We are pleased to present you the long-awaited update for the entire FastReport .NET component line. In this release, you can expect a new report generator with Avalonia UI support, improvements in data exports, HTML Plugin support for FastReport.Core.Skia, and, of course, the discontinuation of support for .NET Standard 2.0 - 3.1 and .NET 5.

New FastReport Avalonia component

The FastReport .NET component lineup has introduced a new addition — FastReport Avalonia. This is a versatile library that enables report creation when developing cross-platform applications using Avalonia UI. This component allows for the development of applications with a unified user interface for macOS, Linux, and Windows. FastReport Avalonia is compatible with x64, x86, and arm64 processor architectures. It supports Avalonia UI, .NET 6 and above.

FastReport Avalonia is part of the unified FastReport ecosystem in C#. Reports created in other products will work in FastReport Avalonia and vice versa.

The product includes the report development core, designer, and viewer with a familiar interface.

The report designer looks like this:

And this is how the viewer looks like:

For more information about the new component, please read the articles.

New opportunities

ReportPage object's PageCreate event

The ReportPage has a StartPage event, which is triggered before the page is rendered. This event is called once for each template page in the report. Now, there is a new event called PageCreate, which is triggered when a page is created in the prepared report. Unlike StartPage, it is called more frequently, for each prepared page that corresponds to a template page. Both events can have their handlers assigned, allowing you to perform actions in addition to the standard ones.

Read more about PageCreate in the article.

Export improvements in Word 2007

Word export has undergone significant changes. Its performance has been improved, resulting in faster operation. New options have been added, such as "Keep Line Height" and "Use Headers and Footers of Word Pages". Additionally, we have fixed various bugs that had a significant impact on the functionality of the export.

Export of hyperlinks and bookmarks to SVG

With this update, hyperlinks and bookmarks of report objects are also exported to SVG format images.

PostgreSQL functions and views

When connecting to Postgres databases, you have the ability to use function and view data in your reports. To do this, use the FastReport.Data.Postgres plugin.

HTML Plugin support for FastReport.Core.Skia

FastReport.Core.Skia has now support for HTML Plugin. Now you can easily embed HTML content in your reports, enhancing their creation and presentation.

To use this functionality, install the FastReport.Plugins.HtmlObject package using NuGet.

Changes in Blazor WebAssembly

Webcil support for .NET 8

Starting with .NET 8, by default, all libraries necessary for operation are packaged in the Webcil format (.wasm) instead of the usual.dll . This is a more secure and web-friendly format (see more).

However, to compile the report script we must use these libraries. Previously, we advised our users to disable packaging in .wasm. Starting from the current version, FastReport.Blazor.Wasm can work with Webcil resources and use them to compile a report script without preliminary settings, everything happens automatically.

Automatic addition of required SkiaSharp resources

Previously, one of the requirements for using FastReport.Blazor.Wasm was that users had to manually add the necessary SkiaSharp and HarfBuzzSharp resources to their Blazor WebAssembly projects. The main issue was that these resources varied depending on the .NET version and the use of multithreading in WASM. Users had to manually select which libraries they needed, which caused a lot of complexity.

Starting from the current version, FastReport.Blazor.Wasm can determine the resources needed depending on the environment, and apply them to your application automatically. However, if you still need to select the required resource manually, then you can disable automatic behavior by adding to your .csproj project the following code:

<PropertyGroup>
 <ShouldIncludeNativeSkiaSharp>False</ShouldIncludeNativeSkiaSharp>
 </PropertyGroup>

Removal of support for .NET Core 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1, .NET 5

To cover an increasing number of technologies continually being added to the .NET world, we have decided to drop support for the outdated .NET Standard 2.0 - 3.1 and .NET 5 compatibility layers in our libraries. The minimum supported version is now .NET 6, and the minimum supported framework is .NET Framework 4.6.2.

Read more about the changes in the news.

