I’ve been pretty busy with school, and unfortunately have not been able to get going on the many new features I want to implement in the Reports Module.  However, there are a number of bugs in the current version that prevent it from being used with DotNetNuke 5.0.  For this reason, as well as a few other bugs that aren’t quite as major, I’m going to be preparing a minor bug-fix release: Version 5.1.

This version will fix the following major issues:

1. Errors when accessing the Extensions page using the module with DNN 5.0
2. Many Exceptions are written to the DNN Event Log when the Search Indexer runs over the Reports Module
3. Duplicate Search Items are added by the Reports Module, causing exceptions to occur when multi-row Reports are indexed

I will also be making minor tweaks and clean-ups.  However, no new features will be included in this release.  I’m afraid I just don’t have the time at the moment (being a full-time student sucks up a lot of time).  Please let me know if there are any bugs you feel are urgent and need to be fixed in 5.1 by posting in the Reports Module Forums.  (On a side note, I want to remind my readers that the blog comments aren’t really the best place to post questions about the Reports Module.  I try to keep an eye out for them, but he forums are the best place to do that!)

Despite my time constraints, I have been doing a little thinking about new features for the Reports Module.  Since it seems to be the “in” thing now-a-days, I’ve given the next major update to the Reports Module a codename: “Saltspring” and I’ve been building a small feature list:

• Minor architecture changes to the Extensions (Data Sources and Visualizers) to improve testability
• Major architecture overhaul to the main module to improve testability, and thus quality, of the core module
• Investigate replacing the ZedGraph Chart component used by the Chart Visualizer with the new Microsoft Chart Control
• Introducing a new Parameters framework which allows users to define custom SQL Parameters for their queries, which pull their value from various different sources (DNN Objects, Query String, Text Fields, etc.)
  • This framework would be extensible, so that new “Parameter Sources” can be installed, just as Data Sources and Visualizers are

Again, if you have any more ideas, please let me know!