Custom Controls and ChartFX

ActiveReports for .NET 2.0 allows you to drop a third party control as a custom control onto an ActiveReport.

This walkthrough illustrates how to use ChartFX as a custom control with ActiveReports.

This walkthrough is split up into the following activities:

Adding an ActiveReport to a Visual Studio project
Adding the ChartFX control to the ActiveReport
Adding a label to the page header
Adding code for the chart control

To complete the walkthrough, you must have ChartFX installed.

When you have completed this walkthrough, you will have a report with a chart that looks similar to the following.

Adding an ActiveReport to a Visual Studio project

To add an ActiveReport to your project

Open a new project in Visual Studio.
Click on Project > Add New Item.
Select ActiveReports file and rename the file rptChart.
Click Open.

Adding the ChartFX control to rptChart

To add the ChartFX control to rptChart

Click on the ChartFX control in the appropriate toolbox to select it.
Drag and drop the control onto the Detail section of rptChart.
Resize the chart control to fill the Detail section.

Adding a Label to the PageHeader

To add a label to the PageHeader

Drag and drop the Label control from the ActiveReports toolbox to the PageHeader section.
Change the Alignment property to Center.
Change the Font Size property to 14 pt.
Change the Text property to "ChartFX Chart based on random values with ActiveReports for .NET 2.0".
Resize the Label to show the text on two lines.

Adding code for the ChartFx control

To write the code in Visual Basic

Right-click on rptChart, and click on View Code to display the code view for the report. At the top left of the code view for rptChart, click the drop-down arrow and select Detail. At the top right of the code window, click the drop-down arrow and select Format. This creates an event-handling method for the Detail_Format event.

To write the code in C#

Click on the Detail section for rptChart to select the section. Click on the events icon in the Properties window to display available events for the Detail section. Double-click Format. This creates an event-handling method for the Detail_Format event.

The following example shows what the code for the method looks like.

' Visual Basic

Private Sub Detail_Format(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles _
	Detail.Format
    Dim r As New System.Random()
    Dim ChartControl1 As SoftwareFX.ChartFX.Chart
    'Cast customControl as ChartFX chart
    ChartControl1 = CType(Me.CustomControl1.Control, SoftwareFX.ChartFX.Chart)
 
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim j As Integer
 
    'Open the communication channel
    ChartControl1.OpenData(SoftwareFX.ChartFX.COD.Values, 3, 3)
    For i = 0 To 2
        For j = 0 To 2
            'Assign the values to the series selected
            ChartControl1.Value(i, j) = r.NextDouble() * 100
        Next j
    Next i
    'Close the communication channel
    ChartControl1.CloseData(SoftwareFX.ChartFX.COD.Values)
End Sub

//C#

private void Detail_Format(object sender, System.EventArgs eArgs)
{
	System.Random r = new System.Random();
	Chart ChartControl1 = new Chart();
	//Cast customControl as ChartFX chart
	ChartControl1 = ((SoftwareFX.ChartFX.Chart)this.CustomControl1.Control);
	//Open the communication channel
	ChartControl1.OpenData(SoftwareFX.ChartFX.COD.Values, 3, 3);

	for (int i=0;i<3;i++)
	{
		for (int j=0;j<3;j++)
		{
			//Assign the values to the series selected
			ChartControl1.Value[i, j] = r.NextDouble() *  100;
		}
	}
	//Close the communication channel
	ChartControl1.CloseData(SoftwareFX.ChartFX.COD.Values);
}