Crystal Reports Alternatives
March, 2012
TOPIC
Crystal Reports is a reporting application that can access data from a wide array of sources. It has come bundled with both Delphi and Visual Studio and is now also available as a web-based application. Many people have used Crystal Reports with Delphi through the years.
Tonight’s presentation will be by a company that has been using Crystal Reports since Delphi 3. Crystal 8.5, no longer supported, was the last version that let you install a free runtime for every user. It was also the last version that had a VCL SDK. Newer versions of Crystal require either a report server or full installation of Crystal Reports on each workstation. This can get expensive. And the Crystal user interface for entering parameters is really clunky.
So a better and cheaper alternative was sought. This led to the discovery of DataLink Viewer and Visual Cut from Millet Software. Gene Juhos from Sysmatics would like to demo how he uses these products.
ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION
There is increasing interest in developing cross-support agreements between ODUG members to provide backup programmer assurance for clients worried about their software being developed by a single person. We will explore various methods this can be accomplished after the main presentation.
PRESENTER
Gene Juhos has been working with Delphi since version 3. Before that he used the Pascal language on the Apple Lisa. He started his programming career writing code for an IBM 3741. He’s written useful code in COBOL, FORTRAN, C, C++, Assembler, and CADOL. Currently, his business, Sysmatics, converts proprietary character based business applications to Delphi for several customers.