I am writing a large app that is now ready for some advanced features.
These are things I haven't done before in VB and I'd appreciate any help
you can give me.

1) I want the users to be able to create their own ad hoc reports.  I have
Crystal Reports 4.5.  Is there source or an example of doing this for
crystal?  How about any other report generators? It's still not too late
for me to switch to another one if it provides this feature for me.

2) I want the users to be able to search for a substring used in ANY notes
field, or ANY other field for that matter.  Any ideas?  Speed is an issue
since the database may get large.

3) I want to provide wizards to make certain tasks easier to do.  Is there
a standard for creating wizards or maybe a framework available to create
wizards?

4) If I continue to use Crystal reports, based on the results of question
1, is there a better way to control the Preview window? i.e. can i make it
a child window? can i hide buttons such as the export button?  I'm using
crystal 4.5, but would upgrade to 5.0 if it's only possible in the new
version.

Thanks for you help...

Jeremy Markman

http://www.*-*-*.com/

    Sorry I can't answer all the questions but for Question #2 I would
    recomend a "grep" like algorithm for searching through large amounts
    of text.  The UNIX grep has been around for decades and it is still
    one of the fastest searching algorithms and it is also good for
    replacing.  I don't know where the source code would be but I'm
    reasonably sure you can find it or a variation in the public domain.

    I haven't worked with UNIx for years but I think that the AWK text
    tools might be modified to work in your case.

    I also wouldn't recomend the INSTR function as it is not very fast
    and the support code to use it makes it even slower.  

: 1) I want the users to be able to create their own ad hoc reports.  I have
: crystal reports 4.5.  Is there source or an example of doing this for
: crystal?  How about any other report generators? It's still not too late
: for me to switch to another one if it provides this feature for me.

I am currently in the same boat.  From previous experience with Crystal I
know that ad hoc reports can be a {*filter*}.  You have little to no control
over columns, page setup.  I had best luck changing everything to formulas
because you can get at them from VB.  I am currently evaluating
VideoSoft's VSView.  These controls handle printing and previewing and it
seem pretty easy to create custom reports (you just have to write the
routines to build the report).

: 2) I want the users to be able to search for a substring used in ANY notes
: field, or ANY other field for that matter.  Any ideas?  Speed is an issue
: since the database may get large.

SQL statements will do the searching for you.  There is not a lot that you
can do about speeding up searches of this type.  Just get a fast SQL
Server running on a fast machine.

: 3) I want to provide wizards to make certain tasks easier to do.  Is there
: a standard for creating wizards or maybe a framework available to create
: wizards?

???

: 4) If I continue to use Crystal reports, based on the results of question
: 1, is there a better way to control the Preview window? i.e. can i make it
: a child window? can i hide buttons such as the export button?  I'm using
: crystal 4.5, but would upgrade to 5.0 if it's only possible in the new
: version.

If you use the DLL version, you have complete control.  You can build your
own window and specify it as the parent of the Crystal Window and you have
control over which (if any) buttons Crystal displays.  This give you
pretty good control over the look and feel of the preview window.  Using
the DLL version is not much harder than the OCX once you get started.
(note that my experience with the dll version started with ver 3.  Each
new release seems to add more functionality to the OCX/VBX version.  You
may not need to go to the dll)

Brent Langdon