Resources Customization

Reports can depend on external resources. ActiveReports provides the possibilities to resolve reporting tasks, related to using any resources that your report may require. With the ActiveReports custom resource locator, you can place any resources - themes, image files, subreports, CSS, etc, to any location in your file system.

In ActiveReports, you can place resources such as themes, image files, subreports, CSS, to any location with some exceptions:

Section report requires using scripts to bind subreports.
Some data source types require using connection strings with absolute paths.

Page and RDLX reports can resolve resources from your file system using file paths, but sometimes resources are preserved in very specific sources, such as a database. With RDLX report, you can create a custom resource locator to read any resources that might be required by your reports from any type of location. You can use it for resources such as images and theme files, or for reports to use in drillthrough links, subreports, or master reports.

The Custom Resource Locator sample demonstrates a custom resource locator that looks for files in the current user’s My Pictures folder by looking for a special MyPictures protocol. The custom resource locator in the sample is implemented by deriving from GrapeCity.ActiveReports.ResourceLocator class and overriding the GetResource method. The GetResource method returns ParentUri and Value properties. The Value property contains the located resource as a memory stream. The ParentUri property contains the string URI of the parent of the resource within the resource hierarchy.

You can customize the resource locator for all report types in the following ActiveReports components:

Windows Forms Designer and Windows Forms Viewer
WPF Viewer
all ASP.NET viewer backends
all exports

See the ResourceLocator property for details.

type=note

Note: The WebDesigner uses a completely different mechanism to access resources. See the WebDesigner_CustomStore sample for details.

Load Pictures from My Pictures directory

Page reports can get resources from your file system using file paths, but sometimes resources are preserved in very specific sources, such as a database. With Page reports, you can create a custom resource locator to read any resources that might be required by your reports from any location.

The following steps illustrate how to load pictures from the user's My Pictures or Pictures directory based on the Custom Resource Locator sample.

type=note

Note: Although these steps use Page reports, you can also implement this using RDLX reports.

When you complete these steps, you get a layout that looks similar to the following at run time.

Custom Resource Locator

Add an ActiveReports to the Visual Studio project

Create a new Visual Studio Windows Forms Application project.
Go to the Project Explorer, right-click the project and select Add > New Item.
Select ActiveReports 19 Standalone Report > Add and choose a report type, Page report and then click Finish.
In the Name field, rename the file as DemoReport.rdlx.
Click the Add button to open a new Page Report.

Create a layout for the report

From the toolbox, drag an Image control onto the design surface and in the Properties panel, set the following properties.

Property Name Property Value

Name Image1

Location 0.1in, 0.1in

Size 2.8in, 2.8in

Value MyPictures:Penguins.jpg
From the toolbox, drag another Image control onto the design surface and in the Properties panel, set the following properties.

Property Name Property Value

Name Image2

Location 3.1in, 0.1in

Size 2.8in, 2.8in

Value MyPictures:Desert.jpg
In the Solution Explorer, select DemoReport.rdlx and in the Properties panel, set Build Action to Embedded Resource.

Property Name	Property Value
Name	Image1
Location	0.1in, 0.1in
Size	2.8in, 2.8in
Value	MyPictures:Penguins.jpg

Property Name	Property Value
Name	Image2
Location	3.1in, 0.1in
Size	2.8in, 2.8in
Value	MyPictures:Desert.jpg

Add the new MyPicturesLocator class

In the Solution Explorer window, right-click on your project name and select Add and then New Item.
In the Add New Item dialog that appears, select Class.
Change the name of the class to MyPicturesLocator and click the Add button.

Replace the existing code with the following code to the new class.

