In ActiveReports 17, the LaunchDataSourceWizard flag was added. A customer used this flag to enable or disable the automatic launch of the data source dialog when creating a report.

In ActiveReports 18, the new Report Wizard has been implemented to combine the report creation dialog with the report data binding steps. The LaunchDataSourceWizard setting has become unnecessary and is now simply ignored.

The legacy RDL was removed, and RDL Multi-Section was renamed to RDLX. The RDL report type is no longer available for new reports in ActiveReports 18. RDL reports, created in the previous versions of ActiveReports, are automatically converted to the RDLX format when opened in the Designer.

The GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Design.DesignerReportType.Rdl enum is now Obsolete.

We recommend that you postpone upgrade and contact our Support Team in case backward compatibility with old AR versions is required.

The Calendar sample is undergoing a number of changes related to the public API of the sample controls.

If you are unable to assemble the sample, contact our Support Team .

System.Data.SqlClient is replaced with Microsoft.Data.SqlClient for .NET Core/.NET Standard assemblies versions The dependency for .NET Standard assemblies versions of the AR.Core has been changed. Now Microsoft.Data.SqlClient is used for the MSSQL data provider by default. This change affects users, developing .NET Core applications with SQL connections, and does not require any special migration steps. For details, see Troubleshooting .

We have removed dependency on System.Drawing from our code for functionalities such as image handling, text measuring, printing, etc.

For example, API dependencies such as:
System.Drawing.Font and System.Drawing.Image in Section report have been removed from System.Drawing.Common .
GDI references from GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.SectionReport , GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.SectionDocument , and GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.PageDocument classes have been removed.
See System.Drawing.Common only supported on Windows . This makes the Section reports engine run under Linux independent of libgdiplus library. You may need to make some changes in the code and scripts for the applications to work. All API changes are listed next.

Class GrapeCity.SpreadBuilder.Printing.PageSetup
old property: public System.Drawing.Printing.PaperKind PaperSize
new property: public GrapeCity.SpreadBuilder.Printing.PaperKind PaperSize

Class GrapeCity.SpreadBuilder.DDSheet
Removed obsolete methods:

public void AddImage(System.Drawing.Image img, ImageInfo imageOptions,
System.Drawing.Color lineColor, System.Drawing.Color backColor,
short colL, short dxL, short rwT, short dyT,
short colR, short dxR, short rwB, short dyB,
string hyperlink)

public void AddImage(System.Drawing.Image img, ImageInfo imageOptions,
System.Drawing.Color lineColor, System.Drawing.Color backColor,
int columnLeft, short dxL, int rowTop, short dyT,
int columnRight, short dxR, int rowBottom, short dyB,
string hyperlink)

public void AddImage(byte[] imageData, bool isMetafile, SizeF sizeInInches, ImageInfo imageOptions,
System.Drawing.Color lineColor, System.Drawing.Color backColor,
int columnLeft, short dxL, int rowTop, short dyT,
int columnRight, short dxR, int rowBottom, short dyB,
string hyperlink)

public void AddImage (byte[] imageData, ImageInfo imageOptions,
System.Drawing.Color lineColor, System.Drawing.Color backColor,
int columnLeft, short dxL, int rowTop, short dyT,
int columnRight, short dxR, int rowBottom, short dyB,
string hyperlink)

Added new constructor :
/// <param name="measureString">Function to measure string in case of auto-height row behavior.
/// Parameters: string, font, fontsize, maxwidth.</param>
public Workbook(Func<string, StringMeasurementParams, SizeF> measureString = null)

old constructor: public BackdropItem(System.Drawing.Image picture, PicturePutStyle pictureAlignment)
new constructor: public BackdropItem(GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Chart.Drawing.Image picture, PicturePutStyle pictureAlignment)

old constructor: public BackdropItem(System.Drawing.Image picture, PicturePutStyle pictureAlignment, AntiAliasMode antiAliasMode)
new constructor: public BackdropItem(GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Chart.Drawing.Image picture, PicturePutStyle pictureAlignment, AntiAliasMode antiAliasMode)

old property:    public System.Drawing.Image Picture
new  property: public GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Chart.Drawing.Image Picture

old property: public System.Drawing.HatchStyle Pattern
new property: public GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Chart.Drawing.HatchStyle Pattern

old constructor:  public Backdrop(System.Drawing.Image picture, PicturePutStyle pictureAlignment)
new constructor: public Backdrop(GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Chart.Drawing.Image picture, PicturePutStyle pictureAlignment, AntiAliasMode antiAliasMode)

Removed PageSettings.PaperSourceKind enumeration, new  type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Printing.PaperSourceKind .

Removed PageSettings.PaperKind type enumeration, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Printing.PaperKind .

Removed PageSettings.Duplex type enumeration, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Printing.Duplex .

System.Drawing.Font, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.Drawing.Font .

System.Drawing.Image, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.Drawing.Image .

System.Drawing.FontStyle, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.Drawing.FontStyle .

System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.Drawing.GraphicsUnit .

System.Drawing.StringAlignment, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReportModel.StringAlignment .

System.Drawing.ContentAlignment, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReportModel.ContentAlignment .

System.Drawing.HatchStyle type, new type is GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReportModel.HatchStyle .

For using the WebViewer control in the ASP.NET Designer , you need to install an additional GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Web.Design (or GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Web.Design.VS2022 ) package that corresponds to the Visual Studio version you are using. Installing the GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Web package does not install the Web Design package, thus you may see some design time or compilation errors.

If you implemented a custom rendering extension, it needs to be updated with the implementation of the new Render Signature.

Use IRenderingExtension as follows:
void Render(IReport report, StreamProvider streams, NameValueCollection settings, CancellationToken token);

You may need to load WinForms dependencies manually by using code similar to the following.

var rpt = new SectionReport();
rpt.LoadLayout("MySectionReport.rpx");
rpt.AddAssembly(System.Reflection.Assembly.Load("System.Windows.Forms, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"));

The sample of the script that worked earlier without above code is as shown:

public void detail_Format()

System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Detail_Format");