Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Graphical Report Design
with iReport
So far we have been creating all our reports by writing JRXML templates by hand.
There are several report designers that can help us visually generate JRXML
templates. When using report designers, there is little or no need to edit JRXML
templates by hand. Some of the existing report designers are standalone applications;
others are plug-ins for IDEs or text editors.
The following table lists some of the available IDE/Editor plug-in report designers:
Name
IDE/Editor URL
JasperAssistant
Eclipse
http://www.jasperassistant.com/
Sunshine Reports
Eclipse
http://www.sunshinereports.com/
http://www.sourceillustrated.com/
jasperjedit/
JasperReportsViewer
JEdit
Some of the standalone report designers include JasperPal
(
http://jasperpal.
sourceforge.net)
and iReport (
http://ireport.sourceforge.net
). However,
iReport
is the official report designer for JasperReports.
In this chapter, we will be focusing on iReport since covering all of these report
designers would no doubt result in shallow coverage of each one of them.
iReport started as an independent project by Giulio Toffoli. JasperSoft recognized the
popularity of iReport and in October, 2005 hired Giulio Toffoli, and made iReport the
official report designer for JasperSoft. Just like JasperReports, iReport is open source.
It is licensed under the
GNU Public License (GPL)
.
