Good morning,



I just received an email from this tool's company about their latest version of their components. I played around with one of their free components about 2 years ago. They have added some really nice functionality to their list of offerings. EntrySet.Extenders is rather intriguing. The Sticky Labels component is a great UI improvement. So is their Marks, Hints and Descriptions. I am interested in just a few of their features and the price is quite reasonable. I am looking for information about integration with the SF environment primarily. Has anyone used these components?



Thanks!

Bill

Hi Bill,



Could you post the link for this tool?

Edhy Rijo

Here ya go: PureComponents

Thanks Bill,



A quick look at their site, and the controls looks pretty good and time saver. Will see if I can test some of them this weekend.

Edhy Rijo

I've been "redirected" all week. Have you been able to play with these controls, at all?



Thanks,

Bill

Sorry I haven't. Currently have a lot of things in my plate and could not even download the trial yet.



Tools pending to review:

VistaDB

ActiveReports 6



I am currently using Report SharpShooter which is OK but still need to get dig deeper into it. A quick look at ActiveReport 6 videos show a pretty easy to use User Interface which integrates with Visual Studio, Report SharpShooter's designer is a separate modal form which is not that user friendly to me.

Edhy Rijo

Edhy -



Thanks for the mention of ActiveReports. Really looks promising. I'm downloading the trial now and hope to test it this weekend. I have RSS too but like you I don't find it very intuitive and am looking for something more my style.



Let's share experiences with it on another thread as we go along.

Edhy -



Just a preliminary look at ActiveReports it seems there is an issue about datasources like our BBS's. Doable but not built into their current scheme.



XtraReports from DevExpress seems to cover this and from what forum messages I see here it seems to integrate with VS IDE and work with SF BBS. (also cheaper than Activereports6)



Have you tried this and is there any particular reason it didn't excite your interest?

Hi Charles,



I have plans to test Active Reports this weekend if my wife allows me



Whichever start first (guess you) just open a new thread to share experiences. From the videos it looks like very developer friendly. About the data, I am not sure I want to use the BBS due to all issues about being slower than connecting to the database directly and being able to easily design, preview reports which I have not found it easy to do using the BBS.



I know the the SF team have done a great job with RSS with full integration and on the fly creation of reports based on templates but I don't know if they will ever make a SF add-on product.



Right know creating reports in .net is a very time consuming and a painful process, I am basically using the method shown in StrataFlix and that means creating a whole bunch of files, class, BBS, BO, etc. per report and doing that for every little project is not so productive in my case, so I am looking to see how would it be with other report tools.



Back in the dates with VFP I had a product called VisualRep which allowed me to create and manage reports with a data-driven model, in a single day I was able to create almost all simple reports needed by any application and just focus on the complicated ones. I need to find a tool that will help me create reports faster and easier to maintain.

Edhy Rijo

I have not seen XtraReports yet, but will check it out too, don't know when...

Edhy Rijo