Make Visual Studio designer work with .NET Core (a.k.a. SDK-style) projects

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Last Updated: 28 Oct 2020 17:19 by Dmytro

Dmytro

Created on: 21 Jan 2019 07:18

Type: Feature Request

Make Visual Studio designer work with .NET Core (a.k.a. SDK-style) projects

At the moment it's only possible to have your reports in old-fashioned projects.

It should be possible to add/design reports to SDK-style projects. That should work no matter what target framework is (.NET Core, .NET Standard or .NET Framework).

11 comments

Dmytro

Posted on: 28 Oct 2020 17:19

Well, we need someone from the team to tell us if and when they are planning to work on this issue. The only way for us to make it happen faster is to upvote the feature request. So, guys, please do that :)

Kori

Posted on: 28 Oct 2020 15:53

@Deepak

That's where we're stuck as well. All of our reports are heavily customized and just defining them in the standalone designer isn't possible for us because of that.

Deepak

Posted on: 28 Oct 2020 15:38

Hello,

Just to give some background. We have over 100 Reports created using the Visual Studio Designer which directly creates C# files for the Reports that integrate nicely with the rest of our projects. For performance reasons, the Reports use ObjectDataSource that directly refer to our Business Layer classes and methods that uses .NET Standard 2.0. However, looks like .NET Standard 2.0 is going to be set in stone so that it's compatible with .NET Framework and .NET Core.

Ideally, we would like to convert all our projects to pure .NET Core 5.0+ and remove all dependencies to .NET Standard 2.0 and .NET Framework 4.8. However, without the updated Visual Studio Designer, we are unable to do that.

Switching to the Windows Desktop or the Web Designer isn't an option for us, is it? I believe those Designers save the Report Definitions only as XML and we already have over a 100 reports that are pure C#. Is it possible to convert the C# files to XML and then edit them in the Windows Desktop or Web Designers?

Regards.

Deepak.

Kori

Posted on: 27 Oct 2020 15:04

Is this coming? Anything?

Deepak

Posted on: 26 Jun 2020 19:03

I agree that the main goal should be to get rid of .NET Framework. Even .NET Standard will be deprecated along with it. If this can be achieved with .NET 5, then I can wait :-).

Dmytro

Posted on: 26 Jun 2020 19:00

Hi Deepak, we also do something along those lines. However, the main point was to get rid of .NET Framework altogether from our product. At this moment, VS Report Designer is the only reason we have to keep that around. For now it looks like, we will not have this feature until .NET 5 is out + whatever time Progress needs to adjust their stuff. So, somewhere February 2021 would be a fair guess. I'm an optimist :D

Deepak

Posted on: 26 Jun 2020 17:54

Here's what I've done as a workaround.

Created a Visual Studio solution with the Business Layer as .NET Standard and the Web as .NET Core.
Added a .NET Framework project for Reports (called it ABC.Reports.Design) which has a reference to the Business Layer. This is where we use the Reports Designer.
Added a .NET Core class library project for the .NET Core Reports (called it ABC.Reports) that reference the files in the Design project as follows:

Add a reference to ABC.Reports project within the Web project.

This allows us to then use Visual Studio for the Reports designer and then deploy the .NET Core web project with references to the .NET Core Reports and .NET Standard Business Layer.

ADMIN

Ivan Hristov

Posted on: 01 Oct 2019 08:55

We are keeping a close eye to the efforts of the .NET team that works on the Windows Forms designer on .NET Core. Yesterday they've introduced a preview version of the designer - it looks promising, but there are still lots of missing features. For example, containers, resources and component tray are not yet supported, and they are mandatory for our reports designer. We are sure that the subsequent versions of .NET Core Windows Forms designer will add the missing features, but its current state is just not fit for our needs. Please rest assured that we understand how important this designer is for our clients and as long as it is released with all the necessary components, we will do our best to include it in the next version of Telerik Reporting.

Regards,
Ivan Hristov
Progress Telerik

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Dmytro

Posted on: 24 Sep 2019 09:01

Is there any update on this issue? .NET Core 3.0 is already out, but we still cannot switch because our reports require .NET Framework 4.7.2... This does not make any sense, to be honest. I know, I know, we can containerize report projects and so on. But that is too much work just to make Telerik Designer happy.

Kori

Posted on: 25 Jun 2019 15:16

Tracking this item, where they are working on ComponentDesigner compat https://github.com/dotnet/winforms/issues/989

ADMIN

Todor

Posted on: 25 Jan 2019 16:21

Hello Dmytro,

Currently, the .NET Core frameworks do not support the design time components we need for our Visual Studio Report Designer. Without these components we cannot provide a quality design-time experience. We believe that VS team will gradually fill the gaps between the .NET Framework and the .NET Core, publishing more and more designer classes. As soon as the necessary components become available we will make sure our designer is working when hosted in .NET Core and .NET Standard projects.

Regards,
Todor
Progress Telerik