ActiveReports 14.1 is Released

We are pleased to announce the release of ActiveReports v14.1. This maintenance release builds on the extensive feature set, includes top customer requests, and feature capabilities coupled with the newest technologies.

.NET Core 3.1 Support

In the ever-changing world of software, the most important feature of .NET Core 3.1 is its LTS (Long-Term Support). Microsoft supports 3.1 for the next three years. Despite the projected release of .NET 5 in November 2020.

For anyone using ActiveReports in a .NET Core 2.x or 3.0 application, we recommend upgrading your applications to .NET Core 3.1 and ActiveReports v14.1. The main benefit of .NET Core, aside from performance improvements, is in its cross-platform nature where you can deploy your .NET applications to macOS and Linux systems.

ActiveReports is the only reporting solution that fully supports .NET Core without the need for a full framework back-end to serve reports. That means you can deploy your .NET Core applications, including the ActiveReports engine, to Mac and Linux systems.

Adding MetaData in PDF Exports

This feature is designed specifically for our European users who follow the ZUGFeRD standards when creating PDF outputs of invoices. ActiveReports v14.1 supports the DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) as well as Adobe's PDF and XMP Core properties.

There are two ways to add metadata to your ZUGFeRD compliant PDFs:

1. Use the AdditionalMetaData property by defining the namespace (Dublin in this case) and the respective terms to include:

RDL and Page Reports Users:

var pdfSetting = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Page.Settings();
pdfSetting.AdditionalMetadata.Add(new AdditionalMetadataInfo
{
    Namespace = AdditionalMetadataNamespace.PurlOrg, //Dublin Core Properties
    Key = "title",
    Value = "Invoice"
 };      

Section Reports Users:

GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Section.PdfExport pdfExport = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Section.PdfExport();
var metadata1 = new AdditionalMetadataInfo
{
    Namespace = AdditionalMetadataNamespace.PurlOrg, //Dublin Core Properties
    Key = "title",
    Value = "Invoice"
 };   

2. Attach an existing XML (or TXT) file: RDL and Page Reports Users:

var pdfSetting = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Page.Settings();
pdfSetting.Attachments.Add(new AttachmentInfo
{
    Name = "file.xml",
    Content = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(@"D:\Reports\file.xml"),
// or
// Content = File.ReadAllBytes(Application.StartupPath + "\\file.xml")
    Description = "attachment description" // optional 
});

Section Reports Users:

GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Section.PdfExport pdfExport = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Section.PdfExport();
var attachment = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.AttachmentInfo
    {
          Name = "file.xml",
          Content = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(@"D:\Reports\file.xml"),
          Description = "attachment description" //optional 
    };
pdfExport.Options.Attachments.Add(attachment);

PageName Property for Excel Export

Imagine a report with multiple items: charts, tables, and subreports. This report needs to be exported to Excel and each of the controls needs to be shown on a different sheet within that workbook.

This is where the PageName property helps. For report controls such as container, table, tablix, and subreport you can set the name of the sheet to house this report item.

Additional Enhancements

ActiveReports v14.1 also introduces charts that control enhancements, Chromium-based Edge browser support, two new expressions to define yearly quarters Quarter(DateTime), and QuarterName(DateTime).

This release includes two new samples: a new desktop report designer sample, and an Angular sample hosting the ActiveReports ProDesigner Web, a web-based end-user report designer.

As always, this is a free update for all ActiveReports v14 users.