R&R Vs Crystal - for developers

[Nick]

Just happened to visit the page today and read that Reportworks Spring edition is now shipping. From reading the feature set, this looks to be all about Dynamic Parameters and there is a heavy comparison to Crystal.____Like many, I struggle with the issue of whether to stay with R&R (been with it since 3.0) or go to Crystal or even something else. Reportworks is the first update I have not automatically "jumped on" even though I continue to deploy reports in RRW Version 8.1.____I have two questions related to Reportworks vs Crystal and one related to developers who are skilled in integrating R&R Runtime with Visual Foxpro and/or VB.Net applications ...........____1. Can R&R now do a true CROSSTAB report. For example, I want to be able to create a grid with 9 columns based on a field (col1,col2,col3 for example). I then want to be able to print within each column a character string - one time, the number of times that character string appears within the column, and the % (col1_string1,col1_string1_total,pct of all_col1_total (preprocessed). I then want to move to column 2 and do the same thing all the way across. Each column^s contents should start printing on row 1.____Classic crosstab. In access, crystal and stonefield this is easy. In R&R, it once involved extensive work with calculated fields, printing parameters, etc.____So, again, can R&R do a true crosstab ? If so, it it major or outpatient surgery - i.e. how is it done?____2. How does the new R&R Chart feature compare with Crystal in functionality, stability/reliability, flexibility and ease of implementation? ____3. Does Liveware have a list of developers that it can refer who have skills and referenceable customers in integrating R&R into VFP 8.0 and/or VB.Net apps? ____I hope to start a dialog here. ____R&R has always been developer - friendly (remember the R&R Code Generator!) and the new Dynamic Parameter seems to indicate that this is a niche Liveware wants to defend. Having skilled developers available for referral that have built objects and controls that integrate with R&R, coupled with these new capabilities would be significant factors in my decision.____

[kfleming]

Cross tab support has not been improved in V11.__Our charting support is more modest than in Crystal.__There are a number of reasonably large commercial applications (such as Cougar Mountain Accounting) that have integrated R&R reporting and lots of smaller apps.____To make a analogy, you can shop at you local mom and pop store or you can shop at Walmart. Mom and pop may not be able to give you the price or selection, but that can give you individual attention.__I am quite willing to let my personal biases show here.____Version 11.1 is our best yet and we are still striving to do better and will be continuing to offer updates in this calendar year.____Kathleen__R&R Support

[planbe]

Hi Kathleen,____>> To make a analogy, you can shop at you local mom and pop store or you can shop at Walmart. <<____A more, uh, robust analogy might be Toys R Us or Home Depot. <g>____>> Mom and pop may not be able to give you the price or selection, but [they] can give you individual attention. <<____Only you could have coddled me through the ADS read-through lock issue of the mid-nineties. <g>____>> I am quite willing to let my personal biases show here. <<____Who keeps these out of the product? <g>____Derek__

[Peggy_Kuhn_(Guest)]

My two cents as a Report Writer consultant with expertise in both Crystal and R&R (I worked at Concentric/WallData/Liveware), I would not recommend using Crystal with FoxPro unless you are willing to fight with the software and endure terrible performance and limitaitons in linking tables.____I have worked with many clients who have in the hundreds of R&R reports going against a FoxPro (8,7,6) database.____If you want good charting, use a charting package or Excel. To make an analogy, you can get a pretty good stereo or DVD when you buy a car, but you would not create a home theater with automobile-grade components.____Crystal Crosstabs are pretty good, although percent summaries are tricky to impossible. But you don^t have to code every value going across and you get good horizontal pagination and automatic row/column totals.____Rob H__Plan-Be____

[kfleming]

We still save reports in Version 8.1 .rp5 and deploy runtime 10+ with VFP 6 and 8 applications. We occasionally have rrwrun.exe errors but it is usually due to printer drivers, no printers installed, or user rights on the computer.__Otherwise, we are doing well with R&R runtime. Finding out information as a beginner developer wanting to use runtime, is another story and I find troubleshooting is occasionally difficult but the discussion board helps.____We would love to go to version 11 but do not want to go back to .RRW reports. Does anyone know how we can stay with .RP5 formats and use that version ?

[Peggy_Kuhn_(Guest)]

You cannot reasonably stay with .RP5 libraries if you want to move ahead. If you make a new folder for each RP5 and then save the RRW^s within each folder using the same name as was within the RP5, then you really have the same scenario conceptually as having a single RP5 file.____Kathleen__R&R Support

[Randallpruts]

Thanks Kathleen for the insite. We^ll be looking into getting the latest version.