Crystal Reports for Visual Studio Features

Design-time preview
Design Time Preview lets you view a read-only version of the Crystal report with its default data. Data will preview regardless of a database logon failure or whether the report uses application data (for example, DataSets, or object collections).

Export and print within the preview
Save time by exporting and printing directly from the preview pane. No more waiting to generate a preview for reports that will ultimately be delivered over Excel or printed by end-users.

Crystal Reports project templates
Crystal Report project templates are available for Visual Basic, C#, and J# Windows applications and Web Sites. The project templates create a default Crystal Reports project and start the New Report Creation Wizard to help new users create reports.

Smart Tags

The CrystalReportViewer Smart Tag panel lets you create, open, or edit a Crystal report from a Web or Windows form. You can also customize the CrystalReportViewer control to do error reporting for database logons and parameter values.

In a Web Site, selections made in the Smart Tag panel produce auto-generated XML in the ASPX page.

In a Windows project, selections made in the Smart Tag panel produce auto-generated code in a hidden class file, called a "partial" class. Partial classes are a new feature of the .NET 2.0 Framework.

Available in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

Code snippets
Code snippets are now available for adding commonly used code. Code Snippets save on coding time for these common uses:

• A Report requires database logon.
• A Report requires parameters.
• A Report needs to point to a new database location before it is viewed.

ToolTip disable option
Activate when you don't want a ToolTip to provide contextual information to end-users of a report. In Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008, the default ToolTips are switched off.

ReportSource and DataSource controls

The ReportSource control contains a report that encapsulates the data, whereas a DataSource control (such as SqlDataSource) contains the data itself. It is part of the simplified tag-based application development model provided with ASP.NET version 2.0.

In the DataSource control framework, .NET visual controls connect to DataSource controls, which do not manage display information. This DataSource framework encapsulates the data connectivity information, written as lines of code in .NET controls on the Web Form.

In the Design window, Visual Studio shows you the names of the controls that are connected to one another. The controls are also accessible as declarative XML in the ASPX code view.

Automatic data binding

With automatic data binding, you no longer need to call the DataBind() method in the code-beside class when binding to a file directory path through the Properties window. The automatic data binding feature can be removed by setting AutoDataBind = false.

Exception event handling
The CrystalReportViewer control lets you decide which error messages to display and which to suppress, rather than save them to the ASP.NET page.

CrystalReportParts viewer
CrystalReportParts viewer lets you deliver strategic pieces of information such as a summary, grid, or chart without having to display an entire report. The CrystalReportParts viewer control displays report summary information in a small, portal-like window, with the ability to drill down on the report through a series of linked parts.

High quality thin-client printing control
To provide a non-obtrusive printing experience from the web based Crystal Report viewer, a light-weight Active X print control has been added to Crystal Reports for Visual Studio. The print control will fetch EPFs from the web server and print them to the client's local printer.

Themes support
Themes are a tool in ASP.NET 2.0 providing a common look and feel to all visual controls on a page, or across your Web Site. When you set the Theme property of a visual control to the name of a theme, that theme is applied to all visual controls on the page. The CrystalReportViewer control is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 Themes. Any changes you make to a Theme are extended to the CrystalReportViewer control and all other visual controls on the page.

Cascading Style Sheets for customizing the CrystalReportViewer control
In Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005/2008, you can use a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) named "default.css" to customize the appearance of the CrystalReportViewer control. The style sheet is stored in a subdirectory of the viewer's virtual directory that is named "css." You can access the style sheet from the CssFileName property of the CrystalReportViewer control.

ASP.NET Crystal report viewer group tree customization
You can change the font style and colors of the ASP.NET group tree levels on a viewer-by-viewer basis in the embedded designer. It is also possible to change this on a page-by-page basis using CSS style classes defined in a custom .css file.

ASP.NET CrystalReportViewer custom toolbars
You can easily create a custom toolbar that offers all the functionality of the default CrystalReportViewer toolbar.

Multilingual client support
Crystal Reports Basic for Visual Studio 2005/2008 provides multilingual support for both Windows Applications and Web Applications.

SQL Server 2005
Crystal Reports now supports hierarchical fields, such as User Defined Types (UDT) and XML fields, in SQL Server 2005. A hierarchical field can be consumed and grouped on to create a dynamic hierarchical grouping structure within the report.

Object collections
Reporting off object collections allows for support of data from web services, ObjectSpaces, and Microsoft Business Framework. You can now easily create an array of classes and pass them to the report as a data structure. Combined with Crystal Reports' ability to consume multiple data sources, you can join the customized data array and the runtime data source to dynamically manipulate the report output without having to interpret the runtime data source.

Integrated authentication (Single Sign On)
With integrated authentication and Crystal Report support, applications can pass end-user credentials from the client's browser machine through to the ASP.NET application and "through to" Crystal Reports to the SQL Server 2005 database. Specific row or column level security can show or hide data that the end-user is allowed to access. This feature is also provided for WinForm applications.

Crystal Reports Update Service
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 provides an optional Crystal Reports Update Service that checks for updates, HotFixes, and patches for Crystal Reports. The Crystal Reports Update Service is installed with Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

Updated Crystal Reports engine
The Crystal Reports engine has been updated to include the latest bug fixes, general enhancements to exporting, the ability to create Funnel Charts, and data base access performance improvements.

64 Bit support
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 provide support for new 64 bit architectures, by providing native IA-64 and AMD64 .NET runtime support, and support for AMD 64 at design time.

Deploying a 64-bit application

64 bit Application deployment is consistent with 32 bit application deployment.

Crystal Reports Basic for Visual Studio 2008 ships with deployment projects that enable you to deploy your application to target machines. Each setup project contains an application and its necessary components. Crystal Reports can build code in a 32-bit or and AMD 64-bit environment that can be deployed and executed correctly on a 64-bit machine.

Single merge modules
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2008 uses only a single Merge Module for deployment. To simplify the installation process the entire merge module can be included to ensure all the Crystal Report dependencies are included. Alternatively, advanced users can specify options to reduce the size of the deployment on the client machine.

Installer (MSI)
With Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008, you can deploy the Crystal Reports runtime components with Microsoft Installer file (MSI) instead of using merge modules. The Windows Installer allows for smaller deployment projects and reduced installation time.

ClickOnce Deployment
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 supports ClickOnce deployment. ClickOnce deployment allows easy installation and updates for Windows applications that are published to a Web site.