The best reporting component for Delphi?
We are a team that use Gnostice and RaveReports to view, print, mail and generate PDFs of reports using D2007. D2009 is in the roadmap but as Gnostice don't support D2009 we have to wait. In the past the reports was done in code and then viewed, printed etc. Now we have started to evaluate the Ravereports designer and make reports with that instead.
But now we hesitate. Nevrona seems to be more or less dead. We haven't managed to buy the source of Ravereports and [email protected] bounce back. Hm... And they are the default component for Delphi...
There are other report solutions like digital-metaphors and Fast Reports. I have no doubt that they are both good and competent, but we have to do something. Anyone know if Codegear is about to abandon Ravereports because of some trouble ?
Comments about digital-metaphors and Fast Reports is appreciated. We want a good reporting component that can build reports with code and in designtime. The reportfile should be saved in text, xml is prefered unlike rave-files. An easy way to set default printer would be nice as the Citrix environment we use sometimes fails with this task.
Answer
I would agree with idursun, I have used many reports engines before, but when I used Fast-Report, I haven't look else anymore.
I would add about fast-Reports
- FastReport has support for unicode for Delphi < 2009.
- Development is faster than other
reporting tools, they were
supporting Delphi 2009 before it's
release date, other reporting
tools took longer time, and in
some cases too much time for
Delphi 2009. - Very flexible, you can access any report components from Delphi code, or use any Delphi function inside your reports.
- If you compare FR with others in Features/Prices, it has much of advanced features with lower prices.
- FR file format is XML.
- There's a server edition for web reporting.
- There's .net edition also.
- It has very powerful script engine with more languages(Pascal,Basic, Java & C).
- Has end user-designer tool without extra money(I think you need Standard version or above).