ActiveReports 19 User Guide
Developers / Extensibility in ActiveReports / Resources Customization
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Resources Customization
In This Topic

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:

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:

See the ResourceLocator property for details.

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.

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

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

Create a layout for the report

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. In the Solution Explorer, select DemoReport.rdlx and in the Properties panel, set Build Action to Embedded Resource.

Add the new MyPicturesLocator class

  1. In the Solution Explorer window, right-click on your project name and select Add and then New Item.
  2. In the Add New Item dialog that appears, select Class.
  3. Change the name of the class to MyPicturesLocator and click the Add button.
  4. Replace the existing code with the following code to the new class.

    To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

    VB code. Paste on TOP
    Copy Code 
    Imports System                                                     
Imports System.Drawing
Imports GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Extensibility
Imports System.Globalization
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
    VB code. Paste INSIDE the class
    Copy Code 
     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#

    C# code. Paste on TOP
    Copy Code 
    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;
    C# code. Paste BELOW the Using statements
    Copy Code 
    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

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. Double-click the PreviewForm to create an instance for the Load event and add the following code.

    To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

    VB code. Paste BELOW the Import statements
    Copy Code 
    Imports GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document
Imports System.IO 
Imports GrapeCity.ActiveReports
    VB code. Paste INSIDE the Load event
    Copy Code 
    Dim myPicturesPath As String = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("public") + _Pictures
    Dim reportData As Stream = [GetType]().Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("your_project_name.DemoReport.rdlx")
reportData.Position = 0
Dim reader As New StreamReader(reportData)
Dim def As New PageReport(reader)
def.ResourceLocator = New MyPicturesLocator()
Dim runtime As New PageDocument(def)
reportPreview1.ReportViewer.LoadDocument(runtime)

    To write the code in C#

    C# code. Paste BELOW the Using statements
    Copy Code 
    using GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document; 
using System.IO;
using GrapeCity.ActiveReports;
    C# code. Paste INSIDE the Load event
    Copy Code 
    string myPicturesPath = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("public") + \\Pictures;
Stream reportData = GetType().Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("your_project_name.DemoReport.rdlx");
reportData.Position = 0;
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(reportData);
PageReport def = new PageReport(reader);
def.ResourceLocator = new MyPicturesLocator();
PageDocument runtime = new PageDocument(def);
reportPreview1.ReportViewer.LoadDocument(runtime);
  4. Press F5 to run the project.

 

See Also
Caching Reports