ReportViewer or Crystal Reports
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I'm about to delve into another as yet unexplored area of development regarding report generation. I noticed there's a ReportViewer class, and I know Crystal Reports is provided with VS2005. What's the difference between them, and how do I choose which one to use (or should I use both)? I'm not really sure yet what the boss wants as far as content, appearance, capability, and I'm not really sure I can ask intelligent questions regarding those aspects at this point. The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll be using C#, VS2005, .Net 2.0, and MSSQL.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001This is what I would call an 'educated guess'. Crystal Reports in VS allows you to create reports there; no need to create them with a seperate Crystal Reports app. The viewer can be used at run-time to view the reports; since you will probably not be editing them on-the-fly at run-time, the viewer should suffice. Tim
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I'm about to delve into another as yet unexplored area of development regarding report generation. I noticed there's a ReportViewer class, and I know Crystal Reports is provided with VS2005. What's the difference between them, and how do I choose which one to use (or should I use both)? I'm not really sure yet what the boss wants as far as content, appearance, capability, and I'm not really sure I can ask intelligent questions regarding those aspects at this point. The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll be using C#, VS2005, .Net 2.0, and MSSQL.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Just Use Crystal. It is the best out there and they all suck. Usually I create Crystal Reports and just programmatically export them to PDF's. Then only deliver the PDF as the end result to the user. The hardest part, you will find, is getting good documentation.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
I'm about to delve into another as yet unexplored area of development regarding report generation. I noticed there's a ReportViewer class, and I know Crystal Reports is provided with VS2005. What's the difference between them, and how do I choose which one to use (or should I use both)? I'm not really sure yet what the boss wants as far as content, appearance, capability, and I'm not really sure I can ask intelligent questions regarding those aspects at this point. The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll be using C#, VS2005, .Net 2.0, and MSSQL.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Have a look at DevExpress XtraReports[^], too.
Jon Sagara On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana? -- Mitch Hedberg .NET Blog | Personal Blog | Articles
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I'm about to delve into another as yet unexplored area of development regarding report generation. I noticed there's a ReportViewer class, and I know Crystal Reports is provided with VS2005. What's the difference between them, and how do I choose which one to use (or should I use both)? I'm not really sure yet what the boss wants as far as content, appearance, capability, and I'm not really sure I can ask intelligent questions regarding those aspects at this point. The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll be using C#, VS2005, .Net 2.0, and MSSQL.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001From a cost perspective, Reporting Services is free (with a valid SQL Server license), not sure how much Crystal would be for your implementation, but it is certainly more the RS. I've never been any place that has not had difficulties with Crystal, nor any others I've spoken with. RS though seems to go relatively smoothly in comparison.
only two letters away from being an asset
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Have a look at DevExpress XtraReports[^], too.
Jon Sagara On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana? -- Mitch Hedberg .NET Blog | Personal Blog | Articles
Like that sig :laugh:
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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Just Use Crystal. It is the best out there and they all suck. Usually I create Crystal Reports and just programmatically export them to PDF's. Then only deliver the PDF as the end result to the user. The hardest part, you will find, is getting good documentation.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
You are either insane or criminally ignorant of the reporting component market. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Can't it be both? My knowledge of the reporting market is limited to Crystal, SQL Reporting Services, and various free tools which I never really liked. Now a friend of mine did recently recommend a better product but I have yet to try it so I can't comment on it.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
You are either insane or criminally ignorant of the reporting component market. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
I was wondering what your reaction will be when you see the post by Ennis:)
