I’m in the process of not only learning VS 2005 and .Net but also SF. One thing I’ve found myself doing by reading these posts is making a list of other tools for my transition to this platform, one is a report writer. Coming from MS Access report writing was and is an easy and powerful tool.
My question is do I really need a 3rd party tool to get the same power or can I accomplish this by using VS 2005’s crystal report?
I’ve also noticed that I may also need a better data grid, deployment tool, help developer, etc. and It seems to be adding up…so much for a quick and painless transition.
Aye, it does stack up rather quickly.
As for your Crystal Reports question, yes, you can probably accomplish everything you need to with Crystal Reports, but I think the reason that we avoided using them was because when Trent looked into it, they have a runtime licensing component... so you have to pay to distribute it to your users. I'm not positive on that, but I'm pretty sure.
On a lighter note, with .NET several tools developers package several components into one package, for example, DXperience (DevExpress suite) contains reporting, controls, and a grid all in one package. So, if you do your research and buy right, you can save yourself a little bit of money.