1. Create a new Visual Studio project.
2. From the Project menu, select Add New Item.
3. In the Add New Item dialog that appears, select ActiveReports 8 Section Report (xml-based) and in the Name field, rename the file as rptScript.
4. Click the Add button to open a new section report in the designer.
5. In the Solution Explorer click the rptScript.rpx item and in the properties window set the Build Action property to Embedded Resource.

See Adding an ActiveReport to a Project for information on adding different report layouts.

1. In the Visual Studio toolbox, expand the ActiveReports 8 Section Report node and drag three TextBox controls onto the detail section and set the properties of each textbox as indicated:

   TextBox1

   Property Name	Property Value
   DataField	ProductName
   Text	Product Name
   Location	0, 0in
   Size	2.3, 0.2in

   TextBox2

   Property Name	Property Value
   DataField	QuantityPerUnit
   Text	Quantity
   Location	2.4, 0in
   Size	1.5, 0.2in

   TextBox3

   Property Name	Property Value
   DataField	UnitsInStock
   Text	Stock
   Location	4, 0in
   Size	1, 0.2in

2. Click just below the fields to select the Detail section, and in the Properties Window, set the CanShrink property to True to eliminate white space in the rendered report.

1. Click the Script tab located at the bottom of the report designer to access the script editor.
2. Add the scripting code.

   The following example shows what the scripting code looks like.

   Warning: Do not access the Fields collection outside the DataInitialize and FetchData events. Accessing the Fields collection outside of these events is not supported, and has unpredictable results.

   To write the script in Visual Basic.NET

   Visual Basic.NET script. Paste in the script editor window.

   Copy Code

   Private Shared m_cnn As System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection Public Sub ActiveReport_ReportStart() 'Set up a data connection for the report Dim connString As String = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Users\[User Folder]\Documents\ComponentOne Samples\ActiveReports 8\Data\NWIND.mdb" Dim sqlString As String = "SELECT * FROM products" m_cnn = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection(connString) Dim m_Cmd As System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand(sqlString, m_cnn) If m_cnn.State = System.Data.ConnectionState.Closed Then m_cnn.Open End If rpt.DataSource = m_Cmd.ExecuteReader End Sub Public Sub ActiveReport_ReportEnd() 'Close the data reader and connection m_cnn.Close End Sub

   To write the script in C#

   C# script. Paste in the script editor window.

   Copy Code

   private static System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection m_cnn; public void ActiveReport_ReportStart() { //Set up a data connection for the report string m_cnnString = @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Users\[User Folder]\Documents\ComponentOne Samples\ActiveReports 8\Data\NWIND.mdb"; string sqlString = "SELECT * FROM products"; m_cnn = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection(m_cnnString); System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand m_Cmd = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand(sqlString, m_cnn); if(m_cnn.State == System.Data.ConnectionState.Closed) { m_cnn.Open(); } rpt.DataSource = m_Cmd.ExecuteReader(); } public void ActiveReport_ReportEnd() { //Close the data reader and connection m_cnn.Close(); }

1. Click the Script tab located at the bottom edge of the report designer to access the scripting editor.
2. Add the scripting code to set alternate colors in the rows of the detail section.

   The following example shows what the scripting code looks like.

   To write the script in Visual Basic.NET

   Visual Basic.NET script. Paste in the script editor window.	Copy Code
   Dim b as boolean = true Sub Detail1_Format if b then Me.Detail1.BackColor = Color.AliceBlue b= false else me.Detail1.BackColor = Color.Cyan b = true End If End Sub

   To write the script in C#

   C# script. Paste in the script editor window.	Copy Code
   bool color = true; public void Detail1_Format() { if(color) { this.Detail1.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.AliceBlue; color = false; } else { this.Detail1.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.Cyan; color = true; } }

You can quickly view your report at design time by clicking the Preview tab at the bottom of the designer. You can also load the report to the Viewer control. 

• Drag the ActiveReports Viewer control from the Visual Studio toolbox onto the Windows Form and set its Dock property to Fill.
• Double-click the title bar of the Windows Form containing the viewer to create a Form_Load event and add the code needed to load the RPX into a generic ActiveReport and display it in the viewer.

  The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

  To write the script in Visual Basic.NET

  Visual Basic.NET script. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event.	Copy Code
  Dim sectionReport As New GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReport() Dim xtr As New System.Xml.XmlTextReader("..\..\rptScript.rpx") sectionReport.LoadLayout(xtr) xtr.Close() Viewer1.LoadDocument(sectionReport)

  To write the script in C#

  C# script. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event.	Copy Code
  GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReport sectionReport = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReport(); System.Xml.XmlTextReader xtr = new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(@"..\..\rptScript.rpx"); sectionReport.LoadLayout(xtr); xtr.Close(); viewer1.LoadDocument(sectionReport);