LESSON 1: INSTALLING AND STARTING JREPORT DESIGNER...2

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1 Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION OVERVIEW AND LAYOUT LESSON 1: INSTALLING AND STARTING JREPORT DESIGNER LESSON BACKGROUND LESSON OBJECTIVE LESSON OUTLINE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS Install JReport Designer Set up the ODBC Data Source Run JReport Designer View the Demo Reports Set up a JDBC Driver if Necessary LESSON 2: CREATING A SIMPLE REPORT USING REPORT WIZARD LESSON BACKGROUND LESSON OBJECTIVE LESSON OUTLINE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS Launch Report Wizard Specify Data Retrieval and Display Specify Grouping and Sorting Criteria Specify Summary Functions Define Report Layout Finish and Fine-Tune Report Specify Parameters to Refine Reports LESSON 3: CREATING A SOPHISTICATED REPORT USING REPORT WIZARD LESSON BACKGROUND LESSON OBJECTIVE LESSON OUTLINE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS Create a Simple Report Using Multiple Tables Format and Edit the Rough Report Add Color to the Report Add Images to the Report Add and Edit Formulas and Summaries Format Fields Finish and Fine-Tune the Report Print and Export to HTML LESSON 4: CREATING SPECIAL REPORTS LESSON BACKGROUND LESSON OBJECTIVE LESSON OUTLINE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS Create a Form Letter Create a Chart and Graph Report Create a Cross Tab Report Create a Sub-Report Page i

2 6 LESSON 5: CREATING A COLUMNAR REPORT LESSON BACKGROUND LESSON OBJECTIVE LESSON OUTLINE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS Launch the Hblank Feature Create a Columnar Report Template Fill the Columnar Report Template Fine-Tune the Report NOTE ON COLUMNAR REPORT LIMITS LESSON 6: CREATING A REPORT WITH THE USER DATA SOURCE (UDS) API LESSON BACKGROUND LESSON OBJECTIVE LESSON OUTLINE DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS Line Up Your Data Source Line Up Your UDS Classes Compile the Data Source Add the UDS to a Catalog Design and Fine-Tune the Report Page ii

3 1 Introduction JReport Designer Tutorial The JReport Designer Tutorial provides basic report building instructions, and shows how to build simple, sophisticated, and special reports using the many features of JReport Designer. The Tutorial is presented in the form of six lessons, each covering an important aspect of reports. Each lesson aims to provide clear and comprehensive instruction to help you build your own reports. However, the Tutorial does not provide in-depth feature coverage of JReport Designer. For indepth feature coverage and further information on aspects of building reports using XML, EJB, stored procedures, and SQL files, please refer to the JReport Designer User s Guide. 1.1 Overview and Layout The Tutorial provides the following six lessons: Lesson One How to install and start up JReport Designer and how to set up a connection to a data source for your reports. Also, how to use JReport Designer to connect to an external database via a JDBC driver. Lesson Two How to create a simple report with data from one table using the JReport Designer Report Wizard. Lesson Three How to create and print a sophisticated report with data from multiple tables using the JReport Designer Report Wizard. Lesson Four How to create and print special reports, principally four types of reports: Form Letters, Charts and Graphs, Cross Tab Reports, and Sub-Reports. Lesson Five How to create a columnar report Lesson Six How to create a report with data from an external data source using the User Data Source (UDS) API. Page 1

4 2 Lesson 1: Installing and Starting JReport Designer 2.1 Lesson Background This lesson assumes that JReport Designer will be installed in the directory C:\JReport on your hard drive. All instructions apply to Windows Lesson Objective This lesson aims to show how to install and start up JReport Designer and how to set up a data source for your reports. This lesson also shows you how to use JReport Designer to connect to a database via a JDBC driver. 2.3 Lesson Outline The steps involved in installing and first starting up JReport Designer are as follows: 1. Install JReport Designer. 2. Set up the ODBC Data Source. 3. Run JReport Designer. 4. View the demo reports. 5. If your database system requires a native JDBC driver, first set up the JDBC driver to work with JReport Designer. These steps are separately expanded on below. 2.4 Detailed Instructions Install JReport Designer To install JReport Designer software, take the following steps: 1. Download the JReport Designer install program jrpsetup.exe from the Jinfonet download center at 2. To install JReport Designer, you first need to register in order to obtain the evaluation key. The registration form is located at 3. After you register and obtain your evaluation key, run jrpsetup.exe and follow Installation Wizard prompts to install. Cut and paste your evaluation key into the field provided on the Wizard. Install JReport Designer in the directory C:\JReport on your hard drive. 4. See the next sub-section Set up the ODBC Data Source before running JReport Designer for the first time Set up the ODBC Data Source You need to create a data source before you can view the sample reports installed in C:\JReport\demo\reports. Note that you need to set up this data source prior to first running JReport Designer. As a prerequisite, you should have Microsoft Access ODBC Driver (or an equivalent driver) installed. When you have an ODBC driver installed, follow the steps below to create a data Page 2

