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Manual (working in progress)
1 General Information about iReport
This is the iReport reference manual; it documents iReport version 0.0.8. As iReport is work in progress,
the manual gets updated frequently (if I have sufficent time). So there is a very good chance that this version
is out of date, unless you are looking at it on-line. The most recent version of this manual is available at
http://ireport.sourceforge.net/docs.html in many different formats.
iReport is a powerful, intuitive and easy to use visual report designer for JasperReports written for Win32 platforms.
iReport is free software. It is licensed with the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE http://www.gnu.org/.
IMPORTANT: Reports of bugs, as well as questions and comments should be sent to iReport forums at http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=64348
1.1 What is iReport
iReport is a program to help users and developers that use JasperReports library to visually design reports. Through a
rich and very simple to use GUI, iReport provide all the most importatnt functions to create nice reports in a little time.
iReport can help people that don't know JasperReports library to create complex reports and learn the XML syntax taking a look to the generated code.
iReport can help skilled report designer to compose very complex page saving a lot of time.
iReport is written in a orribile language: VisualJ++. VisualJ++ is outdated, no more supported by Microsoft, it run only on win32 machines, it don't support java 1.2,...
However VisualJ++ has given me the possibility to write in least time a useful software. I'm thinking to port iReport to another language.
But why iReport is not written in pure java? When I decied to write iReport, I'm joking... I would not have never thought to arrive at this point...
VisualJ++ has a point to favor: it can interface directly to windows API, and this is very useful when you write in a little time a complex graphical interface:
awt and swing are a good GUIs, but they are very, too small and heavy (IMHO).
But iReport is here. And as Nathan W. Phelps said...
"Let me (a random person) jump in here. While I do think that using J++ is a bit odd, I've been looking for a native Win32 Jasper designer. I have tried JasperEdit, JasperDesigner and the one for Eclipse all unsatisfactory. My company has a "no Java on the client side" policy as well. So the fact that this thing is in J++ could help me out. I just downloaded the source and ran it through the Visual Studio .NET J# upgrade wizard which ran into very few problems. In other words, with a bit of work I can get this thing running on pure .NET using J#. That is pretty cool, and just may get me where I need to go!"
1.2 Short history of iReport
iReport is a visual designer for JasperReports. But What's JasperReports? JasperReports is the best (IMHO) open source reporting engine available
for java community. It is developed by a small big genius called Teodor Danciu. JasperReports has always had one lack: it don't provide an adapted tool to visually desing reports. JasperReports has hundred of
features, possibilities of use are infinitely... a person that does not have much confidence with the XML could has some problems to take advantage of the jasperreports library fully.
So in little time are borned some tools to fill the design hole... in order: Designer for Jasper by Jackie Manning and JasperEdit and Jeez by Erik Swenson, the first an editor capable to preview JasperReports XML and the second an Eclipse plugin.
In the same period, I was trying DataVision, a tool by Jim Menard. So my idea was join the powerful of Jasperreports with the philosophy adopted by DataVision. I solved the problem of a slow
java interface using... VisualJ++. The result is one of the best visual designer for JasperReports. iReport support 98% of JasperReports tag, and is updated to release 0.4.5 (at this moment, 02 february 2003 the last jasperreports version).
1.3 Books about JasperReports
The mission of this manual is to introduce you in the world of JasperReports. However I suggest you to buy for few dollars the JasperReports Ultimate Guide, a fundamental manual to write jasperreports XML code (via iReport or directly to hand).
You can find JasperReports Ultimate Guide at http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/more.docs.html.
1.4 The main features of iReport
The following list describes some of the important characteristics of iReport:
- 98% of JasperReports tags supported
- Visual designer wysiwyg with tools for draw rectangles, lines, ellipses, textfields fields
- Builtin editor with syntax heighlighting for write expression
- Support for unicode and non latin language (russian, chinese, korean,...)
- Elements browser
- Integrated compiler
- Java 2 compatible JDBC connector
- Wizard to create automagically reports
- Support for subreports
- Save backup
- Support for templates
- Facilities for fonts
1.5 Useful JasperReports and iReport related links
2 Installing iReport
iReport comes as a zip archive. It contains the main distribution files (executables and source), some
templates for wizard, the JasperReports main jar and required jars for compilation and export of reports.
2.1 System Requirements
You'll need several things to get started with iReport:
- The lastest iReport release. You can find it at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64348
- A recent Microsoft Java virtual machine. The Microsoft Java Virtual Machine is no longer available from Microsoft directly due to legal wrangling with SUN, however it still can be downloaded...
Java Virtual Machine download links:
- A java installation (Java 1.2 or greater required).
- Acrobat Reader 5.0 is not required, but strongly recommended.
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If you think to use Chinese Simplified, Chinese traditional, Japanese and Korean characters, you must download the Asian font pack from Adobe at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrasianfontpack.html or use a localized Windows.
- If you want connect to a database, you must provide a JDBC driver (not shipped with iReport).
2.2 Installation and configuration
If you have already installedon your machine a jdk and a Microsoft JVM, we are ready to start...
Unzip iReport-x.x.x.zip and copy the extracted directory where you want. Run ireport.exe. At the first execution, iReport will create two properties files
called ireport.properties and connections.properties.
We must now set two major things: the classpath and the java home. Go to menu Database->Classpath...
Fig.2.1: Open the classpath dialog...
Then the classpath dialog will appeare.
Fig.2.1: The classpath dialog...
You must set a correct value for java home (i.e. "c:\jdk1.3.1\"), please pay attention to the backslash at the end of path. If you want add a JDBC driver jar or a
directory, now it's the moment.
The JDK is used by iReport to retrieve fields name from databases using JDBC, to compile reports and to export it in pdf and others formats. If you don't
specify a Jdk installation directory, this functions could not work correctly! From version 0.0.8, the Microsoft classpath is not more useful, and you can leave it without modifications. |
2.3 Final test...
Ok, try if the configuration is ok....
Open the welcome.xml (this file is automatically opened at the first execution of iReport). Click on the iReport compiler button  Now in the compiler form click the button "compile". After few seconds will appeare our pdf test, as signal that all is OK.
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