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I'm about to delve into another as yet unexplored area of development regarding report generation. I noticed there's a ReportViewer class, and I know Crystal Reports is provided with VS2005. What's the difference between them, and how do I choose which one to use (or should I use both)? I'm not really sure yet what the boss wants as far as content, appearance, capability, and I'm not really sure I can ask intelligent questions regarding those aspects at this point. The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll be using C#, VS2005, .Net 2.0, and MSSQL.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John, how did you miss the near universal revilement of Crystal Reports that has gone on in this message board for as long as I can remember to even contemplate such a thing? :) They badly burned a lot of users for many years when they had a monopoly and there are a lot of unhappy people out there with them. If you are using .net then DevExpress XtraReports is the best all around product out there. I've tried them all thoroughly and that's the one we adopted. It's very powerful, super easy to use, supports a full scripting language in c# for really complex or tricky reporting and has a royalty free end user report designer so if you need it, end users can make new reports or edit existing ones right in your app. It also works perfectly smoothly in asp.net or winform applications equally. I used Crystal Reports for many years when I had no choice and was writing unmanaged code and never had a good experiece with it at any level from pricing to support to licensing terms to deployment etc etc and you certainly shouldn't be bringing a cranky unmanaged reporting engine into a nice clean .net app when there are so many good alternatives for reporting that are fully managed out there.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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Can't it be both? My knowledge of the reporting market is limited to Crystal, SQL Reporting Services, and various free tools which I never really liked. Now a friend of mine did recently recommend a better product but I have yet to try it so I can't comment on it.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest HemingwayAhhh...ignorance then. ;) No, seriously, your post is the first positive post I can ever recall seeing on this message board about Crystal Reports. We and many others were badly burned by them in the past with shitty support, onerous licensing terms, crazily complex and fragile deployment, incredibly huge runtime requirements and an attitude you can only get from a monopoly. Now with managed code there are many good options out there that suffer from none of these problems and the market has opened up nicely. Maybe Crystal has changed but their latest ad was for an "exciting" new feature that consisted of embedding flash into a report! WTF good is that? In any case if you had a requirement to do anything so ludicrous as that with the managed reporting components you can embed anything you want in a report that you could put on a winform.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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I was wondering what your reaction will be when you see the post by Ennis:)
Not much different than the reaction a lot of other people would post if they had noticed it. Each to their own though, Crystal is obviously good enough for many people and they either don't mind the downsides or don't know there is any alternatives available now.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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Ahhh...ignorance then. ;) No, seriously, your post is the first positive post I can ever recall seeing on this message board about Crystal Reports. We and many others were badly burned by them in the past with shitty support, onerous licensing terms, crazily complex and fragile deployment, incredibly huge runtime requirements and an attitude you can only get from a monopoly. Now with managed code there are many good options out there that suffer from none of these problems and the market has opened up nicely. Maybe Crystal has changed but their latest ad was for an "exciting" new feature that consisted of embedding flash into a report! WTF good is that? In any case if you had a requirement to do anything so ludicrous as that with the managed reporting components you can embed anything you want in a report that you could put on a winform.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Not really a positive post, I have been using Crystal since 1999. I hate it but the method I use it makes it easy and avoids there licensing issues. My method is simple, I use it to layout simple reports that can be printed either to screen (pdf) or printer. This addresses 99% of all business concerns. And of course I do keep my eye out for other methods, but in enterprise environments it is hard to win that fight.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
Like that sig :laugh:
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
Yeah, that guy always cracked me up. Pity he OD'd at such a young age.
Jon Sagara On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana? -- Mitch Hedberg .NET Blog | Personal Blog | Articles
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John, how did you miss the near universal revilement of Crystal Reports that has gone on in this message board for as long as I can remember to even contemplate such a thing? :) They badly burned a lot of users for many years when they had a monopoly and there are a lot of unhappy people out there with them. If you are using .net then DevExpress XtraReports is the best all around product out there. I've tried them all thoroughly and that's the one we adopted. It's very powerful, super easy to use, supports a full scripting language in c# for really complex or tricky reporting and has a royalty free end user report designer so if you need it, end users can make new reports or edit existing ones right in your app. It also works perfectly smoothly in asp.net or winform applications equally. I used Crystal Reports for many years when I had no choice and was writing unmanaged code and never had a good experiece with it at any level from pricing to support to licensing terms to deployment etc etc and you certainly shouldn't be bringing a cranky unmanaged reporting engine into a nice clean .net app when there are so many good alternatives for reporting that are fully managed out there.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
John C wrote:
John, how did you miss the near universal revilement of Crystal Reports that has gone on in this message board for as long as I can remember to even contemplate such a thing?
