What's New in ActiveReports 13: A Web Designer and JavaScript Viewer

I’m really excited to announce the release of ActiveReports 13! This is a major feature-packed release that our existing customers have been waiting for and prospective customers will love. Before we get into listing the new features, please download the installers so you can follow along!

Here's what you'll get in ActiveReports 13.

1. ProDesigner for Web: Give your users the power of ad-hoc report design... in a web app!
2. JSViewer: A JavaScript viewer for ActiveReports
3. Charts: Enhanced charts for RDL and Page reports
4. FormattedText Enhancements: Add even more HTML to your reports
5. VSDesigner Enhancements: Extend Visual Studio themes in your Visual Studio-integrated designer

ProDesigner for Web: Enable users to create ad-hoc reports in a web app

ActiveReports has always provided various tools for designing reports, including the VSDesigner, a Visual Studio add-in, and the ProDesigner standalone desktop app. The ProDesigner component can also be embedded in your desktop reporting solutions so your users can design reports, as well.

One of the oft-requested features has been an online version of the ProDesigner that enables users to design reports in a web-based reporting app. ActiveReports 13 Professional answers the call!

For AR13, our development and QA teams have worked hard to deliver a lightweight, yet robust, report designer. With only a few lines of code, you can easily embed the ProDesigner for Web in your web sites and applications, giving your users the power to design, create, and modify reports. That means the ProDesigner is able to open existing reports in a design view, where end users can manipulate the layout, as well as create new reports and preview them for WYSIWYG result.

The ProDesigner for Web features a familiar, intuitive, design-time UI featuring simple drag-and-drop functionality. Users can:

• Drag and drop controls from the toolbox to the design surface
• Change controls' position and size
• Modify control properties like data binding, formatting, or expressions
• Use the built-in preview feature to take a quick glimpse at the runtime result

As with our desktop ProDesigner, the web version is fully customizable: you can control which features of the designer your customers can access.

Learn more about the ProDesigner for Web

JSViewer: A JavaScript viewer for ActiveReports

We’ve always had the fastest and powerful reporting engine. As part of our commitment to continued improvement, we’ve created an all-new viewer to further enhance our power and offering. The JSViewer is a JavaScript library that can run on any modern browser providing a fast rendering experience to your users.

The JSViewer supports the major web application frameworks, including Angular and Vue, ASP.NET Core, ASP.NET MVC, and HTML. Included in ActiveReports Professional, the JSViewer adds further value to our offering for an enterprise-level reporting solution.

The JSViewer features a lot of the functionality that existing ActiveReports, and .NET users, are familiar with. We’ve minimized your learning curve by exposing familiar .NET-like syntax for embedding and customizing the JSViewer. In addition to this, the JSViewer features:

• One-touch printing
• Exporting to major formats (PDF, Excel, etc)
• Interactive sorting on controls
• CSS theming

Learn more about the JSViewer

Enhance your charts' interactivity and performance with ActiveReports 13's overhauled charts

In addition to the ProDesigner for Web and JSViewer, we've also overhauled our charts. This is the third new and major feature implemented in ActiveReports 13. These charts are especially created for RDL and Page reports on the web, and they offer enhanced interactivity and improved performance.

Existing reports with older, classic charts will automatically convert to the new charts, but the classic charts will still be available to use if you prefer.

Learn more about ActiveReports charts

Render even more HTML in a report with the FormattedText control

One of our more popular controls, the FormattedText is used to render HTML text within a report. In ActiveReports 13, we’ve enhanced the FormattedText to support many more HTML tags and attributes. Additionally, users can now see the rendered text in the control, at design time, to ensure a WYSIWYG result.

New HTML tags and attributes include table, text alignment, and styling.

Learn more about adding HTML text to a report

VSDesigner Add-In Enhancements: Use Visual Studio themes

ActiveReports is one of the few vendors to have a report designer integrated directly into Visual Studio. We've extended the depths of this integration by extending your Visual Studio theme to the ActiveReports designer and its supporting windows. This provides a nice UI change for the designer.

Learn more about the VSDesigner integrated designer