To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

Imports System                                                     
Imports System.Drawing
Imports GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Extensibility
Imports System.Globalization
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Inherits ResourceLocator

    Private Const UriSchemeMyImages As String = "MyPictures:"

    ' Obtain and return the resource.     
    Public Overrides Function GetResource(resourceInfo As ResourceInfo) As Resource
        Dim name As String = resourceInfo.Name
        If name Is Nothing OrElse name.Length = 0 Then
            Throw New ArgumentException("The name of resource to be obtained should be non-empty string.", "name")
        End If
        Dim uri As New Uri(name)
        Dim stream As Stream = GetPictureFromSpecialFolder(name)
        If stream Is Nothing Then
            stream = New MemoryStream()
        End If
        Return New Resource(stream, uri)
    End Function

    ' Returns the specified image from Public Pictures folder. 
    Private Shared Function GetPictureFromSpecialFolder(path As String) As Stream
        Dim startPathPos As Integer = UriSchemeMyImages.Length
        If startPathPos >= path.Length Then
            Return Nothing
        End If
        Dim pictureName As String = path.Substring(startPathPos)
        Dim myPicturesPath As String = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("public") & "\Pictures"
        If Not myPicturesPath.EndsWith("\") Then
            myPicturesPath += "\"
        End If
        Dim picturePath As String = System.IO.Path.Combine(myPicturesPath, pictureName)
        If Not File.Exists(picturePath) Then
            Return Nothing
        End If
        Dim stream As New MemoryStream()
        Try
            Dim picture As Image = Image.FromFile(picturePath)
            picture.Save(stream, picture.RawFormat)
            stream.Position = 0
        Catch generatedExceptionName As OutOfMemoryException
            ' The file is not valid image, or GDI+ doesn't support such images.
            Return Nothing
        Catch generatedExceptionName As ExternalException
            Return Nothing
    End Try
    Return stream
End Function

To write the code in C#

using System; 
using System.Drawing; 
using System.Globalization;
using System.IO; 
using System.Runtime.InteropServices; 
using System.Windows.Forms;
using GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Extensibility; 
using your_project_name.Properties;

namespace your_project_name
{
    // Look for the resources in My Pictures folder.   
    internal sealed class MyPicturesLocator : ResourceLocator
    {        
        private const string UriSchemeMyImages = "MyPictures:";
        // Obtain and return the resource.     
        public override Resource GetResource(ResourceInfo resourceInfo)
        {
            string name = resourceInfo.Name;
            if (name == null || name.Length == 0)
            {
                throw new ArgumentException("The name of resource to be obtained should be non-empty string.", "name");
            }
            Uri uri = new Uri(name);
            Stream stream = GetPictureFromSpecialFolder(name);
            if (stream == null)
            {
               stream = new MemoryStream();
            }
            return new Resource(stream, uri);
        }
        // Returns the specified image from Public Pictures folder. 
        private static Stream GetPictureFromSpecialFolder(string path)
        {
            int startPathPos = UriSchemeMyImages.Length;
            if (startPathPos >= path.ToString().Length)
            {
                return null;
            }
            string pictureName = path.ToString().Substring(startPathPos);
            string myPicturesPath = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("public") + \\Pictures;
            if (!myPicturesPath.EndsWith("\\")) myPicturesPath += "\\";
            string picturePath = Path.Combine(myPicturesPath, pictureName);
                        if (!File.Exists(picturePath)) return null;
            MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
            try
            {
                Image picture = Image.FromFile(picturePath);
                picture.Save(stream, picture.RawFormat);
                stream.Position = 0;
            }
            catch (OutOfMemoryException) // The file is not valid image, or GDI+ doesn't support such images. 
            {
                return null;
            }
            catch (ExternalException)
            {
                return null;
            }
            return stream;
        }
    }
}

Create the PreviewForm

In the Solution Explorer, select the Form1 in the Design view and in the Properties panel, set the properties as follows.

Property Name Property Value

Name PreviewForm

Text Preview Form

Size 1015, 770
From the Visual Studio toolbox, drag the Viewer control onto the PreviewForm and in the Properties panel, set the following properties.

Property Name Property Value

Name reportPreview1

Dock Fill

Property Name	Property Value
Name	PreviewForm
Text	Preview Form
Size	1015, 770

Property Name	Property Value
Name	reportPreview1
Dock	Fill

Double-click the PreviewForm to create an instance for the Load event and add the following code.