CR .NET 2005 To Support Custom Collections and Dataviews
In the Crystal Reports chat last night, Brian Bischof asked a question about a topic I wasn't aware of:
Q: I know that 2005 will support printing from collections. Will this be as simple as assigning the collection via the SetDataSource() method? Will it cover DataViews? etc.
A: Yes, it will be as simple as setting the collection into the ReportDocument/Table.SetDataSource() method, and it should cover DataViews as well.
Earlier this month, Scott Mitchell wondered how to do exactly this. In CR .NET 2003, the answer is to convert your collection to a dataset, and then use the dataset as your datasource. In Cr .NET 2005, you apparently won't need to do the conversion to a dataset--you can just set your report's datasource to the collection. This is hugely cool, especially for data that do not come from a database (but rather from an XML file, etc).
Also, dataviews will be supported. Again, cool. Using teh CR .NET engine for linking and filtering your report's data is not all that efficient. Now, you'll be able to use a dataview on your dataset, and set that dataview as your report's datasource. Rather than going back to the database each time a user wants to change the report presentation, you can cache your dataset the first time, and just create new dataviews each time the report parameters change. Way cool, and highly efficient in many cases.