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Changes Between ActiveReports 2.0 and ActiveReports for .NET
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User Guide > Upgrading Reports > Changes Between ActiveReports 2.0 and ActiveReports for .NET

Glossary Item Box

Report Classes

Data Dynamics attempted to keep to a minimum the number of changes to the report object model from ActiveReports 2.0.  Most of the changes are due to class refactoring and renaming of objects and members to closely match the .NET Framework naming conventions.  Listed below are the significant changes in the object model.

  1. ActiveReport.Show removed: ActiveReports class is no longer a Window class. This requires using the viewer control to preview the output of a report.

  2. Strong-typed Section classes:  ActiveReports for .NET includes classes for each of the section types with their own unique properties.  The old Section object is still available and the SectionCollection class holds items of the Section type.  The new section classes are Detail, GroupHeader, GroupFooter, PageHeader, PageFooter, ReportHeader and ReportFooter.

  3. New Stylesheet class:  Provides access to the styles defined in the report and allows you to change the individual style item properties.

  4. Image control renamed to Picture.

  5. Field control renamed to Textbox.

  6. Supported justified text alignment option for textboxes and labels.

  7. Indirect support of ActiveX® controls through .NET wrappers and the new CustomControl class.

  8. Three added data source classes which replace the data controls:  OleDbDataSource, XmlDataSource and SqlClientDataSource.

  9. Split Pages collection:  the Pages class from ActiveReports 2.0 is refactored into a PagesCollection class and a Document class.  The new Document class contains all the members to save or load RDF files and streams.

  10. Changed measurements from twips to inches.

  11. Frame control has been removed. 

Printing

  1. Added PrintController and PrintControllerWithStatus classes to make the printing model similar to the .NET Framework.

  2. Use of the .NET Framework Printer and PrinterSettings classes by the viewer control.  An optional unsafe printer class is also included for advanced printing and print job control similar to the ActiveReports 2.0 class.

  3. Calling Document.Print will no longer run the report.  The report must be run before attempting to print the document.

Viewer

  1. A rewritten report viewer control to take full advantage of the .NET Framework classes.

  2. Complete revision of the Toolbar and Tools classes.

  3. Separation of the Table of Contents tree control from the TOC collection (renamed to BookmarksCollection).

  4. No binding of the viewer control to an ActiveReport object. Instead, it binds to a Document object.

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