Customizing and Localizing Microsoft ReportViewer .NET - An Exact Solution

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Introduction

In my last article, I've mentioned about a workaround that you may use in case you don't want to use Microsoft Reportviewer component's internal toolbar. In this article, I'm telling the way that if you want to use your own toolbar component (like Infragistics, etc.), simply hide internal toolbar and use your own toolbar and implement methods by yourself. You can reach this article here.

After I post this article, some developers sent some comments about what they need to do if they want to use Microsoft's own toolbar but if they want to localize it. So I decided to write a new article about it. And Jan de Groot sent me a great idea and working code about this and wanted me to write this article. I appreciate him for both his help and being so kind...

Localizing Reportviewer Component to Turkish

What you need to do is: Create a new class and derive it from IReportViewerMessages and set messages into your specified custom language.

public class CustomReportViewerMessages:IReportViewerMessages
{
    public CustomReportViewerMessages(IReportViewerMessages 
                                    reportViewerMessages)
    {
        this.InitializeMessages(reportViewerMessages);
        if (reportViewerMessages != null)
        {
            this.backButtonToolTip = reportViewerMessages
                                     .BackButtonToolTip;
            this.backMenuItemText = reportViewerMessages
                                    .BackMenuItemText;
            ...
            ...
        }
    }
}

More Resources about RDL

• Report Definition Language Specification
• Generating Reports in the .NET Framework
• RDL Project - WYSIWYG GPL .Net Report Designer
• Got ReportViewer - Includes many samples about Report Viewer
• Visual Studio Report Controls Forum on MSDN
• Binding DataSet and Generic .rdlc Reports to a ReportViewer at Runtime By DIren
• A Workaround to Customizing and Localizing the Microsoft ReportViewer .NET Toolbar by yincekara
• RDL Editor - RDL Technologies Portal

Background

Create a message class and customize its messages as you wish and use it on reportviewer.

private void customizeMessages()
{
    this.customMessages = new CustomReportViewerMessages(
                              this.reportViewer.Messages);
    this.customMessages.FindButtonText = "Bul";
    this.customMessages.FindButtonToolTip = 
                                    "Girilen metni bul";
    ...
}

Using the Code

You can simply call your customization method after you set report path:

public ReportViewerForm()
{
    InitializeComponent();
    customizeMessages();
}

In the source code project, there are also some extra buttons on the toolstrip. For full implementation, see the source file above.

Conclusion

Microsoft ReportViewer is a powerful component to display your report and RDL is a good way to implement reporting features. I believe that in the near future, many RDL designer tools and RDL viewer tools will be available on the market.