Integration of CR2008 .RPT report files within Paradox 10

[Former Member]

Hello,

Our goal is to produce richer reports than those allowed by the ( 2002 ) Paradox report engine. We are evaluating CR2008 with the trial version plus other commercial report generator.

No problem with the conectivity to BDE 5.1 tables and the report building itself that is clear and straightforward. So we get the RPT files produced under CR2008 + Win XP

Question 1: how to embed the report handling to launch reports from withing Paradox code.

Former versions of CR had a Crystl32.ocx that seems not shipped in version CR2008.

Where can we get information to an ActiveX control to implement this interface or to know which is the mechanism used to integrate CR2008 within Paradox code. Any sample files ?

Question 2: we need to to make sure that the embedded product will run on Win 2000 Pro environment, because we need to maintain Win2k Pro as our minimum OS. It would be difficult for as to ask all our customers to switch to XP.

BTW, RPT files produced with CR2008 on XP run nice under the CR Viewer on Win2k, so we think that we will be able to continue using Win2k, but we need to make sure of this.

Thanks a lot,

Best regards,

Horacio

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Horacio,

CR2008 no longer ships with ActiveX COM components like the OCX. The Crystl32.ocx component was retired after Crystal Reports 8.5. The Report Designer Component (RDC) was the replacement for the OCX, however it was retired after CR XI R2 (v11.5).

The Crystal Reports .NET SDK is the current component for running reports in custom Windows applications, but is not a COM component. I don't know if you can integrate the CR.NET SDK into Paradox, but I suspect the answer is that you can not.

For more information about the Crystal Reports .NET SDK you can visit the online [Developer Library|https://boc.sdn.sap.com/developer/library]. Look for the Crystal Reports .NET SDK Developer Guide link.

Sincerely,

Dan Kelleher

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you, Daniel.

Your anwser is very clear, and, as you suspect, Paradox does not handle .NET objects AFAIK.

Seeing the evolution you mention, is clear for us that:

CR8.5 had ActiveX support but we suppose is too old tool to invest in today. We discard it.

,NET technology that allows CR2008 use is beyond our scope today. We discard it.

So the only possibility would be CR XI + a Paradox compatible mechanism.

With reference to CR XI R2 (v11.5) we want to know if RDC is still another ActiveX technology component that might be called from within Paradox, or if it is a non Paradox compatible technology.

Best regards,

Horacio

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hello Horacio,

I'm not familiar with Paradox, but it should be able to use the RDC in a similar fashion to it worked with the OCX (crystl32.ocx).

Since I'm not sure if you've worked with the RDC before I'll post some links that can be helpful. If you have additional, specific questions please feel free to ask them by posting new questions. Most of these documents were written for CR9. There's been little change to the RDC so the code is essentially the same for CR9/10/11/11.5. The RDC does not ship with CR2008.

The important things to note are the changes to database connectivity and runtime deployment with the RDC since CR9.

Here are the links:

[Migrating from OCX to RDC9|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/d0266ff1-261f-2b10-0284-e45e1568431e] - Migration tutorial - be sure to look at the appendix for the helpful side by side code comparison.

[RDC9 Connection Properties|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/00635998-751e-2b10-9cba-f50ee1e4ef81] - Database connectivity

[RDC9 Tutorial|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/105181db-cb1d-2b10-38a4-b0a30e268e40] - Getting started guide.

[RDC Deployment|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/901c0761-cf1d-2b10-dea4-8e83937a9337] - Deployment information.

I hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Dan Kelleher

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks a lot,

Problem solved.

Have a nice day,

Horacio