Add your own Custom Designed ReportWriter to your programs!
Software developers can now take advantage of the Reportster
program for Windows. Reportster consists entirely of
Visual Basic Source Code and can be easily added
to any VB5 or VB6 application allowing your customers to design their
own reports. The Reportster consists of Visual Basic source code
which you can adapt to fit your customers' needs or leave as is and
insert into your VB5 and/or VB6 applications.
- Reads an ACCESS or SQL Server
database and allows your users to easily create their own reports.
- Allows you to keep full control of the ReportWriter, including the
help screens.
- Allows you to better customize your program to meet your
customers' needs.
- Y2K ready.
Why do you need it?
Since each end user has different and changing reporting needs, and
it is impossible to create custom reports for all of them, it's desirable
to provide report-writing capabilities with your applications. Often,
other software report-writers are too complex for your users to
understand; furthermore, new versions are released every 6-12
months, forcing you and your clients to buy the newer version to
correct bugs, or to make use of the new technology or new platforms.
In addition, many of these products have high overhead in terms of
DLLs and OCXs that you must monitor...making sure that your client
always has the correct copies.
Advantages for the Programmer:
Reportster does not consist of DLLs and/or OCXs; rather it is VB
Source that you can insert directly into your application. If there is a
bug in the source, you can locate and fix it. If you need a function,
which we left out, you can add it. Most importantly, when the next
version of VB arrives, you can simply convert the existing source to
the newer version. You may distribute applications containing
Reportster with no royalty. Reportster includes a user's manual
(Word 97 format) for you to customize, as well
as help screens (RTF and BMP files) which you can also customize.
Features for the End User:
Reportster allows your end users to drag and drop fields onto the
report, control the font and color of the information on the report,
include sub-totals and groupings, sort by any field, and create
selection criteria to determine which records are included on the
report. The user can send the output to a printer, display on the
screen, or save to various file formats, including: text, CSV, RTF,
Microsoft Word Merge, WordPerfect
Merge, and Access 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0. The user
can print mailing labels in as many different styles as you define
for them, and can print on over 16 different paper sizes in landscape
or portrait mode.
How do you Implement it?
In the design phase, use Add Form, Add Module, and Add Class
Module to add the FRM, CLS, and BAS files provided with Reportster.
Next, a wizard will examine your ACCESS or SQL Server database
which contains the information needed by the reportwriter. A few
hours after you start, it's ready for the open road.
