Russell:


>Thanks for the repy, Pertti. When I see a product where the demo and the docs are poor, I assume the product was put together with about as much care. It always amazes me when people don't spend time on these things. It's the first impression and the most important one and they treat it like it doesn't matter. Astounding.
>

It is.

>I think you misunderstood parts of my post. I wasn't worried about integrating the FRX2Any code in my app so much (calling a separate APP is ok with me as long as it does what I need it to do, though integrating is good, too). The problem I have is that they assume the the FRX itself is *not* compiled into the EXE, but is a standalone file on the hard drive somewhere. I compile my reports into the EXE and therefore their approach is limiting. They suggest a workaround, but I tried it and it did not work. Are you letting the reports be excluded from your EXE like they assume or are you getting it to work with reports compiled into the EXE?

No, FRX2Any is NOT a separate APP, if you are using the "developer" version. When you compile it into your EXE it becomes part of it. No need to send any additional APPs. The thing about the APP not being part of the exe has to do with the "lesser" version, which you can not modify or compile into your exe, since you don't have the source or the class libraries available for compilation.

I include some static reports (frx/frt) into the EXE itself, but most of them I keep outside the EXE for easier editing/tweaking on the customer site.

>
>Also, regarding the preview that you mention . . . I wasn't worried about that, I was just wanting to avoid their dialog where you choose the report and the output options. It's ugly and will just not mesh with my interface. I want to set up my own dialog, then just set the appropriate properites in FRX2Any and print or preview the report. Can I do this?

Yes, you can. No need to go through the admittedly ugly selection interface. It is there just for proof of concept type of thing, I believe. I would never present something like that to my users. That user interface simply sets various parameters that it then passes on to the frx2any engine. There's nothing to keep you from sending those parameters directly from your own interface or no interface at all.

Again, IMO this is a great product, as far as the engine itself is concerned. UI and documentation is a whole different issue, though. But once you understand how the thing works, you don't need to worry about that.

And, speaking of documentation, I have been doing a bunch of internal .NET work lately, and I realized that I learn best by using the debugger and peeking and poking things through that. .NET docs, for the most part, are pretty hard to follow when you need to get some real life work done. Same thing with frx2any. Once you see the code, and especially see it in action from within the debugger, things start making a lot more sense. Talk about climbing the tree from top down -- but whatever works, works <g>

Pertti