Questions before I purchase?

rbuser

Hi,

I've been evaluating ReportBuilder and so far I'm impressed. We are about to
purchase it, but we have a few questions for things which we ran across in
the evaluation copy.


CROSS TABS
These can be created as design-time (double click on the report in the
designer), but we have had no luck with it at run-time. The designer
component allows editing, but the cross-tab wizard and item options are not
available? Is there some trick to this?


PERFORMANCE
Seems quite good. I could run ten of these reports in the time it takes
Crystal to get into memory. However, the demo is limited to five pages and I
was wondering how much it would slow down with a hundred page report?


DESIGNER OPTIONS
The designer component does not appear to follow any of the options set for
it. AllowDataChange and AllowSaveToFile are false and yet you can access
datasources and load/save files via menu options in the designer. The data
and calculation tabs are not visible -- even though the options are set.


EXPORT OPTIONS
From the site it appears that you need to purchase 3rd-party products to
support exporting to various formats. Can anyone direct me to which options
it supports natively? Also, any recommendations for which 3rd-party
exporting options are available?


RAP
The help file mentions this, but could someone direct me to a simple example
of extending the interface with a function, object, etc. which would call
back into the Delphi application?


LICENSING
I assume all distribution is royalty-free?


Many thanks,

Brett

nardmoseley

Thanks for your interest in ReportBuilder.

1. Including run-time designer support for Crosstabs, Data workspace, Calc
Workspace, etc.

See the article below.

2. Performance.

If you enable the report outline to be generated, you may see some
performance degradation on really large reports. Otherwise, the performance
should not slow down. There is a 30-day money back, so you can do more
testing once you purchase.

3. Designer options are working properly.

a. AllowDataSettings controls whether the File | DataSettings... menu option
appears on the menu that is displayed by the Data workpsace.

b. AllowSaveToFile controls whether the File | SaveToFile and LoadFromFile
menu options appear when running an application that saves/loads reports to
the report explorer database tables. For an example, see
RBuilder\Demos\EndUser\Report Explorer.

You can programmatically access the TppDesigner.Menu property to traverse
the menu items and custom them.

4. RAP is included with ReportBuilder Enterprise.

Examples and Tutorials are installed to RBuilder\Demos\RAP. The tutorial
text can be found in the Developers Guide. These materials include examples
and tutorials of extending RAP.

5. Licensing.

Licensing is royalty free, except for the Report Server included with the
Server Edition. Note that there are restrictions on the type of applications
that you can build. For example, you cannot build a general purpose
reporting tool.

6. Export options

ReportBuilder has an open architecture for output formats.

The following formats are included:

a. Printer - Completely control printer properties: orientation, paper size,
paper bin, duplexing, margins etc.

b. Preview - Use the built-in Preview Form or create your own and register
it as the replacement.

c. Archive Print reports to stand-alone files, preview later.

d. ASCII Text File Comma-delimited, tab-delimited and fixed length
formats supported.

e. Report Text File Formatted text output to a .txt file.




Finally, here is the article mentioned in number 1 above.....

------------------------------------------------------------
Article: Controlling the End-User Environment
------------------------------------------------------------

If you are having difficulty getting the Data tab, the Calc tab, the
crosstab component or the TeeChart component to appear in your end-user
application, or you are trying to eliminate one of these capabilities from
the app, then this help topic is for you. The following paragraphs explain
the unit registration scheme used by ReportBuilder Pro, and how you can use
this scheme to get control over the feature set presented to your end-users.

In order to minimize the overhead in end-user reporting applications,
ReportBuilder employs a unit level registration scheme (similar to component
registration in Delphi.), whereby components and functionality can be added
at the discretion of the developer. In other words, you can control whether
the 'Data' workspace, the 'Calc' workspace or certain components appear in
your end-user reporting application simply by specifying or omitting certain
unit names from the uses clause of your main end-user reporting unit. The
advantage of this approach is that overhead associated with features such as
DADE, RAP or the crosstab component can be eliminated from your application
if you do not wish to pass these features along to the end-user. The
disadvantage is that you must manually add certain units to the uses clause
or these capabilities will not appear in the application.

In the end-user reporting demo project (located in the ...\RBuilder\Demos\1.
Report Explorer directory), the main unit is a form entitled myEURpt. At
the top of the unit for this form there is a series of conditional compiler
directives which, when enabled, cause certain functionality to appear in the
application. The conditional compiler directives in this unit are an
attempt to simplify the configuration of the demo application. However,
these directives do nothing more than add or omit certain unit names from
the uses clause of the form. The important thing to know is the unit names
and the functionality that including those unit names will provide. The
table below provides this information.



Unit Name Feature
---------- -------------------------------------------------------------
--
daIDE DADE user-interface ('Data' tab)

raIDE RAP user-interface ('Calc tab)

ppCTDsgn User-interface for the configuration of the crosstab.
Normally the Crosstab Designer is displayed by accessing the
'Configure...' context menu option of a crosstab component.
If this unit is not included then this menu option is not
displayed.

myChkBox Checkbox components appear on the component palette when this unit
is
included. If you want to check out the source for these
components it
is in ...RBuilder Pro 4\Demos\RCL

ppChrtUI User-interface for editing charts. Normally the chart editor
is displayed by accessing the 'Edit...' context menu
option of a chart component.
If this unit is not included then this menu option is not
displayed.




ReportBuilder also uses the unit registration scheme to control which
database connectivity options are provided by the application. While
including the daDatMan unit will cause the 'Data' workspace to appear in the
Report Designer, that workspace will not be functional without a supporting
implementation. In ReportBuilder we call these implementations DADE
plug-ins. A DADE plug-in is nothing more than a Delphi unit which contains
the appropriate descendant class implementations needed by DADE to
communicate with a given database. Placing the data access implementation
in a separate unit gives us at least two benefits. One is that the user
interface is not tied to any specific database connectivity scheme. The
other is that the overhead associated with database support is limited to
the database connectivity products you are actually using. This means that
if you are using ADO to access your data, you need only include the daADO
unit in your uses clause and your application will use ADO only. Most
developers use DADE plug-ins to gain access to databases not supported by
the BDE, or to gain access to databases without the use of the BDE. The
following DADE plug-ins are provided with ReportBuilder Pro:

Unit Name Feature
---------- ----------
daDBBDE BDE support for the Query Wizard and Query Designer

daADO ADO support for the Query Wizard and Query Designer

daIBExpress Interbase Express support for the Query Wizard and Query
Designer.

daADS Advantage support.

daDOA Oracle support via the Direct Oracle Access components.

daODBC98 ODBC support via the ODBC98 components.

daIBO InterBase support via the InterBase Objects components.

daDBISAM DBISAM support.


You can use DADE plug-ins at Delphi design-time by generating a package
which contains one of these units and then installing it into Delphi. This
will allow you to use your preferred database product within the 'Data'
workspace at Delphi design-time. You can locate the various DADE plug-in
units in the ...\RBuilder\ Demos\EndUser Databases directories. A Delphi
package project has been provided for each DADE implementation so that you
can generate and install the plug-in at Delphi design-time. For more
information on how this can be done, see the ReadMe files in the EndUser
Databases directories.

Additional DADE Plug-ins are always being developed. Check the Digital
Metaphors web-site for the latest information (see the section
Friends:Data:DADE Plug-Ins.)




--
Tech Support mailto:support@digital-metaphors.com
Digital Metaphors http://www.digital-metaphors.com

--

Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors Corporation
www.digital-metaphors.com

rbuser

"Brett Watters" wrote in message