Reports are important in programming as they provide a way to organize and present data clearly and concisely. These reports can be used to communicate information to clients as well as tools for data analysis and troubleshooting. Reports can also be generated in a wide range of formats from PDF to XLS and HTML. It is also interesting to note that these reports can now be customized to meet specific needs when generating them. Luckily for RAD Studio IDE Software, there is an add-on component that allows your application to generate reports swiftly and efficiently. This is where FastReport VCL comes to play.
How has FastReport VCL evolved over the years?
In this video from the recently concluded DelphiCon 2023, Denis Zubov will discuss how the FastReport VCL component managed to evolve over the past years. Here, he will provide us with a comprehensive overview of all the interesting features from FastReport’s releases in recent years. Generally, as the name suggests, FastReport is a component set for generating reports and documents faster. It provides a visual template designer, access to the most popular data sources, a reporting engine, preview, export filters to more than 30 different formats, and many more.
In the video, Denis will introduce us to some of the new features of FastReport VCL including the new features and changes to the Report Designer and Preview features that allow users to generate reports even faster. He will also demonstrate the new Dynamic Table component and how it can be used to create reports from the code relatively faster. Here, we will see how to include ready-made documents into a report using the new HTML View and PDF View Objects. We will also learn how to use hyperlinks for uploading data to a report and connecting it to cloud services.
What are the notable features of FastReport?
Here are some of the notable features that were added to FastReport over the recent years.
- They have added Filtration to the data three tabs variables and functions
- You can find all the necessary data fields and expressions with ease.
- It is now possible to hide all panels in the data tree
- It is now possible to use filters in the Report tree which contains Report objects which results in an improved searching experience.
- They have also added an advanced search system for the Designer itself
- With the new enhancement of the report designer, the speed and convenience of the Report development go to the next level.
- Your search results will be displayed as a tree which is quite easy to navigate.
- The text replacement system in the designer has been improved as well.
- Editing of dialogue pages in the reports becomes easier with the additional guideline support.
- The possibilities of editing reports and searching for errors were expanded.
- The new object intersection mode allows you to localize problematic errors in your report template and prepare the report for correct outputs in exports with tabular representation
- Added the Favorites tab in the Object Inspector where you can add the most used properties for a quicker access
- You can now quickly add and remove comments using the hotkeys CTRL and forward slash
- There are new pop-up tips and step-by-step debugging modes
- There is also a new authorization system for box Google Drive Dropbox and OneDrive Transports
- Added an option to check for duplicate images in export filters.
To learn more about FastReport VCL, feel free to watch the video below. The video also concludes with a Q and A portion with Jim Mckeeth.
