Best solution for migrating legacy reports to .net core ?

[Frédéric]

Hello,

In our company, we have a lot of Telerik reporting templates, created with the visual studio designer tool and used for generating PDF.

These reports contain several cultures support (localization) and images. We also have custom c# code in several events (ex: NeedDataSource event)

We are migrating to .net core all our projects.

I’ve tried a fist attempt to migrate to .net core, but I faced several issues:
-The designer doesn’t work, but it’s “normal” as noted here…: https://docs.telerik.com/reporting/ui-report-designer
-Localization doesn’t work. Surely linked to resource management change in .net core.
-I had to remove images from the report template to avoid exception at runtime (because the designer embeds them into resx file)

Before digging in more, Which is the best recommended way to migrate legacy report to .NET Core ? (And still have localization and custom code on events)

When the .net core designer will be available?

Thanks in advance,

[Neli]

Hello Frédéric,

Currently, there is no design-time support for type reports in .NET Core projects. Note that there are certain limitations in the .NET Core framework that prevent us from implementing the .NET Core Visual Studio designer. You may find an explanation of the problems we hit in the Make Visual Studio designer work with .NET Core (a.k.a. SDK-style) projects feature request. I suggest also to vote for this feature.

Recently, we tested to use the code of a CS report created in the Visual Studio in .NET Framework (e.g. copied and pasted the report code in a .NET Core ClassLibrary project), and we were able to use the report as it is, without removing the designer-specific code. This indicates that the .NET Core team is moving the design-time support forward. We need some more functionality to make our designer operative though. We are tracking the .NET Core team updates on their Windows Forms designer and will do our best to include VS Report designer support for .NET Core as soon as all the needed functionality is implemented.

Basically, the resx files are resolved in a different way in .NET Core which causes the issue with the images and the localization. I suggest to convert the report to TRDP. However, you will need to use Expressions/ Binding instead of events. In addition, you will need to localize the reports again. You can also check the following feature request and vote for it Converting CS/VB report to TRDP report should preserve localization.

Regards,

Neli
Progress Telerik

[Frédéric]

Hello,

Thanks for this complete answer.

The resx issue seems to be resolved using .NET Core 3

Regards,

[flavio155]

Were you able to migrate? I have the same problem having reports created in a .net framework project and converting the project to .net but I was unable to convert the report because it does not open the designer

[flavio155]

Ja tem alguma funcionalidade para migrar os report do .not para o .net core como ele pediu ai? eu estou passando pelo mesmo problema

[Neli]

Hi Flavio,

If I understood correctly you have a report that was created through the Visual Studio Report Designer and you would like to convert it to .NET Core. To do so, create a .NET Core Class library, then right-click over the project -> Add -> Existing Item -> select the CS file of the report.

Note that basically, for .NET Core projects, we recommend the usage of TRDP/TRDX reports. To convert a CS/VB report into TRDP/TRDX, you can follow the approach from How to import reports created with the VS Report Designer.

Let us know if the issue is resolved.

Regards,
Neli
Progress Telerik