What are the Rave BE “reports in code” alternatives in a Delphi 2010 migration project?

Question

I want to migrate a Delphi 7 project to Delphi 2010.

We are building "reports in code" with TReportShell and TDetailShell components from Rave BE. Those components does not exist any more in Rave BE 7.7.

Moreover it seems that unicode support is broken in Rave BE ( Displaying unicode text in Rave Reports on Delphi 2009 ).

What sould be the best solution to port this project to Delphi 2010 ?

1. Reimplement the code written aruond TReportShell and TDetailShell to use the new TRvNDRWriter component ?
2. Migrate to Fast Report ?
3. Any other suggestion ?

Answer 1

We provided an open source report builder, to be used from code.

It's a reporting unit included in our SQlite3 framework, but it can be used standalone... You create your report from code, then you can preview it on the screen. You can then print or export the report as PDF. Note that the report drawing uses GDI+, even if you embed .emf files or TMetaFile in them: with antialiaising, they just look smooth on screen. There are some report-dedicated methods to create the report, but also a true Canvas property, in which you can draw whatever you want.

There are sample code on the above link. Just right click on the report preview to see options. The main demo of our framework also makes use of this reporting from code. Much more handy than band-driven and component-driven report builders, IMHO.

It's free, licensed under MPL/LGPL/GPL, and compiles and run from Delphi 6 up to XE. It's 100% Unicode-ready, even before Delphi 2009.

Answer 2

I have evaluated Fast Reports and it seemed the best solution for code-based reporting, plus it also had the usual "visual report builder" tools, if you need that too.

Answer 3

The best way is to wait for Fast Report 5 which will provide a converter for Rave to Fast

Answer 4

Do not use RAVE REPORTS it is full of bugs and they are not getting fixed

Rave Reports 7.7BE is full of bugs – It made migrating software from Delphi 2006 to Delphi 2010 a nightmare.

Rave Reports 8.0BE has just as many bugs.

Rave Reports 9.0BE that comes with Delphi XE - has the same bugs as in version 8.0BE

Have a look at this link from a former TeamNevrona member.