Introduction to ActiveReports Developer 7

ActiveReports Developer 7 is the most significant version of ActiveReports to be released since ActiveReports for .NET 1.0 in 2002. Ten years later, we are proud to announce that ActiveReports Developer 7 is now in beta!

ActiveReports Developer 7 is the culmination of many man-years of development work, with teams in the US, Japan, Russia, India, and China all working to make ActiveReports 7 the best reporting tool available. In this version we started with the basics: we combined the reporting technologies behind ActiveReports 6 and Data Dynamics Reports to create a single reporting tool.

Next, we created a unified set of viewer and designer controls to provide a consistent look and feel across all reporting types. The APIs used for the reports are the same as well, so you only have to know one way of loading a report into the viewer or designer.

Finally, we created a brand new reporting technology, Fixed Page Layout. This new page layout option makes it easy to reconstruct forms and other complex report layouts. The next posts in this series will discuss this incredible new way of creating reports.

Over the next few weeks I'll reveal more features of ActiveReports Developer 7, as well as show you how to create some of these new reports. It's easier than it looks!

You can find the download link as well as links to our online help in our ActiveReports Developer 7 beta forum.

This post will serve as a table of contents for the rest in the series. Subscribe to our RSS feed, or check back often for new posts. The first one is already available for you. Read more about Fixed Page Layout in this week's first What's New in ActiveReports 7 blog post series.

• Introduction to Fixed Page Layout

• Part 1

• Part 2

• Part 3

• Windows Forms Viewer Control – Coming soon!