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Data Dynamics Reports Support
Started by Justin at 02-27-2010 11:08 AM. Topic has 2 replies.
  
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 02-27-2010, 11:08 AM
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Justin
Joined on 09-17-2003
Posts 133
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RDL Specification Compliance
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We are evaluating DD Reports and would like to know how it relates to the MS RDL Specifications. From the information on the web site it seems to be targeted at RDL 2005 compliance. However in preliminary testing we created a simple pie chart in the designer and attempted to load it in the ReportViewer 9.0 control the comes with VS 2008 and received the following error: "The value of the BackgroundColor property for the chart ‘Chart1’ is “Transparent”, which is not a valid BackgroundColor." From the RDL spec "The BackgroundColor element contains an expression that evaluates to either a color name or a hex HTML color string in the form #HHHHHH. If this element is omitted, the background is transparent." so it seems it should be omitted instead.
Beyond that issue are there any plans to support the RDL 2008 and forthcoming 2010 specs? If I attempt to load a RDL 2008 file created with MS report builder 2.0 the designer does not fail with any visible error, it simply does nothing leaving a blank report to work with.
I understand DD Reports has extensions to the RDL spec which seem useful, but it would be helpful for our situation to force a compliance mode in the designer. Otherwise from our point of view we might as well stick with ActiveReports as the draw to DD Reports is being a standard format multiple tools from different parties can support vs a proprietary standard such as AR.
Also there any plans for a SQL query builder or recommendation to incorporate an existing one into the designer? MS Report Builder 2.0 has one that works well for simple queries, allowing users to browse tables and fields and form statement with joins and where clauses.
Lastly are there any plans to move to WPF and more importantly Silverlight for the Viewer and Designer? Our application is web based and a key missing feature we cannot seem to provide our customers is a way to design reports. We may live with having the use the stand alone report designer and upload the report definition to the web site, but this is clunky and there are logistical issues with them connecting to the DB in the designer from their workstation. We may try some sort of click once deployment with the winform, but with a Silverlight designer all deployment issues would be resolved create a very powerful reporting tool for our application. Without this again we might as well just have our users design reports in MS Report Builder 2.0 and integrate the new report viewer from MS in VS2010 for a full RDL 2008 compliant reporting system for free.
Thanks for any clarification.
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03-01-2010, 9:34 PM
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James Johnson - DD
Joined on 01-05-2006
Columbus, Ohio
Posts 525
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Re: RDL Specification Compliance
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Hi Justin,
We will look into the issue with the BackgroundColor style on the chart. Our focus with the product is not to create a designer for Reporting Services 20xx, but instead to supplant RS altogether with a product that has better features and provides more integration for the developer.
In the near future we will be introducing our own server solution which will include a web based designer. Further down the line our roadmap includes WPF and Silverlight support in both viewer and designer controls as well.
RDL 2008/R2 support is something we are watching. However, it is likely something where we pick the best features that match our vision for the product, and avoid the ones that take us away from that.
Implementing a query designer is one of the things we want to do, but since we are targeting developers it is lower on our priority list. We have implemented hooks in the data source and data set smart panels to allow developers to provide their own editors for the connection string and query string. If you have an existing query editor you would like to use you could then plug it into the product that way. This feature will be part of our upcoming release in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks,
James
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03-10-2010, 8:39 AM
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Justin
Joined on 09-17-2003
Posts 133
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Re: RDL Specification Compliance
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Thanks for the reply,
I would ask you reconsider RDL compliance as it is what sets your product apart. It seems very ironic that you guys have Crystal, Access and AR importers but cannot even import or open a newer RDL file!
I can understand not being compliant with say RDL 2010 when it is released this year, but RDL 2008 has been published for more than two years.
I also understand adding your extensions to the RDL spec, with name spacing this is trivial and should never clash with what MS does allowing you to complete your vision, while still being based on the the format you originally built the product on instead of forking it into Yet Another Propreitary Report Format.
It is good to hear you are working on a web deigner and have silverlight/wpf on the roadmap.
Overall we are very happy with the evaluation of DD Reports and will probably be purchasing soon to integrate into our product. Again one of the main deciding factors is that many of our customers already use MS Reporting Services to report against our applications database, and if they could simply move those reports over to our reporting engine with little modification it would save them tremendous amounts of time.
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GrapeCity » Product Support » Data Dynamics R... » Re: RDL Specification Compliance
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