CR CR 2011 / "Crystal reports For Visual Studio 2010", you are correct.
Re. the database thinggy. You can connect to a database via ODBC, OLE DB or in some instances natively. Once a report is created you an change the datasource. A good sample app on how to do this is csharp_win_dbengine / vb_win_dbengine. A link to the samples is here:
Crystal Reports for .NET SDK Samples - Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects) - SCN Wiki
More info on connecting to dbs and changing them is in the developer help files:
SAP Crystal Reports .NET SDK Developer Guide
SAP Crystal Reports .NET API Guide
More info on CR APIs for .NET (applies to all versions of CR and VS):
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 Walkthro... | SCN
You can also use ADO .NET Datasets and in this way you handle the database connections in your app. A good sample is csharp_win_adodotnet (also available in VB) - same link as above.
More info on datasets:
Crystal Reports Guide To ADO.NET
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio .NET - Walkthrough - Reporting Off ADO.NET Datasets
For more complicated operations (e.g.; changing a report from ODBC to OLE DB, changing one table, etc., you will want to use the InProc RAS SDK that is also available in CRVS. Developer help files are here:
Report Application Server .NET SDK Developer Guide
Report Application Server .NET API Guide
Sample apps are here:
NET RAS SDK Samples - Business Intelligence (BusinessObjects) - SCN Wiki
and here:
Crystal Reports .NET In Process RAS (Unmanaged) SDK Sample Applications
More info on RAS SDK:
How to Use The RAS SDK .NET With In-Process RAS Server
Lastly, do use the search box in the top right corner. I find simple search strings such as 'crystal net parameter' return best results (KBAs, Blogs, docs, wikis, discussions and more).
- Ludek