Customizing Report Manager

As I recall, in RS2000 there was no way to customize the appearance of Report Manager.

I see that RS2005 has stylesheets which permit some customization of the appearance (maybe these were available in RS2000 also, but I never looked for them), but it appears that the source code for the web pages is still not provided. Is that the case, or is it possible to obtain the source code for Report Manager so that more extensive page customizations can be made?

Thanks!

-- Chris

Report Manager can only be customized in two ways:
* style sheets (as you have already discovered)
* UI strings (e.g. "View Report", "Export") of the ReportViewer component of report manager (for viewing reports) can be customized by implementing a certain interface and registering for the report server.

-- Robert

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Robert,

Could you please clarify what you mean by:

>>* UI strings (e.g. "View Report", "Export") of the ReportViewer component of report manager (for viewing reports) can be customized by implementing a certain interface and registering for the report server.

Do you mean that text strings (like for text for buttons, links, etc.) in the Report Manager can be modified?

But is it true that the ASP .NET code for Report Manager is not available? Having that source code would provide the most flexibility.

-- Chris

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Only strings of the ReportViewer embedded within report manager can be customized (similar to the ReportViewer Webforms control: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms254250.aspx). Report manager strings (such as all the administration pages, etc.) cannot be customized.

The source code for report manager is not available.

-- Robert

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Robert,

Thank you for the information. It is not what I was hoping to hear , but now I know more about my options.

>>The source code for report manager is not available.

Are there any plans to make it available in a future release of Reporting Services?

-- Chris

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Robert,

Does your reply apply to RS2000 as well? If it does, where can I find that stylesheet?

Thanks!

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I don't find the link for RS 2000 report manager right now, but the following for RS 2005 should similarly apply to RS 2000: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345247.aspx

-- Robert

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Robert,

Can you answer my question from earlier in this thread:

"Are there any plans to make it [Report Manager source code] available in a future release of Reporting Services?"

Thanks!

-- Chris

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No, we don't have plans to make the source code available.

-- Robert

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Robert,

Thank you for your quick reply. Can you shed some light on why that is the case? I would think if nothing else Report Manager source code would provide a good reference implementation for developers to follow when developing their own custom reporting interface.

Is there something proprietary about Report Manager that is factored into that existing policy not to release the source code? Doesn't Report Manager use the same web services API that a developer would use to build a custom interface?

Thanks!

-- Chris

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You are right, Report Manager uses the documented web services API only.

What is available right now as sample with source code is the RS Explorer sample (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms160845.aspx).

There are also samples of how to integrate the ReportViewer control into your application - see e.g. http://gotreportviewer.com

-- Robert