Reporting — Enhancements, Documentation Updates, Tips & Tricks (January 2022)

A Few Recent Enhancements

Visual Studio Report Designer - Improved Error Handling

Our Visual Studio Report Designer for .NET 6 / .NET 5 / .NET Core apps tracks the Microsoft.CodeAnalysis NuGet package and informs you if it is not referenced when your project includes scripts (error XRD105).

Entity Framework Core 6 in the Visual Studio Report Designer

Entity Framework 6 support is now included in our Visual Studio Report Designer for .NET 6 / .NET 5 / .NET Core apps. You can use this framework to bind your reports to MS SQL, MS SQL Compact Edition, PostgreSQL (Npgsql), and SQLite databases. Please leave a comment below if you'd like us to support other providers.

Improved Crystal Reports Conversion Engine

This round of updates to our report conversion tool includes support for subreport parameters.

Documentation Updates

New topics in the Reporting for Blazor help section:

• Report Viewer for Blazor (native)
  • Create Blazor Report Viewer Application Using CLI
  • How to Load a Report and Restore the Data Connection
• Document Viewer and Designer for Blazor (JavaScript-Based)

Updates to the Use Report Scripts help section describe how to debug your application on .NET 6, .NET 5, and .NET Core.

Updates to the help topic on how to implement a custom parameter editor:

• Implement a Custom Parameter Editor in WinForms Applications

A new help topic on how to register scripts in your web applications:

• Script Registration

New topics in the Create Reports in Code help section:

• Create a Simple Static Report
• Create a Simple Data-Bound Report
• Create a Cross-Tab Report
• Create a Table Report

Interesting Support Tickets

Multiple Supported Platforms

• How to set the font for all report elements (T1058247)
  Update the Font property for the report, its styles, and report controls in code:

  
  Font customFont = new System.Drawing.Font("Tahoma", 18f);
  report.Font = customFont;
  foreach (XRControlStyle style in report.StyleSheet) {
      style.Font = customFont;
  }
  foreach (XRControl reportControl in report.AllControls<XRControl>()) {
      reportControl.Font = customFont;
  }
  

• How to generate thumbnails for picture box images (T1047207)
• How to draw an XRLine with gradient color (T1055784)
• Printing XtraReport in code - Tray selection does not work (T1050000)
• Does CVE-2021-44228 (Log4J) vulnerability impact DevExpress Reporting components? (T1052660)
  No, Log4j ports to other languages are not affected as exploiting this vulnerability requires the Java virtual machine and its JNDI feature. All error messages we get are written verbatim, meaning we do not attempt to deserialize any data.

Reporting for WinForms

• How to localize the Report Designer’s Gallery (T1049213)
  We have no special localization string for these elements but you can translate them manually.
• How to store reports with custom controls (T1054149)
  Ensure that the application that generates report definition can create a custom control type.
• How to sign and save the signature in a report using picturebox (T1047255)
• Custom end user designer: reportDesigner.ReportGalleryOptions can’t be found (T1048881)

Reporting for WPF

• How to print WPF user controls in a report (T1054159)

Reporting for Blazor

• How to turn off the right panel in a Blazor DxReportViewer control (T1052909)

Reporting for ASP.NET Core

• How to integrate Web Report Designer in React Application with .NET 5 (T1049373)
• Deploying the Cross-Platform Pango Drawing Engine on MacOS - Native libraries are not found on Apple M1 machines (T1050234)
  Add the following to your environment variables in launchsettings.json:
  

  "DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH": "/opt/homebrew/lib:"

• How to run DevExpress Reports using the CrossPlatform Drawing Engine in a Docker container based on Linux Alpine Image (T1058602)
  Alpine is a promising lightweight flavor of Linux. This support ticket describes how to configure your Docker container for Alpine.
• How to integrate the Web Document Viewer and Report Desginer in a DevExtreme app and how to combine JS and CSS from thirdparty and vendor bundles (T1057082)
• WebDocumentViewer - Export options localization (T1057147)
• Web Document Viewer - Date Time parameter editor - How to format the parameter value as “dd/mm/yyyy” and hide the time/clock part (T1055867)

Reporting for ASP.NET MVC

• How to distribute table columns evenly on the client side (T1053254)
• How to display extra information in Header Area when printing MVC Pivot Grid (T1047642)
• How to delete a report from the Report Designer (T1058663)
• How to use client timezone in a report’s PageInfo (T1056171)

Your Feedback Matters

As always, we welcome your thoughts/feedback. Please post a comment below and let us know how we can help.