I work with many different CR users. It seems that whenever I open the Report Explorer view in Crystal Reports, the user is a bit surprised. I get the impression that not many people use or know about this feature. I wrote about it once before (a decade ago) but since then I have found two more uses that I tap into regularly.
1) Selecting one of several superimposed objects.
One report I created for an educational assessment company had 4 superimposed picture objects in different colors. They were all in the same spot, but had suppress conditions so that only one would appear at a time. Trying to select a specific one of these objects is a challenge. But when you open the Report Explorer for that section, the objects are listed separately. You can select the object in the list of the Report Explorer and it behaves the same as when it is selected in design mode. You can also right-click on the object in the list and get all the same options you would get if you right-clicked the object in design mode.
2) Locating subreports
I recently had a very crowded report and was having trouble with a shared variable, that came from a subreport. The trouble was that the subreport was small and I was having trouble finding it. One of the features of the report explorer is that you can decide which of three object categories to have it show (Grids and Subreports / Fields / Graphic Objects). By turning off Fields and Graphic Objects the list showed only Grids (cross-tabs) and Subreports. This made the one lone subreport simple to find.
So if you haven’t ever used the Report Explorer, go into the View menu to activate it. You might find it useful.