I am having problems with dynamically setting image locations (paths) in Crystal Reports. Just to give you a rundown on the environment I'm using:
I'm designing the reports in Crystal Reports XI Release 2.
- Images loading works fine in the designer.. I can pass it path values from the database or simply give it a path to an image in a string and it works fine, no problem at all. The image is correctly loaded from the specified path.
The problem is at run time.. I'm developing in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (version 9.0.21022.8 RMT), which references version 10.5.3700 of the CyrstalReports.Engine to interpret crystal report files.
I have tried using VB.NET code to change a formula field dynamically. I've tried passing in a string parameter with the full or relative path to the image.. and I've also tried loading the image path from a schema in an OLE DB(ADO) style database connection.
None of these have worked, it just loads the default image that I embedded into the report during design time.
To check that the path is being passed correctly each time I loaded it into a text object.
Has anyone got any ideas?
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I really think that loading images at run time is one of the feature of the standalone version. Why don't you distribute the runtimes for the standalone version?
The only way to provide a dynamic image to the free/lite/in-the-box version of CR is to pass it using a dataset. See http://www.emoreau.com/Ent
In the reports created using the standalone version you can set the location of an image. This correctly loads the image from disk when you run the report in the standalone designer. I would have thought this would work when the same report is loaded in the VB.Net report viewer?
On clients we deploy the 2005 .Net runtimes and get the same problem.
Is there a later runtime?
It seems the problem was caused by the built in report viewer not 'understanding' the image location property.
I downloaded the 30 trial of Crystal 2008 for .Net and installed it. This updated the report viewer component within Studio 2008 and now I am able to set report image paths at runtime.
Will upgrade to Crystal 2008 in 30 days time.
Hi,
There are numerous references to VB.Net here in the original question:
"The problem is at run time.. I'm developing in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (version 9.0.21022.8 RMT), which references version 10.5.3700 of the CyrstalReports.Engine to interpret crystal report files.
I have tried using VB.NET code to change a formula field dynamically. I've tried passing in a string parameter with the full or relative path to the image.. and I've also tried loading the image path from a schema in an OLE DB(ADO) style database connection."
The question was also tagged with VB.Net, and one of the zones was .Net. My first response to you clearly defined the environment.
Quite simply the accepted solution is not correct and should be changed to my original suggestion of 22832614 or this will be a broken solution.
If the wrongly accepted solution can be elaborated on to answer the question I will happily accept it.
What viewer are you using? The standalone viewer is a new product from Crystal and you are correct it canot be used with an application.
However CR XI comes with the tools to use the viewer and a runtime API that should do what you want.
On my machine they are in
Viewer - CRVIEWER.DLL
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Business Objects\3.0\crystalreportv
THe only question I cannot answer since I don't have VS2008, is whether these dlls will work with VS2008. I have not seen anything that indicates they won't work.
mlmcc
API - CRAXDRT.DLL
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Business Objects\3.0\bin
mlmcc
I am using the viewer component that comes with Visual Studio 2008. You just create a windows form, and drag the Crystal report viewer control onto it.
Then at runtime, load a crystal report (RPT file) into it programatically.
I am using standalone Crystal reports XI R2 to create the reports, and they load perfectly within the VS 2008 viewer component. The only thing that doesn't work is the ability to change image location at runtime - it's just plain broke.
Installing Crystal 2008 .Net on the machine upgrades the crystal report viewer control that's built into VS 2008, and reports that are rendered from within a VB.Net app that uses the built in viewer are able to dynamically change image location without issue.
Thanks for the tip about the DLLs, but I don't think these will help as the issue is with the report viewer that's built into VS 2008.
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by: mlmccPosted on 2008-10-27 at 22:23:28ID: 22819250
CR 0 epects the image to be in the databse. It cannot use the file path. That ability was added in CR XI.
Does CR XI work with VS 2008?
mlmcc