With the upcoming release of the eXpressApp Framework (version 13.2), we’re introducing a new way in which to create reports for your XAF powered application. Simply said, you’ll now be able to create your report using XtraReports within Visual Studio and effortlessly integrate them into your XAF applications.
This is an introductory post for the ReportsV2 module and I’ll describe it in more detail once we release. For now, please keep in mind that this will ship as a beta. We are looking forward to your feedback so we can continue to improve the module to meet your specific requirements.
To start using ReportV2, I’ll select it from the toolbox…
Because ReportsV2 integrates XtraReports at design time, you can use all the examples and documentation form our Reports Team. As you might imagine, when creating reports with this new module, you’ll be writing code and creating your own custom template within Visual Studio using your language of choice (C#, VB.Net). XAF will allow you to preview and print these new templates at runtime much like the existing Reports module. Since the design time report is a template, it is not editable at runtime, however, it is possible to clone it, make an editable copy and continue designing at runtime. In addition to native integration, ReportsV2 should make it easier for you to work with Stored Procedures, SubReports and hosting of custom components (this will be the subject of a dedicated blog post)..
To integrate XtraReports at design time, our team introduced two new components: the CollectionDataSource and the ViewDataSource. In the first beta release, you will need to add them to your toolbox manually.
The CollectionDataSource component
Drag and drop the component from the VS toolbox to the designer template of an XtraReport class. To create the XtraReports class, use existing XtraReports documentation. After setting up the ObjectTypeName to one of your domain objects the CollectionDataSource will load all objects properties as is.
The ViewDataSource component
Much like CollectionDataSource, you will need to set the ObjectTypeName property. Note that the ViewDataSource component is designed to load only required plain data properties or aggregated calculations instead of the entire object hierarchy. As a result, you will get better performance and less memory consumption when you are dealing with thousands of records and complex data models. To configure the properties or expressions that will be used as a datasource, you can use the Properties collection as illustrated below.
Runtime integration
To load the report you created at design time with the new module, we provide a ModuleUpdater subclass -PredefinedReportsUpdater - which can be used as shown in the snippet below.
public override IEnumerable<ModuleUpdater> GetModuleUpdaters(IObjectSpace objectSpace, Version versionFromDB) {
ModuleUpdater updater = new DatabaseUpdate.Updater(objectSpace, versionFromDB);
PredefinedReportsUpdater predefinedReportsUpdater = new PredefinedReportsUpdater(Application, objectSpace, versionFromDB);
predefinedReportsUpdater.AddPredefinedReport<XtraReportOrdinary>("Inplace Report", typeof(Contact), isInplaceReport: true);
predefinedReportsUpdater.AddPredefinedReport<XtraReportView>("Report with ViewDataSource", null);
return new ModuleUpdater[] { updater, predefinedReportsUpdater };
}
We’ve created a specific demo for the ReportsV2 module. It is located in your C:\Users\Public\Documents\DXperience 13.2 Demos\eXpressApp Framework\ReportsV2Demo folder.
Because ReportsV2 will ship as a beta, we do not recommend its use in production code. We do want to hear your thoughts on ReportsV2 and are looking forward to incorporate your feedback…so please let us know what you think…
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