Datasheet

Incompatibilities
When using the Crystal Reports Designer available in Visual Studio.NET, you’ll notice that there are a
number of features that are available in the retail versions of Crystal Reports but are not supported here.
A list of these features has been included for your reference:
❑ Geographic mapping is not supported in Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET. Map objects
in Crystal Reports are implemented through third-party technology provided by MapInfo, and
this has not yet been ported over to the .NET Report Designer. If you want to use existing
reports that have maps with Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET, you can still do so, but the
map objects will appear blank.
❑ OLAP (Online Analytical Data Processing) data sources and the grids that display OLAP infor-
mation within a report are also not supported. If you are using an existing report that displays
an OLAP grid, this area will be shown as a blank.
❑ Crystal Dictionaries, Crystal Queries, and Seagate Info Views are not supported. If you need to
use an existing report that is based on any of these file formats, you will need to recreate the
report directly from the database or data source itself.
Up until now we have looked only at previous versions of Crystal Reports. In August 2002, Crystal
Decisions released Crystal Reports 9.0, which shares the same file format as Crystal Reports .NET and
recently updated the product to version 10.0. It includes a standalone Report Designer, which does not
require Visual Studio, as well as an updated Report Designer for use within the Visual Studio .NET
environment. Thus you could have someone else create reports for your application without having to
train them on how to use Visual Studio .NET.
Also included are new components for use with .NET— including increased data access, more produc-
tivity features, and a mobile viewer with associated tools that works with the .NET Mobile Internet
Toolkit. For more information on Crystal Reports 10.0, visit www.businessobjects.com/products/
reporting/crystalreports/.
Crystal Reports .NET Benefits
Now that we have looked at some of the differences among versions of Crystal Reports and at some of
their uses and limitations, we need to have a look at some of the reasons you should be excited about
this version and how your applications can benefit from the features we talked about earlier.
Leverage Existing Development and Skills
Crystal Reports can leverage the existing reports you have created, regardless of version. If you already
have a suite of reports created in version 7.0, for example, you can quickly import them into Crystal
Reports .NET, and they will be ready to be integrated in your application. In addition, the report design
process remains the same, with a number of experts to guide you through report design and the same
familiar design concepts, formula languages, and features you have used in previous versions. A word
of warning: You can import reports from older versions of Crystal Reports .Net, but not the other way
around; once you have opened or edited a report in Crystal Reports .NET, it uses a Unicode file format
that is incompatible with previous versions.
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