Starting from the 2008 version of Crystal Reports, the SDK used by Adelia Studio to communicate with Crystal Reports (in the development phase and for execution of the generated applications) has changed.
The SDK previously used was SDK RDC (Report Designer Component) based on COM technology. From now on the SDK used is SDK .NET for Crystal Reports.
Since these two SDKs are not exactly the same, certain behaviors may differ depending on which SDK is used.
The behavior modifications caused by SDK .NET from the Adelia Studio development platform are as follows:
- Certain VaCrysRt.dll functions are not supported by SDK .NET.
Functions added more recently are only supported by SDK .NET.
Note: For each function the documentation now presents validity information concerning each of the SDKs.
- By applying an edit code to a field placed on a Crystal Reports template it is possible to transfer certain display specificities onto the processed field. Crystal Reports proposes the following attributes:
Attributes |
Equivalence in .NET |
Fixing the sign position (none, at start, at end) |
YES |
Yes or no display of the field if its value is nil |
NO |
Yes or no display of the thousands separator character |
NO |
- The Adelia DATE type is now converted into a Crystal Reports DateTime type instead of a Date type as previously. The Adelia TIME type is now converted into a Crystal Reports DateTime type instead of a Time type as previously. Therefore the user is in charge of correctly formatting the field placed on the template by means of the Crystal Reports format Editor.
Important: To be able to use version 2008 of Crystal Reports with Adelia Studio, you must run the regNetCRpt command located in the Adelia Studio installation directory.
The behavior modifications caused by SDK .NET during execution of the generated applications are as follows:
- Export (default mode) from the preview window:
- The Crystal Reports.NET preview object only proposes a disk file as the export destination.
- The SDK RDC Crystal Reports preview object proposes a choice of export destination (Application, Lotus Domino, etc.) which is not limited to a disk file only.
- Modality of the preview window:
With SDK .NET the preview window is modal. The application's other windows cannot be enabled while the preview window is open.
- Format and display of DATE and TIME fields
Note that Crystal Reports 2008, when used in conjunction with Adelia Studio, does not handle Adelia DATE and TIME fields correctly. Consequently:
- When the Crystal Reports 2008 layout manager is opened, any Adelia DATE or TIME fields are automatically converted to Crystal Reports DATE/TIME fields (rather than Crystal Reports DATE fields or TIME fields as was the case with versions 9, 10 and 11). It is now the user's responsibility to
- Adjust the field formats to restrict the display to the desired field,
- Update any formulas that use fields that have changed type following a version upgrade to Crystal Reports 2008.
For information on automatically updating all the reports in an Adelia environment (by converting the problematic fields), refer to the UpdCRDateFields section.
- If reports that were developed with Crystal Reports version 9, 10 or 11 are run with a Crystal Reports 2008 runtime, any DATE or TIME fields are displayed incorrectly.
DATE fields are displayed as date/time fields with the time part set to [00 :00 :00 ].
TIME fields are displayed as date/time fields with the date part set to [01/01/1900].
You can use the UpdCRDateFields tool to update all the reports in a particular directory, so that DATE and TIME fields are displayed correctly.