ActiveReports: Disconnect a RPX File

[rdove]

I'm not sure if anyone here knows anything about ActiveReports.NET, but I want to give it a shot because it is obvious I'm not getting any help on the datadynamics forums

So:

We have been working on converting from 2.0 to .NET for a couple weeks now, but I am starting to get stumped by a recurring problem.

In a class file I can do the following:

Dim arap As New AppendixBackCare()
arap.Image5.Image = System.Drawing.Bitmap.FromFile("C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\ActiveReports\sunset.jpg")

This allows me to dynamically set the property of a control in an RPX file, as long as the control is open for Public Use.

My question:

Is there a way I can still set the property of a control in the RPX file, but have not have to include the RPX file in my project?

Basically, we dynamically build pages based on certain critera dictated by the database, so there could be 4 or 5 RPX files that have the exact same controls, but only one of them would be used in a report.

So you can see that the above code is NOT going to work for us, because you have to specifically tell it which report we want to use. We need to have the same functionality, but be able to plug in a report on the fly.

In AR 2.0 & VB6 we could do this to get the same functionaility:

Set arBasePage = New ActiveReport
arBasePage.LoadLayout (App.Path & "\" & mdAnswers("Language") & mdAnswers("General_BasePage"))
    
arBasePage.Image5.Picture = "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\ActiveReports\sunset.jpg"

But it will not work in AR.NET. I can use the LoadLayout function, but I can't set the properties of the control. VB.NET says Image5 is not part of the ActiveReport Class.

Anybody have any insight to what we can do, without redesigning the whole system (which would take 1yr+)?

There has got to be a way...