Adding dll reference to report

Siang Hwee · Post by **Siang Hwee** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:03 am

Hi Brendan,

I hope stimul development team can seriously taking my suggestion into account. As a developer, we always need to put some custom function into the reports. Since stimulReport doesn't has the function feature same like crystal report, calling the function directly from our .net assembly is even better. Relative path is not something difficult and ridiculous. Stimulreport already have it for absolute path, why not just adding relative path??? This will make the reporting tools more flexible and practical. We have so many deployment and sometime the application path is out of our control, the installation package itself has to be easier and simple. Therefore i suggest Stimulteam to add this feature in.

Thanks and Regards,
Goh

Brendan · Post by **Brendan** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:29 am

When do you experience the problem?

Is it from the designer or during Runtime when you are displaying the report.

For the original example you gave, when I created a sample report all I had to do was add the assembly name "Utility.Core.dll" to the ReferencedAssemblies property of my Report. It did not matter where I located my reports after that, as long as I loaded them from the running application or web application.

So I could have my reports in c:\web\Modules\Reports\
or I could even of had them in c:\web\ExternalFiles\Templates\Reports\

If those reports referenced my assembly and I loaded them from my running application that was in the bin folder then the reports ReferencedAssemblies should resolve.

Siang Hwee · Post by **Siang Hwee** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:21 am

Brendan,

It happen at design time. I try to put it a layer on top of bin then it works. the other folder doesn't work. For example,

my project bin is at f:\business\solution\web\bin
virtual direcctory path: f:\business\solution\web
Report Path: f:\business\solution\web\WebModules\Report\Crm\Rpt

May be my steps are not clear. Let me explain further.
1) Go to Properties, Select Report : Report
2) click on Reference Assemblies property and click on the eclipse button.
3) A String Collection Editor dialog box pop up, i key in my dll file name.
4) Try to put the project under difference folder. it all prompt me this message:
Method: [GetReferenceAssemblies]
Reference assembly 'companyName.Core.dll' not found

Here's my system setup
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate
StimulReport version: 2008.2.273
.Net Framework version: 1.1
Visual studio 2003

Thanks and Regards,
Goh

Siang Hwee · Post by **Siang Hwee** » Thu Oct 23, 2008 11:08 pm

Brendan,

Any update on this?

Thanks and Regards,
Goh

gohsianghwee wrote:Brendan,

It happen at design time. I try to put it a layer on top of bin then it works. the other folder doesn't work. For example,

my project bin is at f:\business\solution\web\bin
virtual direcctory path: f:\business\solution\web
Report Path: f:\business\solution\web\WebModules\Report\Crm\Rpt

May be my steps are not clear. Let me explain further.
1) Go to Properties, Select Report : Report
2) click on Reference Assemblies property and click on the eclipse button.
3) A String Collection Editor dialog box pop up, i key in my dll file name.
4) Try to put the project under difference folder. it all prompt me this message:
Method: [GetReferenceAssemblies]
Reference assembly 'companyName.Core.dll' not found

Here's my system setup
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate
StimulReport version: 2008.2.273
.Net Framework version: 1.1
Visual studio 2003

Thanks and Regards,
Goh

Brendan · Post by **Brendan** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:30 am

Hi Sorry for the delay. Stuck on a project at the moment.

When you open the designer, as far as I know, all relative paths for referenced assemblies are relative from where you load the designer itself.

So If You are loading the designer from the Start Menu (C:\program files\Stimulsoft 2008.2\bin\Designer.exe), then any relative paths you have in your reports will be relative from this location.

Have you tried calling the designer from your visual studio project that uses your own dlls which you use in the report and see if the relative paths work then?

Siang Hwee · Post by **Siang Hwee** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 9:56 am

Hi Brendan,

I always open the report from the folder. This might be the reason it can't link to the relative path. But when i click on the mrt report inside the project, it just show me the xml code for the stimul report. I can't open the report directly which put under my project folder.

I have try the following step but it still prompt me the reference cannot be found problem. Please let me know if my steps are incorrect.
1) Right Click the mrt report under the web project
2) Select Open With, it prompt me a dialog box, then i choose Designer.exe
3) It prompt the designer with the report format, but again, when i click preview, it still prompt me the reference cannot be found message.

Please help me to settle this problem.

Brendan wrote:Hi Sorry for the delay. Stuck on a project at the moment.

When you open the designer, as far as I know, all relative paths for referenced assemblies are relative from where you load the designer itself.

So If You are loading the designer from the Start Menu (C:\program files\Stimulsoft 2008.2\bin\Designer.exe), then any relative paths you have in your reports will be relative from this location.

Have you tried calling the designer from your visual studio project that uses your own dlls which you use in the report and see if the relative paths work then?

Siang Hwee · Post by **Siang Hwee** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:34 am

Brendan,

Any updates on this?

Thanks and Regards,
Goh

Siang Hwee · Post by **Siang Hwee** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 3:34 pm

I found this problem already been pending for a month but still unresolved. Can anyone help?

Post by **Vital** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 7:08 pm

Hello,

We are working on this problem now. I will inform you about progress in this topic.

Thank you.