5 source pointing to the JReport Designer demo database. 1. In Windows 2000, click the Start menu, choose Settings and then Control Panel. 2. Open Administrative Tools. Click Data Source (ODBC) to open the ODBC Data Source Administrator. 3. Click the Add button and select Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb). Click Finish to display the ODBC Microsoft Access Set-up dialog. Complete the dialog as shown below. 4. Click the Select button and when the Select Database dialog appears, browse to the demo database C:\JReport\demo\db\demo.mdb, as shown below. 5. Click OK on both of the above dialogs to create the data source and exit the ODBC Administrator. For more information on how to install ODBC drivers and create data sources, please refer to your Windows 2000 online help, or contact your ODBC vendor Run JReport Designer After setting up a data source, you are now ready to start JReport Designer. Page 3

6 You can run JReport Designer using either the shortcut placed on your desktop or the batch file created by the set-up program. To run the batch file: 1. From the desktop, double-click My Computer and go to C:\JReport\bin\JReport.bat. Run Jreport.bat. 2. Or, from an MS-DOS command prompt, issue the following commands: C:\>cd\jreport\bin C:\jreport\bin\>jreport View the Demo Reports JReport Designer organizes report files and related objects into catalog files. Prior to viewing, changing, or creating reports, you first need to open a catalog. A set of sample reports is provided in the catalog called Tutorial.cat during the set-up process. To open this catalog, follow the steps below. 1. Start up JReport Designer using one of the methods above. 2. On the initial Open Report dialog, make sure that the catalog in use is C:\JReport\Demo\Reports\Tutorial.cat. 3. If the catalog is not properly set, press the Browse button to select the corresponding catalog from the open dialog. 4. To view one of the sample reports, click the Existing tab and select one of the reports in the list. As you peruse the design and other elements of a report, there are three browsers you can use to inspect the report. They are as follows: Resource Viewer This viewer is organized into three tabs: Data, Reports and Styles. The Data tab diplays the query used by the current report, as well as DBFields, summaries, formulas and parameters available for the current report. Catalog Browser This viewer contains all the resources you can use to build a report. By default, the base query for this report is expanded. Data fields currently used in the report are shown with a red mark. Report Inspector This viewer displays all the objects in the current report organized into a tree structure in the top half of the Report Inspector window, with the currently selected object highlighted. The properties and values of current report objects are shown in the bottom half of the window. For most values, clicking the value will let you change it or select a new value from a dialog. Now you may proceed to Lesson 2 to learn how to design a simple report using Report Wizard. However, if you are using a database system that requires a native JDBC driver, you should follow the instructions below to properly install the JDBC driver for optimal operation of JReport Designer Set up a JDBC Driver if Necessary Note that this step pertains only to those users using a database system that requires a native JDBC driver. Page 4

7 To show you how to use JReport Designer to connect to a database via a JDBC driver, we first provide a summary of the steps needed, followed by three examples. Here are the steps: 1. Install the JDBC driver as per the instructions of the JDBC driver provider. 2. For JReport Designer, edit %installroot%\bin\jreport.bat to append the classpath for the JDBC driver. %installroot% is the path where you installed JReport Designer. 3. Connect to a database via the JDBC driver in JReport Designer as detailed below. 3. Start up JReport Designer. On the Open Report dialog, click Browse to open an existing catalog if no catalog is selected. Click the Cancel button on the Open Report dialog. 4. Click Catalog Browser on the View menu to bring up Catalog Browser. If you do not want to connect to multiple databases in one catalog, you can create a new catalog first by clicking New Catalog on the File menu. 5. Select the Default mode in Catalog Browser, then click the New DataSource button on the toolbar. Note that the first data source you connect to is named Default by JReport Designer, and cannot be modified or deleted. Provide a name for the new data source on the Input Database Name dialog to bring up the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog. 6. Uncheck Use ODBC Data Source, which is checked by default. 7. Enter the URL of the database in the JDBC URL field on the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog. For the format of the URL, please refer to the instructions included with your JDBC driver. (An example is provided in the Installing a Sybase JDBC Driver section.) 8. Enter your User Name and Password for that connection. 9. Check JDBC Driver, enter the JDBC driver class name in the JDBC Driver text box. 10. Click the OK button. The Add Table dialog box will appear. You can add tables into the catalog Example 1: Installing a Sybase JDBC Driver The following example illustrates how to connect to a Sybase database server with the name SybServer, port No. 5000, database pubs2, user ID sa, and password : 1. Install Sybase JDBC driver Jconnect.class, and run the SQL file sql_server.sql to create the JDBC metadata tables. (Please refer to the Sybase installation guide for further details.) 2. Edit %installroot% JReport\bin\JReport.bat to append the archive file of the driver to the classpath: Change:... -classpath "c:\jreport\lib\report.zip;... lib\i18n.jar"... To :... -classpath "c:\jreport\lib\report.zip;c:\jconnect\classes;... lib\i18n.jar" Connect to the database via the JDBC driver in JReport Designer. Page 5

