Crystal Reports Toolkit for the Rational Software Development Platform - release notes

1.0 Restrictions
2.0 Language Version Issues
3.0 Platform-Specific Issues
4.0 Formatting and Rendering
5.0 Relational Databases and SQL Statements
6.0 Report Functionality
7.0 Java Viewer SDK
8.0 Crystal Enterprise JSF Components
9.0 Crystal Reports ActiveX Designer

1.0 Restrictions

The reporting component that processes reports, provided with the Crystal Reports Toolkit for the Rational Software Development Platform, is restricted by key code to provide adequate performance for development, testing and deployment of limited reporting within applications. The following other restrictions apply to this version of the Crystal Reports Toolkit for the Rational Software Development Platform:

The Java Reporting Component will only process reports created using Crystal Reports 9 or later. Reports from earlier versions of Crystal Reports should be converted using the Report Conversion tool available for download from the Business Objects website.
The Report Creation and Modification API for the Java Reporting Component are not exposed in this release.
Reports cannot be used that access the following data sources:
- OLAP
Reports may only be exported to PDF, RPT, and RTF.
The following capabilities are not supported in this release:
- RTF interpretation
- Report templates
- Geographic mapping
- Gantt, Gauge, Funnel, and Numeric Axis charts
- Crystal Reports Repository
- Report alerts
Dynamic prompts are not supported.
Reports containing groups with the group sort option set to original order cannot be opened.
To export a report with the Java Reporting Component, java.io.tmpdir must be set to an absolute path.

2.0 Language Version Issues

The SQL Server JDBC driver from Microsoft does not correctly return table names that contain Japanese characters. The IBM DB2 Type 2 JDBC driver from IBM does not correctly return field names for tables if the field name contains Japanese characters.

3.0 Platform-Specific Issues

On an AIX platform running IBM JDK 1.3.1 or 1.4, a bug in the JDK can cause reports to crash. As a workaround, set the environment JITC_COMPILEOPT to SKIP{com/crystaldecisions/reports/common/encryption/Processing}{processing}.
The BEA JRockit JVM has a parallel garbage collection option that causes out of memory exceptions when dealing with contiguous blocks of memory greater than 2 MB. As a workaround, increase the maximum heap size or switch to the generational copying garbage collector. To set the maximum heap size, use the "-XmxNNNm" option, where NNN is the size of the heap in MB. To use the generational copying garbage collector, use the "-Xgc:gencopy" option.
Exporting a report to PDF (either programmatically or through the viewers) is not supported on WebSphere Application Server 6. This limitation does not apply to other application servers. It is recommended that you use ActiveX printing if your web application is deployed on WebSphere Application Server 6. Alternatively, you can use the JSF version of the DHTML report page viewer, which does not have this limitation.

4.0 Formatting and Rendering

The currency symbol in a report floats even if the fixed position option is selected.
The time and date format displayed in a report is based only on the default locale settings of the server.
When viewing a report in the viewer, text objects without spaces do not display if the width is too small. Increasing the width of the text object causes the report to be correctly displayed.
The character spacing feature is not supported in this release. Character spacing applied to a text object is ignored.
When viewing a report in the viewer, column headings of a cross-tab may overlap or truncate.
When viewing a report with a cross-tab in the viewer, if the cross-tab has a total row at the top of the cross-tab, part of the fields in the cells are clipped. If the cross-tab has a total row at the bottom of the cross-tab, the cells are not clipped (it behaves as expected).
When viewing a report in the viewer, extra lines in the text field can appear. This occurs due to rounding up the conversion from twips to pixels. As a workaround, resize the section slightly.
When exporting a report to PDF, you may get an error message that says, "The font contains a bad/BBox" when you open the PDF. This error can be safely ignored as it does not affect the viewing of the PDF file.
Reports that contain surface charts with null data are not rendered correctly when processed by the Java Reporting Component.
The following table describes how the JRC behaves when opening and saving reports with the following unsupported features:

