Report designing

Hi guys. I'm really getting frustrated by the report design process, and I just cant seem to make this thing work the way I want to. I mean ... I have a loading / previewing / printer selection /printing solution all written in VB, and it works great. I just pass it some parameters, filename, printer etc, and it does the rest. My problem comes from designing the stupid things.

I'm using the report development environment (CR 8.5) and what I am doing to print the report is to load it, and then attach a recordset to the report, etc. But in the development interface, where you setup the database connection, I just cannot get the SQL box to to accept my SQL statement. It always comes back with too few parameters, expected 1. I tried to get around this by saving a query into the database I am using (access) and loading that.

That works OK, but then ..what if I want to change the Query. I keep on wanting to change it, and everytime I do .. I have to remove the old and place the new. The result is that I loose all of my layout and so on, and so I have to reposition all of my data all over again, and that ... is not fun.

So, here is what I am wondering.

Can I change the recordset defined in my report without having to repostion everyting each time I want to change the recordset around, keeping in mind that I am passing the data to the report at runtime via the recordset.

How do I hide data based on the value it holds?

How do I hide labels and other elements based on other values on the form.

Why does the Crystal help and website infuriate more than instruct?

Thanks for any help.

Try the Verify Database menu command (Database menu) when you change your database structure (including renaming fields). If Crystal finds changes it will update the report automatically and/or prompt you for additional information.

Every object on the report can be "Suppressed". Open the property page for the specific item and then create a formula to suppress the item based on the data value.

Great!

Thanks alot for the reply. Works like a charm on both counts.

Again, thanks a bunch. :D