DOT.Net Reports

[gullible]

This whole report thing in VS2005 is a joke, right? What an unbelievably
really bad piece of crap! Hopefully, they have fired the incompetent team
that developed this really non-usable tool. Heck, they don't even have a
dedicated newsgroup for this dotnet category.

1. Can't put items in the Header, when using headers and footers, that come
from the PO_Header.
2. Try editing a really long IIF statement; what a frigging joke. That
little helper box appears just long enough to focus, then it goes away, so
your left with this text box that you have to scroll from left to right
trying to edit.
3. Drop a rectangle on the report, and even though in design mode it looks
fine, when you run it you will find that the rectangle overwrites
information that is clearly well below it in design mode.
4. Change a report from 8.5 x 11 to 11 x 8.5 and then try and figure out
where to drag the report so that it actually prints properly on that paper
size. Thats a project in itself!
5. Run a report, and the text box displays 'Error'. Jeez, thanks a lot.
6. The dataSources is a joke right? It never displays anything correctly.
It has datasources that I have no idea where they came from. All I am doing
is dragging items from a strongly typed dataset to the report.

Hopefully, someday, VS will become a complete tool, and not just something
we have to find work-arounds for. I have to spend hours, even days figuring
out how to get some simple, no-brainer item working. Don't get me talking
about TabControls!

 

[Jesse Houwing]

* gullible wrote, On 22-7-2007 4:11:

This whole report thing in VS2005 is a joke, right? What an unbelievably
really bad piece of crap! Hopefully, they have fired the incompetent team
that developed this really non-usable tool. Heck, they don't even have a
dedicated newsgroup for this dotnet category.

1. Can't put items in the Header, when using headers and footers, that come
from the PO_Header.
2. Try editing a really long IIF statement; what a frigging joke. That
little helper box appears just long enough to focus, then it goes away, so
your left with this text box that you have to scroll from left to right
trying to edit.
3. Drop a rectangle on the report, and even though in design mode it looks
fine, when you run it you will find that the rectangle overwrites
information that is clearly well below it in design mode.
4. Change a report from 8.5 x 11 to 11 x 8.5 and then try and figure out
where to drag the report so that it actually prints properly on that paper
size. Thats a project in itself!
5. Run a report, and the text box displays 'Error'. Jeez, thanks a lot.
6. The dataSources is a joke right? It never displays anything correctly.
It has datasources that I have no idea where they came from. All I am doing
is dragging items from a strongly typed dataset to the report.

Hopefully, someday, VS will become a complete tool, and not just something
we have to find work-arounds for. I have to spend hours, even days figuring
out how to get some simple, no-brainer item working. Don't get me talking
about TabControls!

The reporting system that comes with Visual Studio is actually Crystal
Reports, they have an excellent support forum on their website. The
version that comes with Visual Studio is a light version, which can be
used for free, so that's what you get. If you want to do more fancy
things (and use a version that is at least 4 versions newer than this
one) go to their site and buy the latest product. (Or search for any
other Reporting tool for .NET).

http://www.businessobjects.com/

Jesse

 

[Norman Yuan]

Depending on which version of VS200x the OP was talking: VS2002/3 comes with
Crystal Report.NET, while VS2005 comes with both Crystal Report.NET and VS
built-in report designer.

I have to admit that the VS built-in reporting designer is a bit "light",
comparing to the Crystal Report.NET, and its redering quality is yet to be
enhanced a bit more. But I do not feel it as bad as the OP feels.

If you developed for SQL Server2000/2005, then you would have SQL Server
reporting services' report designer installed, which is merged into VS, as
if it is part of VS.

Except for SQL Server Reporting Services, MS never invest much on reporting
tool to be built into its development suite. This gives a lot market space
for third party products. Searching the net would lead you dozens of
reporting tools for .NET development, from free ones to expensive ones. So,
I wouldn't complain if I am not satisfied with the simple/light VS built-in
reporting tool. As matter of fact, besides mainly doing .NET reporting with
SQL Server Reporting Services, I do use VS built-in report for a few apps'
built-in reports. They are pretty good and, more importantly, meet my needs.

 

[Fred Mertz]

Part of the bigger picture here is that Microsoft has a long history, for
better or worse, of including minimalistic controls with Visual Studio
(going back to the VB1-6 days and continuing with all .NET versions).

Microsoft is not in the control business. But they have essentially created
and supported an entire 3rd-party control market. This is why companies like
Crystal Reports, DataDynamics, Infragistics, ComponentOne, ComponentArt etc
all exist. They provide awesome and specialized controls that plug right
into the MS dev environments and technologies.

What Microsoft does typically include with Visual Studio is some dumbed down
"light" version of the controls - often supplied to Microsoft by one or more
of their 3rd party partners. That's what you get "out of the box" with
Visual Studio. If you want something more robust (or even robust at all),
then you must acquire 3rd party controls. The lone exception that I'm aware
of would perhaps be the report writer included with MS Access. It has been
an awesome report writer going back to the earliest versions of MS Access.

For report writers for Visual Studio, I highly recommend ActiveReports form
DataDynamics (http://www.datadynamics.com/default.aspx). I don't work for
them, but I have used their report writers for both com and .NET for many
many years and on many projects.

-HTH