Crystal Reports for Rational Application Developer - release notes
1.0 Restrictions
2.0 Installation/Uninstallation
3.0 Platform-Specific Issues
4.0 Formatting and Rendering
5.0 Relational Databases and SQL Statements
6.0 Charting
7.0 Report Functionality
8.0 Viewers
9.0 IDE Integration
10.0 Crystal Enterprise JSF Components
1.0 Restrictions
The reporting component that processes reports, provided with
Crystal Reports for Rational Application Developer, is restricted by
key code to provide adequate performance for development, testing and
deployment of limited reporting within applications. The following
other restrictions apply to this version of Crystal Reports for
Rational Application Developer:
- The Java Reporting Component will
only process reports created using Crystal Reports 9 or later. Reports
from earlier versions of Crystal Reports should be converted using the
Report Conversion tool available for download from the Business Objects
website.
- The Report Creation and Modification API for the
Java Reporting Component are not exposed in this release.
- Report data that is saved along with the report
template can be refreshed at runtime, but not saved with the report
template. Data can only be refreshed and saved with the report template
at design-time using the desktop report designer.
- Reports cannot be used that access the following
data sources:
- Java Bean Driver
- Multiple data sources
- OLAP
- Reports may only be exported to PDF and RTF.
- Client-side state saving is not supported.
- The following capabilities are not supported in
this release:
- RTF interpretation
- Report templates
- Geographic mapping
- Gantt, Gauge, Funnel, and Numeric Axis charts
- Crystal Reports Repository
- Report alerts
2.0 Installation/Uninstallation
- When uninstalling, the common files located in
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Crystal Decisions\2.5 and C:\Program
Files\Common Files\Business Objects\3.0 are not removed.
3.0 Platform-specific issues
- On an AIX platform running IBM JDK
1.3.1 or 1.4, a bug in the JDK can cause reports to crash. As a
workaround, set the environment JITC_COMPILEOPT to
SKIP{com/crystaldecisions/reports/common/encryption/Processing}{processing}.
- The BEA JRockit JVM has a parallel garbage
collection option that causes out of memory exceptions when dealing
with contiguous blocks of memory greater than 2 MB. As a workaround,
increase the maximum heap size or switch to the generational copying
garbage collector. To set the maximum heap size, use the "-XmxNNNm"
option, where NNN is the size of the heap in MB. To use the
generational copying garbage collector, use the "-Xgc:gencopy" option.
- Exporting a report to PDF (either programmatically
or through the viewers) is not supported on WebSphere
Studio 6. This limitation does not apply to other application servers.
It is recommended that you use ActiveX printing if your web application
is deployed on WebSphere Studio 6. Alternatively, you can use the JSF
version of the DHTML report page viewer, which does not have this
limitation.
4.0 Formatting and rendering
- If a section or area of a report is suppressed,
the newPageBefore and newPageAfter flags are not evaluated for that
section or area. As a workaround, you can set the newPageBefore or
newPageAfter flag on the next visible section; this is also true for a
0 height section.
- The currency symbol in a report floats even if the
fixed position option is selected.
- The time and date format displayed in a report is
based only on the default locale settings of the server.
- When viewing a report, if the report contains
objects that cross a page boundary, the resulting page is displayed as
two horizontal pages.
- When viewing a report in the viewer, text objects
without spaces do not display if the width is too small. Increasing the
width of the text object causes the report to be correctly displayed.
- The character spacing feature is not supported in
this release. Character spacing applied to a text object is ignored.
- Due to limitations in HTML 4.0, the Round border
style for a box object is displayed as a rectangle instead.
- When viewing a report in the viewer, column
headings of a cross-tab may overlap or truncate.
- When viewing a report with a cross-tab in the
viewer, if the cross-tab has a total row at the top of the cross-tab,
part of the fields in the cells are clipped. If the cross-tab has a
total row at the bottom of the cross-tab, the cells are not clipped (it
behaves as expected).
- When viewing a report in the viewer, extra lines
in the text field can appear. This occurs due to rounding up the
conversion from twips to pixels. As a workaround, resize the section
slightly.
- When exporting a report to PDF, you may get an
error message that says, "The font contains a bad/BBox" when you open
the PDF. This error can be safely ignored as it does not affect the
viewing of the PDF file.
- When exporting a report to RTF using the Java
Reporting Component, if the report contains an object that has "move to
front" set, the object is not moved to the front of the resulting RTF.
The "move to back" option, however, works as expected.
- Reports that contain surface charts with null data
are not rendered correctly when processed by the Java Reporting
Component.
- Custom positions for items in charts are not used
by the Java Reporting Component when rendering the report. Instead, the
default positions are used.
5.0 Relational databases and SQL statements
- When refreshing a BIT stored procedure report from
a SQL Server or Sybase database, parameter fields become pull down
menus with no default values. You cannot view the report if the report
relies on parameter values.
- The Oracle JDBC driver does not support reports
with BFILE data.
- The Oracle JDBC driver does not support interval
data types.
- The Oracle JDBC driver does not support reports
with UROWID data.
- The Sybase JDBC driver only allows up to 255
characters to be entered for fields of type char, varchar, and
nvarchar. If you need to enter more than 255 characters in a field, use
the text type instead.
- Earlier versions of the Sybase JDBC driver do not
support reports with UNICHAR or UNIVARCHAR data. Use jConnect for JDBC
version 5.5 ESD #9 or above.
- The Informix® ODBC driver returns
the CLOB field as an object rather than a CLOB.
- Reports with cyclic joins are not supported in
this release. In addition, joins that require execution of independent
queries, which are then later linked by some other set of tables, are
not supported in this release.
