Crystal Reports .NET ProgrammingI wrote this book from the perspective of a programmer wanting to learn how to integrate reports within a .NET application. I've been working with Crystal Reports since Visual Basic 3 and it's always been difficult to find technical information on report writing. I spent a year and a half researching what .NET programmers need to successfully create, implement and deploy a Crystal Reports application. I even put the book on the internet for everyone to read for free all of last year. This generated an incredible number of emails from programmers telling me what they liked, disliked, and what was missing from the book. I learned that there are two distinct types of .NET programmers using Crystal Reports. The first type of programmer doesn't have much experience with Crystal Reports and wants a series of tutorials to help them build reports from scratch. For this programmer I wrote 13 chapters which teach you everything about adding reports to ASP.NET and Windows applications. It starts with the basics of building reports to adding charts, crosstab reports, sorting and grouping, subreports and using the formula editor with Basic syntax and Crystal syntax. The second type of programmer has been using Crystal Reports for years and is mostly concerned with how to do technical runtime customization of reports. For this programmer I researched and diagrammed the undocumented report object models. I included dozens of examples in both VB.NET and C# to show you how to modify reports, manipulate different data sources (XML, ADO.NET, ODBC, OLE DB, stored procedures with parameters), modify formulas and report parameters, and integrate .NET with the RAS and RDC. The dozens of emails I received when the book was online were instrumental for doing a major revision of many chapters before publishing the book in hardcopy format. Since releasing the book I continue to receive more emails from people. They regret that the free book isn't online anymore, but understand that it couldn't last forever and that the hardcopy version is even better. I hope you like it and that it helps you achieve your reporting goals. September 2004 Update: Due to high demand, I did a second printing of the book. I took advantage of this opportunity to go through the book and remove all grammatical errors. The content is the same, but the typos have been corrected. |
Contents
Introduction | 7 |
Creating Reports | 19 |
Integrating Reports | 47 |
Sorting and Grouping | 69 |
Using Parameters | 87 |
Customizing Reports | 95 |
Using the Formula Editor | 119 |
Programming with Basic Syntax | 137 |
Learning the Report Object Models | 267 |
Runtime Customization | 283 |
Modifying Parameters and Formulas | 317 |
Dynamic Data Sources | 341 |
Report Web Services | 381 |
Exporting and Deploying Reports | 391 |
Upgrading to the RDC and RAS | 423 |
Comprehensive Examples | 467 |
Common terms and phrases
added application Area array assign Basic Boolean button ByVal calculation called Chapter chart choose collection column components connection create cross-tab Crystal Decisions Crystal Reports Customer data source data type database dataset Date default detail dialog box displayed Employee enter example existing Expert field Figure format formula function gives Header Help included Indent Integer lets Listing look main report method modify month multiple MyReport object option Order parameter ParameterField pass perform preview Product programming properties range records reference report object ReportDocument requires returns runtime server shown shows single sort specify standard statement steps stored String subreport summary Suppress syntax True variable Visual window write