With ActiveReports, compiled reports can easily be set up for deployment.
This walkthrough illustrates how to create a deployment project in ActiveReports for a compiled report.
This walkthrough is split up into the following activities:
- Adding an installer project to an existing ActiveReports project
- Adding the ActiveReports application to the installer
- Deploying the installer application
Adding an installer project to an existing ActiveReports project
To add the installer project
- Open an existing ActiveReports project or create a new report.
- From the Build menu of Visual Studio, click "Build [your ActiveReports project name]" to build your report project.
- From the File menu of Visual Studio, select Add Project and click on New Project to open the Add New Project dialog.
- Under Project Types in the Add New Project dialog, select Setup and Deployment Projects.
- In the Templates window, select Setup Project, rename the file and click OK.
- From the Solution Explorer, select the Installer project. In the Properties window, select the ProductName property and enter the name of your file.
The ProductName property determines the name that will be displayed for the application in folder names and in the Add/Remove Programs dialog box. |
Adding the ActiveReports application to the installer
To add the ActiveReports application
- Select the Installer project in the Solution Explorer.
- In the File System Editor, choose the Application folder.
- From the Action menu of Visual Studio, select Add> Project Output to open the Add Project Output Group dialog.
- In the Add Project Output Group dialog, choose your ActiveReports project name from the drop-down list.
- Select "Primary Output" from the list and click OK. This adds all of the existing assembly dependencies to your project.
- If you wish to add other ActiveReports DLLs to the project, right-click on the project name, point to Add, and click on Assembly, which opens the Component Selector dialog.
If you would rather use the ActiveReports .msm file, please contact activereports.support@datadynamics.com. - After you have added all desired ActiveReports DLLs, click "Build [your Installer project name]" from the Build menu of Visual Studio to build your Installer project.
Deploying the installer application
To deploy the installer application
- Select the Installer project in the Solution Explorer.
- From the Project menu of Visual Studio, click Install.
- The Installer application will run and install the project on your computer.