As I'm writing this, I realized that though we put out a press release about our Silverlight Report Designer Wizard, I have not actually blogged about it (will do so shortly)
In any event, among the most interesting new features we'll introduce for our Reporting Platform in the upcoming release of DXperience v2011 vol 2 is the DevExpress Report Template Gallery - a way in which to obtain pre-built report templates for use in your applications.
Backstory...
I think we can all agree that one of the more "painful" aspects of LOB apps is having to create countless reports for end-users...No need to elaborate other than to say creating reports can be back breaking work.
To address the dislike so many of us have with traditional report design we've created products like the XtraPrinting System - allowing you to render your UI to paper and in so doing, knock out a myriad of different "reports" without using a reporting tool. Of course, rendering a UI is not going to address all customer reporting requirements ...which means we must address the problem within the XtraReports Suite, so it is a more productive and effective tool.
Our Solution - the Report Gallery
First, let me say that the idea of a template gallery is not new - templates exist all over the place but for the first time, we've created a vehicle wherein we can share pre-built report layouts with you and provide a means for community-sourced production of useful report templates.
With that - let's get to the pictures that demonstrate how it will all work (note that this is still a work in progress and the final implementation may differ from what you see here)
The Report Template Gallery on the Web
Loading a Report Template in the IDE
Report Template Chooser
And finally...The Loaded Report
Azret and Seth will be blogging and describing the details of the DevExpress Report Template Gallery in due time - so keep tuned for the details and in the meantime, have fun...DXperience v2011 vol 2 is going to be an exciting release.