- BLOB fields that are set to 'can grow' do not
grow. For example, different sized images placed in BLOB fields with
the 'can grow' property are rendered as the same size.
- When refreshing a stored procedure report from a
SQL Server database, timestamp parameters should be in hexadecimal
format.
- Java Reporting Component does not respect enforced
join of tables.
6.0 Charting
- The chart legend can appear differently in the
Crystal Reports Designer than in the viewer.
- When viewing a report with a cross-tab and a
chart, the cross-tab will always appear over the chart regardless of
the setting of the MoveToFront property for the cross-tab.
- The viewer does not display textures or pictures
used as the background for charts.
- When viewing a chart that has an image split
across multiple pages, the image can be incorrectly displayed. As a
workaround, use the Keep Together flag on the image object to prevent
splitting it across multiple pages.
7.0 Report functionality
- The Java Reporting Component uses a high
resolution time and date format. Date and time functions can return a
non-integer number of seconds.
- When using the ASC and CHR functions, a runtime
error occurs if characters with a value outside 0-127 are used. The ASC
and CHR functions have been deprecated, and so the ASCW and CHRW
functions should be used in their place to avoid the runtime error with
values outside 0-127. The ASC and CHR functions will not be supported
in future versions.
- Only English locale datetime strings in the
formula language are supported in this release.
8.0 Viewers
- When viewing a report, the Export and Print
buttons are not shown by default. To enable the buttons, set the
isOwnPage property to true (or set the setOwnPage method to true).
(Note: the JSF version of the DHTML report page viewer does not have an
isOwnPage property.)
- When exporting a report, if the user presses the
browser refresh button after the report has been exported, the user
will be prompted to export the report again.
- Text search always begins on the second page. In
addition, text search only highlights the first instance of the search
string on each page. For instance, if two instances of the search
string occur on the current page, the first instance will be
highlighted but searching again goes to the next page.
- Placing two viewers on the same page may result in
undesired behavior. For example, performing an action on one viewer may
also change the other viewer. To avoid this behavior, you should not
place two viewers on the same page.
- When navigating a report with parameter prompts,
the navigation target is not highlighted. For example, if you click on
a link, the target of the link in the resulting page view is not
highlighted. If the report does not contain parameter prompts, the
navigation target is highlighted.
- When the IsIgnoreViewStateOnLoad property of the
Java viewers is set to true, the ViewState property is not ignored. The
expected behavior is for the ViewState property to be ignored with
IsIgnoreViewStateOnLoad is set to true.
- The state of viewer toolbar items persists across
browser sessions. For example, if you have run a JSP with some toolbar
items enabled, and then disable those toolbar items, the disabled
toolbar items are still displayed the next time the JSP is run. As a
workaround, restart your web application server after changing toolbar
item settings.
- The following error is returned when setting the
reportSource attribute of the JSF version of the DHTML report page
viewer using a scriptlet value: "org.apache.jasper.JasperException:
Only report source objects are accepted". As a workaround, use a bean
property value when setting the reportSource attribute of the JSF
version of the DHTML report page viewer.
- When using the JSF version of the DHTML viewer, if
the JSF state-saving method is server, then the highlighting of an item
in the viewer is retained even after navigating away from the original
page where the item was highlighted.
- The Print Time field value is not updated when a
report is refreshed using the viewers. The Print Time field will
specify the time that the report was first viewed in the current
session.
- On WebSphere Application Server 6.0, by default,
the JSF version of the DHTML report page viewer uses the application
server's locale setting when displaying a report. To use the client
machine's browser locale, you must manually set the productLocale
attribute (for example,
productLocale=#{facesContext.externalContext.requestLocale} ).
9.0 IDE integration
- The log properties file points to $HOME/Crystal as
a location to create log files. Since it does not exist, an error
message is displayed. You should either create this directory, or
modify the file to point to an existing directory.
- The viewer does not function if you manually
delete CRConfig.xml from the classes folder. Creating new instances of
the viewer using the wizard will not create a new copy of the XML file.
- When launching the Crystal Reports designer to
view a report within the IDE, the designer fails to find the report if
the report name contains characters that are not available in the
locale of the operating system. For example, on a system with English
as the system locale, a report with Japanese characters in its name
fails to load. As a workaround, open the report using the "Open File"
menu item within the running designer.
- Pressing Ctrl-S while working in the embedded
Crystal report designer in Rational Application Developer does not save
the report.
- Uninstalling Crystal Reports will disable the
Crystal report designer in Rational Application Developer.
- After creating a new report in Rational
Application Developer using the embedded Crystal report designer, the
database tables chosen as part of the report creation process do not
appear in the Database Fields section of the Field Explorer. As a
workaround, right-click on Database Fields, select Database Expert and
click OK. The fields will now appear in the Database Fields section.
- When creating a new report in Rational Application
Developer, if the default editor is the external designer and the
report you are creating uses a template, errors are thrown when the
report is created.
10.0 Crystal Enterprise JSF components
- Setting the ButtonType property of a ButtonProps
object to "ImageButton" results in both the image and text for the
button being displayed.
- The ItemEventArgs fired by the Path component
doesn't contain the type, only the object ID. As a workaround, obtain
the progID from the InfoObject itself, either by using EnterpriseItem
or an infostore query. For example:
1. From the event, obtain the component and cast it to UIBaseControl or
UIPath, if the listener handles only UIPath components.
2. For ItemClickedEvent, get the ItemID from the event by calling:
curEvent.getEventArgs().getItemID()
3. Create a temporary EnterpriseItem, set the Identity attribute (using
the one from UIPath.getItemSource().getIdentity()) and set the ItemID.
4. Get the InfoObject by calling: item.getInfoObject()
5. Query for the progID.
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