Feature	JRC behavior when opening report with this feature	JRC behavior when saving report with this feature
RTF interpretation	Raw RTF text is shown, but not interpreted	The fact that a field has RTF interpretation flag on will be preserved.
Report alerts	Alerts are not be triggered.	Alerting information in the report definition is preserved. However, alerting views are not preserved.
Geographic maps	Appear as blank objects.	Preserved in the report definition.
Gantt, gauge, funnel, and numeric axis charts	Appear as blank objects	Preserved in the report definition.
Crystal Reports 9 report charts with textures and pictures	Not shown.	Preserved in the report definition.
Font, line, or fill options in a chart legend	Not shown.	Preserved in the report definition.
Chart label placement	If labels are moved, they are reset to their default positions.	Preserved in the report definition.
Special fields with Crystal Enterprise context: Current CE User ID, Current CE User Name, and CurrentCEUserTime Zone	Mapped to Vertical Page Number, ReportAuthorName, and ReportAuthorName respectively.	Special fields are preserved.
Dynamic images	Not supported.	Full support.
Parameterized sorting	Supported.	Full support.
Hierarchical group sorting	Supported.	Full support.
Formula function additions	Supports URL encoding/decoding, time zones (but not Crystal Enterprise time zone), shift time zones, mround, ceiling, floor, and roundup.	Full support.
Dynamic prompts	Not supported.	Not preserved.
Grid enhancements	Supports flattening column headings for crosstabs.	Flattened column headings are preserved. Drill-through view is not preserved.

5.0 Relational Databases and SQL Statements

When refreshing a BIT stored procedure report from a SQL Server or Sybase database, parameter fields become pull down menus with no default values. You cannot view the report if the report relies on parameter values.
The Oracle JDBC driver does not support reports with BFILE data.
The Oracle JDBC driver does not support interval data types.
The Oracle JDBC driver does not support reports with UROWID data.
The Sybase JDBC driver only allows up to 255 characters to be entered for fields of type char, varchar, and nvarchar. If you need to enter more than 255 characters in a field, use the text type instead.
Earlier versions of the Sybase JDBC driver do not support reports with UNICHAR or UNIVARCHAR data. Use jConnect for JDBC version 5.5 ESD #9 or above.
The Informix ODBC driver returns the CLOB field as an object rather than a CLOB.
Reports with cyclic joins are not supported in this release. In addition, joins that require execution of independent queries, which are then later linked by some other set of tables, are not supported in this release.
BLOB fields that are set to 'can grow' do not grow. For example, different sized images placed in BLOB fields with the 'can grow' property are rendered as the same size.
When refreshing a stored procedure report from a SQL Server database, timestamp parameters should be in hexadecimal format.
Java Reporting Component does not respect enforced join of tables.

6.0 Report Functionality

The Java Reporting Component uses a high resolution time and date format. Date and time functions can return a non-integer number of seconds.
When using the ASC and CHR functions, a runtime error occurs if characters with a value outside 0-127 are used. The ASC and CHR functions have been deprecated and will not be supported in future versions. We recommend using ASCW and CHRW functions in their place to avoid the runtime error with values outside 0-127.
Only English-locale datetime strings are supported in the formula language for this release.

7.0 Java Viewer SDK

Multi-byte characters entered in the parameter prompt page of the JavaServer Faces Viewer will not display correctly in the report if the JSP page's character set is not set to UTF-8.
Navigating between group views and main views in the JavaServer Faces viewer may disrupt the view state for some reports.
Setting the reportSource attribute to a scriptlet value is not supported by the JavaServer Faces viewer.
Changes to the Initial Report Part Settings in the Java Reporting Component do not carry over to a different session.
The Java Reporting Component does not support malformed HTML tags.
If a record selection formula filters out all of the records in a hierarchical group, the group and its related hierarchies are unknown to the program, and your hierarchical sort will be incorrect (as will be the results from the Hierarchy functions that are available in the Formula Workshop).
The following locale-dependant functions are not supported in locales other than EN:
- Totext() -- Number, Currency, Date, Time, DateTime.
- CStr() -- this function is the same as ToText()
- CDate(String)
- CTime(String)
- CDateTime(String)
- IsDate(String)
- IsTime(String)
- IsDateTime(String)
- DateTimeValue(String)
- TimeValue(String)
- DateValue(String)
Setting the table location to ODBC from ODBC is not supported in the Java Reporting Component.
The Java Reporting Component does not support the use of relative paths for SunOne8 and Oracle 10g application servers.
For the most complete description of the openDocument feature (used to create links between repository objects such as Web Intelligence documents or Crystal reports), consult the Viewers Java SDK Guide or the Viewers COM SDK Guide.

8.0 Crystal Enterprise JSF Components

When using version 10 JSF Components with a version XI JSF Viewer, the export format "Microsoft Word - Editable RTF" is listed as one of the export options but is not supported.

9.0 Crystal Reports ActiveX Designer

When users stop the drag and drop operation of a component by pressing the "Esc" key on their keyboard, the application terminates.
JDBC connections can not be recovered after they time out. As a workaround, manually log off the server and then reconnect.

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For acknowledgements of third party contributors and applications, in addition to related license information, please see http://www.businessobjects.com/thirdparty.