Forecast of Launching of Version 3.0 of the FastRe

Already it has some time I am waiting anxious so that the <span style='color:red'><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>launching of version 3.0</span></span> of the FastReport is announced, therefore with it many things go to improve for we programmers.
Mainly the part of Reports for Dot-matrix printers.

Being thus it would like to know if already it exists a foreseen date so that this happens?

Debtor for the attention of all.


Edson

Comments

  • edited 9:56AM
    Again - product is ready, we're finishing the documentation...
  • edited 9:56AM
    We don't need documentation, if that's what we're waiting for. We only need some good demo apps, covering most of the handling. Save the documentation for later, we want the goodies now ;)
  • edited 9:56AM
    Without the documentation, you will not understand the most of FR3.0 features and will bomb the support ;)
  • edited 9:56AM
    I won't do that. As long as I have the source, I'll always find out what to do with it ;)

    And it would be nice to finally see something..
  • edited 9:56AM
    Sources are no longer supplied with V3. Only V3 Enterprise Edition will have them.
  • edited April 2004
    Noone buys components used in production without source. That's suicide.. So I can't see why you have other versions. Those who buy components without source are just plain stupid.
  • edited 9:56AM
    ;)
  • edited 9:56AM
    "Noone buys components used in production without source. That's suicide.. So I can't see why you have other versions. Those who buy components without source are just plain stupid. "

    Strange !
    I used components since many years & i not always buy these with source.
    I buy sources if I need it, in order to change some functions or to be able to maintained my applications.
    No problem today with this policy.
    I think I will bougth FR3.0 (but when ??!! ) without sources for the begining and later if this component is OK and become important for our products, I'll bought the source.
    May be I am 'plain stupid' ;)
  • edited 9:56AM
    Well, I *do need sources*, but I can't pay 1,000$ for the "Enterprise edition" ("enterprise always means very expensive, right?). I 'm waiting 3.0 for a long time, and only NOW I know about your change of policy?
    Why not provide the sources for the various versions?
    If I need to look for another report manager with sources at reasonable price, I would like to know now, not be left anging for more than one year (or two? who remembers...).
    thanks
  • edited 9:56AM
    EE will costs less than $500.
  • edited 9:56AM
    Philnext wrote:
    Strange !
    I used components since many years & i not always buy these with source.

    One needs only to be caught out once. And then they will never, ever consider buying third party components again without the code.

    I know this. From experience ;)


    Regards

    Pierre
  • edited 9:56AM
    ;) And finally it will be ready in one week, two, three ... or in one month, two, three ...
    or in one year, two ......??????
  • edited 9:56AM
    It will be ready when it's documentation will be ready ;)
    I hope it will in two months.
  • edited 9:56AM
    finalfiler wrote:
    finalfiler wrote:
    Strange !

    One needs only to be caught out once. And then they will never, ever consider buying third party components again without the code.

    I know this. From experience  ;)
    I am not sure of the signification of your post..but my policy is :
    I never (never ! never !) buy a 3rd party component where the source is not available.
    If the comp. 'without source' is cheaper I buy it.
    If I Need sources (for maintenance or changes or ...) I buy it.

    It is the most economical way I think..no ?
  • edited April 2004
    Strange that someone still thinks components without source is ok. Noone knows how long the company delivering a component will exist. If the company stops to exist and you don't have the source, then you have a really big problem. Also, if the company don't care to fix some problems that are vital to you, you have a big problem. By buying components without source, you make yourself totally dependant on the component provider.

    The other thing is that you never learn more about the components and how they are ment to be used (and what potential they have) than by investigating the source. No matter how good the documentation and help files are.

    Also you will need the source for reference when overriding any objects, or finding out what to put in the different properties. It's mutch faster than searching through the helpfiles, hoping that they have covered the property or whatever you need there (and updated with the latest version).

    I will never buy components without source. If the components are to expensive with source, I use other components or write my own.

    (Still Borland forces me to deal with this kind of problems by delivering crappy dbExpress drivers without source. Luckily CoreLab has drivers with source available for a reasonable price)
  • edited 9:56AM
    I'll second that but purely on the fact that generally speaking components don't work with newer versions of Delphi and therefore need updating. Sometimes the company will provide the newer Delphi X component within a few days of the compiler being release but you can't rely on it!
  • edited 9:56AM
    AlexTZ wrote:
    It will be ready when it's documentation will be ready
    Please take enough time to produce a good documentation.
    As I (and others) have not sufficient skills to dig in the source code, a good doc and help-file saves lots of time and irritation.
    Lack of these did cost me lots of time and did me long for the good FAQ of QuickReport. ;)
    Fastreport is a better product but the documentation is less then QR.
    I hope this will not be the so in 3.0 and future releases.
  • edited 9:56AM
    I've been waiting so long for v3 (I first heard about v3 in my previous job and I've been at my new job more then 1 year and a half) that I don't know if it will even be worth the wait.

    the first version will undoubtly have some bugs (hopefully all the simple ones will have been fixed, ie. not being able to produce a simple report) but fixes will be more than likely be published by FastReport themselves as the prices including source are now more expensive, less people will have source and therefore can't debug it (or even post possible offending lines of code).

    Producing documentation is all well and good but it would be better to release a beta version for more 'seasoned programmers' to play around with and hopefully eliminate more bugs. I've been using FastReport a long time (since v2.2 I think) and I've not seen a beta version available with "use this at your own risk, don't bother emailing support with questions - only problems, etc".

    People like MySQL have 3 different version available for public download:
    Production 4.0.18 <used by Newbies/Critical system; fullly documented + stable>
    Development 4.1.1 <used by more seasonal programmers; partially documented + will have [un]documented bugs>
    Preview 5.0.0 <as per description; its a preview - don't use it except to look at/play with!>

    In short: I don't want documentation to start with...to be honest I probably wouldn't even use it for new reports...I want to experiment and see if it'll fit in to our existing apps without breaking them.
    Why can't you do something along the same lines? ie.
    Production v2.52
    Development v3.00
    ?
  • edited 9:56AM
    wrote:
    Sources are no longer supplied with V3. Only V3 Enterprise Edition will have them.
    I'd have a real problem with that, Alex. Especially if I didn't need the EE version ;)
  • gordkgordk St.Catherines On. Canada.
    edited 9:56AM
    I second that Pierre.
    Regards ;)
  • edited May 2004
    AlexTZ wrote:
    EE will costs less than $500.
    $500 will still be a big jump in pricing from the current version that comes with source. Do you have any pricing structure in mind at the moment other than "less than $500".

    I assume there will be upgrade pricing from the current version.

    My main reason for asking is that we are currently looking to purchase Fast Reports after testing if it will fit in with the data access components we are looking at using and I would (obviously) like to have the most recent version.

    With regards to the source code issue. We also would probably not buy without source code however the price of an Enterprise Edition may become an issue. Not having source does cause issues when it comes to possible bugs in the components and quick response times to these fixes and also should the component become no longer available.

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