Crystal love and hate

Question

Post Author: wapper
CA Forum: General
As a developer, I have been working with Crystal since version 5. Currently on v8.5, not moving further because of existing projects and the number of issues with CR10-XI that I don't like. My feelings to Crystal have always been contradictious. It is a great and powerful tool for doing things, better than any other reporting software I know. But there are certain weaknesses that you will soon encounter if you work with Crystal every day.
I decided to write down things I hate about Crystal, in a faint hope that someone has a workaround I'm not aware of. Needless to say, I have checked Knowledge Base for all problems below, but there was no solution. Couldn't find a solution in forums either.
1. MOST ANNOYING: Cannot move multiple columns with column headers left or right simultaneously. My reports are carefully aligned by using guidelines. Usually there are no empty spaces between the fields. When I have to insert a new columns to the left part of the report, I have to manually move existing columns to the right to make space, one by one, by pulling guidelines. What a pain with 60+ columns, each column has its precise width that needs to remain the same. I really hate it about Crystal. In Microsoft Reporting Service, swapping fields is a breeze, just drag-and-drop column variable and it will be moved along with its header, preserving its width and the widths of other columns. (no solution)
2. MOST ANNOYING: It is very difficult to find where a user variable or database field is referenced, in case we need to delete some unneeded variables. A variable or a field can be in use by another variable, or conditional formatting forumula, or a selection formula, or sorting, or running total, or other. The reference of a variable can be located by changing the data type returned by this variable and observing the error message. But no solution for finding reference of a database field. (no solution)
3. MOST ANNOYING: if I have some groups in my reports, with all the data and conditional formatting, and I need to add yet another group that should become the most outer group, then I need to manually move down all the data and formattings for existing groups one by one, to free up the outer group, because Crystal can only add the inner group, not the outer one. (no solution)
4. Cannot place running totals results for a group into group header. There is a workaround by using crosstab in group header, but it is extremely awkward solution and is not suitable if you have many running totals. The best solution would be the 4th pass that would place precalculated running totals to any place on the report. (no solution)
5. Cannot make big print forms that exceed standard paper format A4/A3/A2. Crystal can only use windows print forms that are supported by current printer driver. It is possible to use customized print forms, but on another computer, the report will be truncated to Letter/A4 if custom form is not defined on that computer. Sometimes it is necessary to create very wide reports that should be spanned to multiple pages horizontally. No way to do that in Crystal.(no solution)
6. Cannot join tables without actual relation (when one table always has one row, for example, a table containing system options).  (no solution, must use fictitious join)
7. Cannot use inner join after outer join, if, for example, you need to outer-join a subquery with 2 tables that are inner-joined.     Example: SELECT a., b. FROM a LEFT OUTER JOIN b INNER JOIN c ON b.id2 = c.id2 ON a.id = b.id (workaround: make views that contain inner joins, and outer-join those views instead of tables)
8. No way to join tables on compound field (rarely needed but still a problem)     Example: SELECT a., b. FROM a LEFT OUTER JOIN b ON a.year*12 + a.month = b.period_index
9. Crosstab: summarized values cannot be placed horizontally  (workaround exists but will destroy export to excel)  CRXI solves this problem
10. CR9, CR10, CRXI: it is extremely difficult and time-consuming to move your existing report to another database server or another database with the same structure. You have to change the location property for each table, manually, one at a time. In CR8, you only had to change the location for 1 table, and Crystal did the same for the rest of the tables.(no solution)
11. CR9, CR10, CRXI: when reporting off the stored procedure with a lot of optional parameters, you have to check "Set to NULL" checkbox every time you perform "Verify database". Try to do this with SP-s having ca 100 parameters, and you will quickly become a Crystal hater.(no solution)
That's pretty much all. I intentionally left out clear bugs that are not fixed by the latest service packs and hotfixes, and also I left out issues with exporting to different formats, mostly to Excel. One can write a book about how to export to Excel and its gotchas in different Crystal versions.
I will be happy if experiences people will comment my list, maybe together we can find a solution or workaround to some of the problems.
BR,Wapper

Answer 1

Post Author: wapper
CA Forum: General
Thanks for the answers. I'm glad to know that grouping and running total issues have been resolved in CRXI. This might become a reason for me to move on with Crystal.
Charliy, about compiled reports, I did not miss this feature because I've always preferred building a small frontend application for better handling of connection information and report parameters.About repository, I don't get it, according to "Crystal feature comparison by version and edition" document, the repository is still there in CRXI. Is it?
yangster, I am aware about the Command feature of newer Crystal versions, however, I think I cannot use SQL commands to imitate different combinations of joins because of performance issues. According to article c2016331, and to my own experience, the data returned by multiple SQL commands will be joined on the client, not on the server. Joining hundreds of thousands rows on the client is... not very optimal. Nevertheless, multiple SQL commands may be useful for simple lookup technics with limited number of rows.
The #1 issue is all about guidelines. As I wrote, all fields in my reports are carefully aligned from bottom, left and right and are snapped to guidelines. Guidelines make it easier to achieve perfect formatting, which is extremely important for me since most of my reports must export to Excel flawlessly. Without guidelines, aligning tens of fields without gaps is a major pain.But the problem is, selecting and dragging multiple fields will un-snap them, leaving guidelines behind, because Crystal does not allow you to select and drag guidelines along with fields.The alternative would be snapping objects to grid, but I personally don't like the grid for a number of reasons, including having to change the grid size for different reports, having to turn "snap to grid" on and off when aligning vertically or horizontally etc. But I have to admit, aligning to grid does seem to be the only choice if you have to move multiple fields around without un-snapping them.
BR,Wapper