Hi craig,

>The CRPE is a wrapper around the print engine API. Much functionality, compared to the RDC, is not exposed. Because it is a wrapper, there is a translation that happens, so it runs slower.

I still have to see some benchmarks about this one. I've used both, but I did not notice any significant differences. Maybe it lies in areas I don't use, but then again how much value does this have.

>The RDC is a full 32-bit, dual interface COM server. It gives you the ability to manipulate any object in the report. You also have complete control over what buttons/labels the viewer displays.

I agree, indeed the RDC automation controller gives you more power to report formatting at runtime, esspecially when using the new report creation API.

>>2. The CRviewer forces the form to be visible before the init of the form fires. Therefore I needed a trick to put the form(class) to an invisible position and sizing and position it properly in the init of the form.
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>I'm not sure I follow you here. I can place the viewer on a form and resize it without a problem.

For some reason, the CrViewer ActiveX control forces the display of the form before the init event of the form fires. In this init event I resize the form and the control to fit the screen. The early display of the form causes an unwanted visual effect in displaying the size and coordinates in which the class was designed. I've solved this, by setting the Left property to -1000 in the class. In the forms init I set the correct position and size of the form and the crviewer.

>>3. Setting printersettings is still a pain. CR provides a seperate printer settings dialog box which cannot be called from the print dialog box (ala the TO PRINTER PROMPT clause in VFP). For foreigners which language is not supported by CR (like dutch) there is not much to write your own print dialog box.
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>You can display a Printer Setup dialog.

Yes, I agree, and though it is a step forward from version 7 where there was no way to do this, I still find it odd to have a print setup dialog from which you cannot print directly, and you have a print dialog from which you cannot adjust some printer settings. Though there are more windows applications which work this way, i'd really prefer the way all MS office applications provide a way to adjust printersetting from a properties commandbutton within the print dialog.

Even if this was implemented as described above, I still have problems in my dutch applications. Since Crystal reports does not have a dutch version I prefer to program my own print dialog boxes. However, though the CPRE API does provide enough functions to do this, the automation server and RDC do fall short in this area.

>>4. In the CR viewer you can select report objects (showed with a red rectangle) which is nice. But you can also select sections (blue rectangle). However you can't do anything with it. There is no way you can copy its contents to the clipboard, you can't turn it off. You can't determine which objects fall in the range of the rectangle etc.
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>I don't think copy/paste is the intent of the rectagles.

Then I Wonder why you can 'draw' these rectangles yourself. Also when rightclicking this rectangle you can choose for 'Copy'. However, if I want to paste it somewhere (Excel, notepad, etc), it does not paste anything. Worst of all is that I cannot find a word about this feature in the documentation.

>>5. When resizing, the preview window flickers a lot more than the CRPE preview window did.

>I don't have a problem with it.

Well I don't find it a 'problem' either, but it's strange that it works smoother in the good old CRPE preview and flickers in the RDC approach. In any way it is not attractive for users who wants to resize the window.

>>6. Drill downs cannot be exported, and cannot be printed without displaying the print dialog box.

>I haven't tried exporting drilldowns. I'll experiment today.

Worst thing is that this works perfectly from within the CPRE preview, despite of what the documentation says.

>>7. I still can't suppress hidden groups in the group tree. :-(

>That is a problem.

It sure is. I'll hope to see this one fixed in the following release.

Walter,