Full list of changes

[Engine]
+ added OnCreatePage event for the ReportPage object;
* now, when converting RTF, insignificant spaces after tabs are discarded;
- added exception handling if the contents of the RichObject are incorrect;
- removed top and bottom padding when splitting TextObject between pages;
- fixed vertical indents in RichObject;
- fixed the display of a row following a row with a column union;
- fixed an exception when preparing a report with a TableObject containing MSChartObject;
- fixed loss of spaces in the RTF parser;
- fixed display of the bottom border line when using GrowToBottom;
- fixed support for the Portuguese language in the RTF parser;
- fixed a bug when the Report.IsPrepared parameter returned an incorrect value when preparing a report asynchronously;
- fixed translation of RichObject to TableObject;
- fixed error when printing with different pages selected;
- fixed IndexOutOfRangeException when executing Graphics.Path.AddBeziers;
- fixed vulnerability with the ability to call JS code from a hyperlink;
- fixed default tab setting when converting RTF;

[Designer]
+ added interaction with FastReport Cloud in the Community edition;
+ added the Contains (string , string) function, which determines whether a string contains a substring;
* changed the text of the warning message about duplicate parameter names in the query wizard;
*replaced the error with a warning form about parameters with the same names in the SQL query;
*changes in SwissQR: the processing of the "Amount" field has been changed; the "Currency" field is now a text field; added processing of data from the database in the fields of information about the Recipient, Payer and in the "Link" field;
- fixed Datamatrix brush color;
- fixed errors in the PictureObject editor;
- fixed a bug in the format editor;
- fixed a bug when resizing the dialog form;
- fixed the drawing of a rotated ITF14 barcode;
- fixed a bug with the operation of the "select all" keyboard shortcut;
-fixed a bug in resetting the format when changing an expression;
- fixed errors with the separation of source data into lines, both separator options (\r\n and \n) are now supported;
- now during the QR code generation process, extra \r\n characters at the end of the line are removed;
- fixed NullRreferenceException when editing the SelectCommand of the data source table;
- fixed text scrolling in AdvMatrix;
- fixed context menu of the RFIDLabel object;
- fixed the band title in the classic band display mode;
- fixed a problem when using the hh:mm time format;
- fixed a bug leading to System.NullReferenceException when connecting to JSON;
- fixed a bug when resizing objects while holding down the Shift key;
- fixed an exception that occurred when using DontEditCode;
- fixed incorrect behavior of lines when changing the Height property for a horizontal line or the Width property for a vertical line if the Diagonal property is set to False;

[Preview]
- fixed a bug with the search dialog in the preview;
- fixed rendering of report objects outside the page;
- fixed incorrect display of superscript or subscript text for RichObject if such text is at the beginning of the line;
- fixed display of vertical paddings in preview when using the LineHeight property;

[Exports]
+ added the option "Use Headers and Footers of Word Pages" when exporting Word;
+ increased speed of export to docx;
+ added the "Keep Line Height" option to export to Word 2007;
+ added export of hyperlinks and bookmarks to SVG;
- fixed error in exporting a rotated svg image to pdf;
- fixed a bug when images with a transparent background were incorrectly exported to PDF of the PdfA_1a standard in FastReport.Skia;
- fixed font reset in an empty cell after exporting a report to Word;
- fixed a bug with incorrect export to a JSON file;
- fixed a problem with exporting to Word 2007 when using a watermark and the "Page Title" band with a system variable;
- fixed a bug in svg export (hangs if text contains incorrect cr/lf sequences);
- fixed incorrect calculation of row height in a table when exporting to Excel;
- fixed error in exporting vector graphics to PDF;
- fixed error in SVG export (table with merged cells);
- fixed opening of exported reports in Word 2007;
- fixed incorrect black background when exporting RichObject with image to layered HTML-export;
- fixed the value of the paddingNonSeparatePages variable in ImageExport (OpenSource) to eliminate unnecessary padding;

[WebReport]
+ added support for the Webcil format in FastReport.Blazor.Wasm;
+ added dialog form title to WebReport;
+ added a detailed description of the report compilation error in the WebReport preview;
* the logic of standard images in WebReport has been reworked. Now images are loaded directly into the report, rather than being loaded by a large number of requests from the server;
- fixed a problem with editing tables in a document when exporting a report to Word 2007 via WebReport;

[Extras]
+ added support of FastReport.Plugins.HtmlObject for FastReport.Core.Skia
+ added support for views and functions in the PostgreSQL connector (Extras/Core/FastReport.Data/FastReport.Data.Postgres);
+ added a new filter for selecting file extensions when connecting to SQLite, combining .db and .db3, with the first filter selected by default;
- fixed import of plugins for FastReport .NET with TargetFramework net6.0 and higher;
- fixed the issue of object alignment in a report that contains an HTMLObject plugin;

[Mono]
* changed the tooltip text in RichObject in Mono;
- fixed maximum text length on code pages in the designer.