Re: Crystal Reports from Forms

Larry Baker wrote:
>
> Kevin Muhm wrote:
> > Save your time - the crystal.vbx is not compatible with Forms 4.5. I have
> > discovered that very few vbx contols are. I am attaching an email that I got from
> > someone who has invoked Crystal Reports from Forms, but I can't vouch for this
> > method since I haven't tried it yet.
>
> Thanks for posting your response, especially the attached mail message.
> I have a related question that it sounds like you may be in a good
> position
> to answer.
>
> I am currently designing a system that may have to have some specialized
> graphical displays "embedded" on a form. There seem to be several
> approaches,
> none of which I have any feel for in forms 4.5:
>
> 1) use Oracle Graphics. Last I heard there were problems with this.

If you only want to add boilerplate images to a form, You can add images directly in Oracle Forms - Oracle Graphics is not necessary. Forms supports most image formats. I have no experience with Oracle Graphics.

>
> 2) Write a VBX. But we're running W95/NT, with (I presume) 32-bit
> versions of Forms 4.5; if so, then is it still possible to write a
> VBX that's compatible with 32-bit Forms?

We are still using the 16 bit Developer tools (ver. 1.2), so I'm not sure how well VBX/OCX controls are supported in ver. 1.3. Version 2.0 of Developer (due out in Feb. 97 I think) will only support OCX controls.

>
> 3) Write an OLE Custom Control. Seems complicated, don't know how well
> Forms 4.5 supports OLE.
>
> 4) As your attached mail suggests, write a DDE server (my current
> favorite) applet that the form somehow starts under Windows when
> the user requests that specific kind of specialized display.

I don't have any experience with DDE, that's why I haven't tried this yet :)

>
> 5) Write an OCX. Don't know if Forms 4.5 supports OCXs.

The forms docs (Advanced Techniqes, I think) for ver. 1.3 should tell you whether 1.3 supports VBX and/or OCX controls. The documentation is in Oracle Book format, and is supplied on the distribution CD for Dev/2000.

>
> If you have any insights or commentary on any of the above approaches,
> I will be very, very grateful.
>
> Larry Baker
> SABRE Decision Technologies

Good luck -

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