Ported Reports
Ice Porter is extremely advanced also when porting Report Builder reports. The source files are converted to different target platforms. The PPJ Framework supports all SalReport*() commands found in SQLWindows/Team Developer. Each target platform supported by Ice Porter has a runtime implementation in the PPJ Framework as well. There are few features in both the converted reports and the runtime support that are not supported, and some fundamental differences in the structure of the reports that must be taken into consideration.
Report conversion is currently supported for the following target platforms:
| Platform | Description |
|---|---|
Crystal Reports is now owned by SAP Business Objects. It is probably the most wide-spread reporting engine in desktop applications and has been shipped with Visual Basic for many years and is also part of the Microsoft .NET Framework. | |
List & Label is a reporting component of combit GmbH, a company located in Germany (see http://www.combit.net). It was initially released in 1992 and is nowadays marketed worldwide. In contrast to other standalone reporting engines, List & Label is a developer-oriented tool and it contains an embedded report designer that may be deployed. royalty-free. | |
Reporting Services is a product released as part of SQL Server from Microsoft. The initial version came out in 2004 following a server-centric approach. It has been extended by a client-side report engine (Report Viewer control) that is part of the .NET Framework and is used by The Porting Project. | |
Stimulsoft Reports is a product line of reporting tools for the .NET Framework provided by Stimulsoft. |
Supported target platforms for report conversion and report engines in the PPJ Framework.
The default runtime implementation of reporting functions is in the PPJ.Runtime.Reports.dll assembly. Reporting functionality is implemented through the single interface ISalReport which can be used to implement additional report engines in the PPJ Framework.
It is very simple to mix different report engines in a ported application and add new functionality by doing this. The PPJ Framework uses the same standard interface for all report engine implementations. While porting a project, it may be decided that all reports are ported to Crystal Reports. In order to improve letter writing functionality and use a royalty-free designer later on, List & Label support might be added to the ported application just by enabling this report engine at runtime.
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