The Crystal Report viewers that ship with the Report Application Server break into four different categories to suit the need of a variety of applications: the DHTML Report Page viewer, Report Parts viewer, DHTML Interactive viewer, and DHTML Grid viewer. Although all four viewers offer unique capabilities, they share a common API and set of basic features. Each viewer allows the developer to indicate which report to display, supply database logon credentials, apply report parameters, and export the report. All four viewers are exposed as server-side controls and as a result, output dynamic HTML that is rendered in any web browser. No special software is required on the client's machines to view reports using any of the viewers. Listed below is a short description about each report viewer:
The means with which all of these viewers interact with the reports themselves is a mechanism called the report source. The following section describes the report source in detail. |