how to distribute Embeddable Report Designer Control

[ron9999]

Hi
I like to give our clients the possibility to change the position of a record field in the report (not to create new ones). So I embed the "Crystal Reports 9 Designer Control" now I have a license error. To I need for eache client a licens to ship our app with this feature or is there a work around? We had this in VFP Report, so they are used to have it.
TIA
Ronald Weinrich

 

[Mike Lewis]

Ronald,

My understanding is that you do need a licence to distribute this control, and royalties are payable.

CR 8.x used to have a help file called Royalty Required Runtime.Hlp, which explained the situation. I can't find that file in CR 9.0, but the information is almost certainly on the Bus. Objects web site.

Mike


Mike Lewis
Edinburgh, Scotland

My Visual Foxpro web site:

http://www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk

My Crystal Reports web site:

http://www.ml-crystal.com

 

[ron9999]

thank you Mike,
I have red in Craig Benrtson's book:

Basically, this message is saying you don't have a license to create a report from scratch. .....
However, when I pass a filename, the error message does not display. ....
You must pass a fully qualified file name ...
DO FORM Designer WITH "c:\CR\ADO1.RPT"

this should work??
If I try this on my develop computer it works but not if I distribute it to a other computer.
Ronald

 

[Mike Lewis]

Ronald,

Sorry I can't help with that particular message. Maybe Craig will see this and step in.

However, you could also consider a different approach. You say that you just want to let the user change the position of a field. You could do that with the RDC. This does not provide a visual design interface, so you would need some other way of getting the user to specify where they want to put the field (using a VFP form, maybe). Once you've got the information from the user, you could drill down into the report object and programmatically change the positioning.

I have often done that sort of thing from VFP. You definitely don't need any special licence to do that, and there are no royalties payable.

Mike


Mike Lewis
Edinburgh, Scotland

My Visual Foxpro web site:

http://www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk

My Crystal Reports web site:

http://www.ml-crystal.com

 

[ron9999]

that's a good idea, if I give the user the chance
to change the position of e.g. the Date: line so I have to figure out how to pass a parmeter and so on.
thank you
Ronald

 

[Mike Lewis]

Ronald,

You don't have to pass a parameter. What you need to do is to get an object reference the field in question, and change its Left and Top properties. If you're not sure how to do that, check the stuff about the RDC in the developer help file (CrystalDevHelp.chm), or see Craig's book.

The programming is not exactly trivial, but you will avoid all the rannygazoo with licensing and royalties.

Mike


Mike Lewis
Edinburgh, Scotland

My Visual Foxpro web site:

http://www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk

My Crystal Reports web site:

http://www.ml-crystal.com

 

[ron9999]

thank you I will check it out
Ronald