM as I discussed this with Program Management when I was  looking at Beta 1and was told that this format will not be available until some later version of CR.
Related to the above, there are two new APIs; setAllowedExportFormat(winform) and AllowedExportFormat(webform) which specify allowed export formats. However I found information from here on a bit muddy and  asked for more info to be included in the developer help files. So far I got that the API includes an INT parameter. Developer can find the parameter detail in CrystalDecisions.shared.ViewerExportsFormats. The  developer can use bit operation “or” to control required export formats. E.g. If user wanted to enable PDF and RPT in webform, the code should be:

This.crystalreportviewer1.AllowedExportFormats = 17;

If you want to know the values, at this time you will have to code each export type one at a time, then message box the myFOpts. Make a note in your source code what each one is and add the required values.

// set up the format export types:
int myFOpts = (int)(CrystalDecisions.Shared.ViewerExportFormats.RptFormat | CrystalDecisions.Shared.ViewerExportFormats.PdfFormat | CrystalDecisions.Shared.ViewerExportFormats.RptrFormat);

crystalReportViewer1.SetAllowedExportFormats(myFOpts); 

The documentation team is aware the values are not listed so it should be include when we go GA.

2) To my chagrin, the old TTX file driver is still included in this version, even though TTX file are essentially legacy since CR 9.x. The driver is included for backward compatibility, however at RTM the release notes  will contain a paragraph re. this file being deprecated. For more information on using TTX based legacy reports in VS .NET see the blog How to use reports based on multiple TTX files in Visual Studio .NET
(How to use reports based on multiple TTX files in Visual Studio .NET). Do NOT use this driver to create new reports!

3) CSV export format has been added to the default viewer export options. See the wiki Available Export Formats, Crystal Reports 9.1 to Crystal Reports 2008  for export file format options with previous versions of Crystal Reports. One thing to note  at this time. The CSV export file format is only available with the WEB DHTML viewer. I am told this may be an oversight and the option will be added to the Windows and WPF viewers. As a BTW., currently  exporting large amounts of data into non paginated file formats causes memory issues. This problem is supposed to be resolved in CRVS2010, but I have note yet tested this. See KBase 1468776  - Error;  'System.OutOfMemoryException' when exporting large amount of data to CSV file for...

4) Export file type descriptions are not consistent between the Windows and WPF v.s. the Web viewer. E.g.; Windows and WPF viewers are consistent. Web is not. See screen shot below. This unfortunately will  not be resolved at RTM as this is considered to be very minor issue.

 

5) At this time, the 64 bit runtime is not installed by default, even if you are installing on a 64 bit OS. You have to run the 64 bit MSI in  order to get 64 bit runtime on your development computer.

6) Running a web application you get JS error in crv.js file. The error is:

 

The error only occurs if the viewer is placed on the default master page and only when using IE8. Firefox works just dandy. Googling the error, it looks like it is related to that method being obsolete. See this Microsoft KBase. A try..catch around the code and simply ignore any error that comes up may work, but I have not tried this. I will and update the blog once I have done so.

7) I also very quickly touched on printing being aware of the numerous issues with CR 2008. So far, printing looks good. However I did not have the time to test custom paper sizes and label printing.