In a section report, ActiveReports Developer allows you to drop a third party control onto the report design surface where it is recognized as a custom control. You can access its properties using type casting.

In the following steps, we use hidden textbox controls to populate a Visual Studio TreeView control. These steps assume that you have already added a Section Report (code-based) template in a Visual Studio project. See Adding an ActiveReport to a Project for more information.

Show To add the TreeView control to a report

From the Visual Studio toolbox Common Controls tab, drag and drop a TreeView control onto the detail section of a report.
Notice that in the Properties window, the control is called CustomControl1.

Show To add data and hidden TextBox controls to the report

Connect the report to the sample Nwind.mdb. The following steps use the Orders table from the NWind database. By default, in ActiveReports, the Nwind.mdb file is located at [User Documents folder]\ComponentOne Samples\ActiveReports Developer 7\Data\Nwind.mdb.
From the Report Explorer, drag and drop the following fields onto the detail section of the report:
- ShipCountry
- ShipCity
- CustomerID
- EmployeeID
On the design surface, select all four TextBox controls, and in the Properties window, change their Visible property to False.

Show To create a function to add nodes to the TreeView control

Right-click the design surface and select View Code to see the code view for the report.
Add the following code inside the report class to add a function to the report for adding nodes to the TreeView control.

The following examples show what the code for the function looks like.

Show To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste INSIDE the report class.	Copy Code
Private Function AddNodeToTreeView(ByVal colNodes As TreeNodeCollection, ByVal sText As String) As TreeNode Dim objTreeNode As TreeNode objTreeNode = New TreeNode(sText) colNodes.Add(objTreeNode) Return objTreeNode End Function

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste INSIDE the report class.

Copy Code

Private Function AddNodeToTreeView(ByVal colNodes As TreeNodeCollection, ByVal sText As String) As TreeNode
   Dim objTreeNode As TreeNode
   objTreeNode = New TreeNode(sText)
   colNodes.Add(objTreeNode)
   Return objTreeNode
End Function

Show To write the code in C#

C# code. Paste INSIDE the report class.	Copy Code
private TreeNode AddNodeToTreeView(TreeNodeCollection colNodes, string sText) { TreeNode objTreeNode; objTreeNode = new TreeNode(sText); colNodes.Add(objTreeNode); return objTreeNode; }

Show To access the TreeView control properties in code and assign data

On the report design surface, double-click the detail section to create an event-handling method for the Detail_Format event.
Add the following code to the handler to access the TreeView properties and assign data from the hidden TextBox controls.

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

Show To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste INSIDE the Detail Format event.	Copy Code
'Type cast the custom control as a TreeView Dim TreeView1 As New TreeView TreeView1 = CType(Me.CustomControl1.Control, TreeView) 'Create a tree node Dim objCountryTreeNode As TreeNode 'Assign the text from a hidden textbox to the node objCountryTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, Me.txtShipCountry1.Text) 'Add a second-level node AddNodeToTreeView(objCountryTreeNode.Nodes, Me.txtShipCity1.Text) 'Expand the top-level node so the second-level node is in view objCountryTreeNode.Expand() 'Create a second top-level node Dim objCustomerTreeNode As TreeNode objCustomerTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, Me.txtCustomerID1.Text) AddNodeToTreeView(objCustomerTreeNode.Nodes, Me.txtEmployeeID1.Text) objCustomerTreeNode.Expand()

Visual Basic.NET code. Paste INSIDE the Detail Format event.

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'Type cast the custom control as a TreeView
Dim TreeView1 As New TreeView
TreeView1 = CType(Me.CustomControl1.Control, TreeView)

'Create a tree node
Dim objCountryTreeNode As TreeNode
'Assign the text from a hidden textbox to the node
objCountryTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, Me.txtShipCountry1.Text)
'Add a second-level node
AddNodeToTreeView(objCountryTreeNode.Nodes, Me.txtShipCity1.Text)
'Expand the top-level node so the second-level node is in view
objCountryTreeNode.Expand()

'Create a second top-level node
Dim objCustomerTreeNode As TreeNode
objCustomerTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, Me.txtCustomerID1.Text)
AddNodeToTreeView(objCustomerTreeNode.Nodes, Me.txtEmployeeID1.Text)
objCustomerTreeNode.Expand()

Show To write the code in C#

C# code. Paste INSIDE the Detail Format event.	Copy Code
//Type cast the custom control as a TreeView TreeView TreeView1 = new TreeView(); TreeView1 = (TreeView)this.customControl1.Control; //Create a tree node TreeNode objCountryTreeNode; //Assign the text from a hidden textbox to the node objCountryTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, this.txtShipCountry1.Text); //Add a second-level node AddNodeToTreeView(objCountryTreeNode.Nodes, this.txtShipCity1.Text); //Expand the top-level node so the second-level node is in view objCountryTreeNode.Expand(); //Create a second top-level node TreeNode objCustomerTreeNode; objCustomerTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, this.txtCustomerID1.Text); AddNodeToTreeView(objCustomerTreeNode.Nodes, this.txtEmployeeID1.Text); objCustomerTreeNode.Expand();

C# code. Paste INSIDE the Detail Format event.

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//Type cast the custom control as a TreeView 
TreeView TreeView1 = new TreeView();
TreeView1 = (TreeView)this.customControl1.Control;
//Create a tree node 
TreeNode objCountryTreeNode;
//Assign the text from a hidden textbox to the node 
objCountryTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, this.txtShipCountry1.Text);
//Add a second-level node 
AddNodeToTreeView(objCountryTreeNode.Nodes, this.txtShipCity1.Text);
//Expand the top-level node so the second-level node is in view 
objCountryTreeNode.Expand();
//Create a second top-level node 
TreeNode objCustomerTreeNode;
objCustomerTreeNode = AddNodeToTreeView(TreeView1.Nodes, this.txtCustomerID1.Text);
AddNodeToTreeView(objCustomerTreeNode.Nodes, this.txtEmployeeID1.Text);
objCustomerTreeNode.Expand();

ActiveReports Developer 7
Use Custom Controls on Reports
See Also Support Forum

See Also