Umm - I didn't say I didn't still revile Crystal (just like I still hate .Net despite the fact that I write code in it). The main reason is that it comes with VS2005 and my boss needs reports from a database. It was the first thing that came to mind that didn't require "spending large amounts of cash" (tm). Since it's for an in-house app, there won't be any licensing issues. Then I found out about ReportViewer. I am completely new to this report stuff, so I am blissfully unaware of my options. Here's the key consideration for anyone thinking about recommending an alternative - if it ain't free, don't mention it at all. This isn't for an enterprise-level app, so I won't even bring up the option of spending money for a 3rd-party component. :)
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
John C wrote:
John, how did you miss the near universal revilement of Crystal Reports that has gone on in this message board for as long as I can remember to even contemplate such a thing?
Umm - I didn't say I didn't still revile Crystal (just like I still hate .Net despite the fact that I write code in it). The main reason is that it comes with VS2005 and my boss needs reports from a database. It was the first thing that came to mind that didn't require "spending large amounts of cash" (tm). Since it's for an in-house app, there won't be any licensing issues. Then I found out about ReportViewer. I am completely new to this report stuff, so I am blissfully unaware of my options. Here's the key consideration for anyone thinking about recommending an alternative - if it ain't free, don't mention it at all. This isn't for an enterprise-level app, so I won't even bring up the option of spending money for a 3rd-party component. :)
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001If you have MS SQL Server, go with Reporting Services. It takes a few minutes to setup and already works with MSSQL. If you need it strictly to embed in an application, I can't help you there. However, Reporting Services is real easy to use and hopefully their control is easy to embed in an application.
"The trouble with the profit system has always been that it was highly unprofitable to most people." - E. B. White Web - Blog - RSS - Math - LinkedIn - BM
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I'm about to delve into another as yet unexplored area of development regarding report generation. I noticed there's a ReportViewer class, and I know Crystal Reports is provided with VS2005. What's the difference between them, and how do I choose which one to use (or should I use both)? I'm not really sure yet what the boss wants as far as content, appearance, capability, and I'm not really sure I can ask intelligent questions regarding those aspects at this point. The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll be using C#, VS2005, .Net 2.0, and MSSQL.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John, We have been using RS since it first came out and love it. With VS2005 and above, the new ReportView control rocks. You have both client side rendering and server side rendering with client being used for displaying or exporting the report. RS is free too. With the Report Viewer control you can expose RS reports over the Internet without having to deploy a RS in the DMZ. We are also deploying Report Builder Data Models with our application so that end users can create their own reports (less calls for our staff). This is a MUST read for Report Viewer developers. Awesome post. http://www.gotreportviewer.com/
Cheers, Karl Just a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
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I'm about to delve into another as yet unexplored area of development regarding report generation. I noticed there's a ReportViewer class, and I know Crystal Reports is provided with VS2005. What's the difference between them, and how do I choose which one to use (or should I use both)? I'm not really sure yet what the boss wants as far as content, appearance, capability, and I'm not really sure I can ask intelligent questions regarding those aspects at this point. The only thing I'm sure of is that we'll be using C#, VS2005, .Net 2.0, and MSSQL.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001I been using CR for years, because it came with VS, but, like most posters, not really crazy about it. I believe CR in VS may be on it's way out, since MS now has their own solution, SSRS. Is SSRS better? Depends, it's free (with MSSQL), includes a great free server (for report scheduling etc.) which is an expensive option with CR. Also, one of it's current weaknesses (same in CR) is charting, but that should be solved in MSSQL/SSRS2008, since MS bought rights to use Dundas-charts, and will include it in SSRS! I you have experience in CR, and just need to do some short-term stuff, continue using it. However, for future, free reporting go with SSRS. (I have no personal experience with the 3rd party controls, but hoping I won't need to when SSRS2008 with Dundas becomes available...)