8 4. First, click Catalog Browser on the View menu to bring up the Catalog Browser. 5. Click the New DataSource button on the toolbar, provide a name for the new data source, and click OK to bring up the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog. 6. Uncheck the check box Use ODBC Data Source and enter jdbc:sybase:tds:sybserver:5000/pubs2 in the JDBC URL field. 7. Enter the User ID sa and password Check the JDBC Driver check box. Enter the JDBC driver class name com.sybase.jdbc.sybdriver in the JDBC Driver text box. 8. Another way to specify the JDBC driver name is to edit and add the driver name to the file %InsallRoot%\bin\jdbcdrivers.properties. 9. Click the OK button. Then use the Add Table dialog to add tables into the catalog. Page 6

9 Example 2: Installing an Oracle JDBC Driver The following example illustrates how to connect to an Oracle database server with the name p02_wuhb, port No. 1521, database orcl, user ID scott, and password tiger: 1. Install Oracle JDBC driver classes111.zip. (Please refer to the Oracle installation guide for further details.) 2. Edit %installroot%jreport\bin\jreport.bat to append the archive file of Oracle thin driver to classpath: Change:... -classpath "c:\jreport\lib\report.zip;... lib\i18n.jar"... To :... -classpath "c:\jreport\lib\report.zip;c:\orc\thin\lib\classes111.zip;... lib\i18n.jar" Connect to the database via the JDBC driver in JReport Designer. 4. First, click Catalog Browser on the View menu to bring up the Catalog Browser. 5. Click the New DataSource button on the toolbar, provide a name for the new data source, and click OK to bring up the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog. 6. Uncheck the checkbox Use ODBC Data Source and enter jdbc:oracle:thin:@p02_wuhb:1521:orcl in the JDBC URL field. 7. Enter the User ID scott and password tiger. Check the JDBC Driver check box. Enter the JDBC driver class name oracle.jdbc.driver.oracledriver in the JDBC Driver text box. 8. Another way to specify the JDBC driver name is to edit and add the driver name to the file %InstallRoot%\bin\jdbcdriver properties. 9. Click the OK button, then use the Add Table dialog to add tables into the catalog Example 3: Installing an Interbase JDBC Driver The following example illustrates how to connect to an Interbase database server with the name InterbaseServer, database demo.gdb, user ID TUTORIAL, and password TUTORIAL. 1. Install Interbase JDBC driver interclient.jar. (Please refer to the Interbase client installation guide for further detail.) 2. Edit %installroot%jreport\bin\jreport.bat to append the archive file of Interbase thin driver to classpath: Change:... -classpath "c:\jreport\lib\report.zip;... lib\i18n.jar"... To :... -classpath "c:\jreport\lib\report.zip;c:\interbase\lib\interclient.jar;... lib\i18n.jar" Connect to the database via the JDBC driver in JReport Designer. 4. First, click Catalog Browser on the View menu to bring up the Catalog Browser. 5. Click the New DataSource button on the toolbar, provide a name for the new data source, and click OK to bring up the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog. 6. Uncheck the check box Use ODBC Data Source and enter jdbc:interbase://interbaseserver/c:\demo.gdb in the JDBC URL field. 7. Enter the User ID TUTORIAL and password TUTORIAL. Check the JDBC Driver check box. Enter the JDBC driver class name interbase.interclient.driver in the JDBC Driver text box. Page 7

10 8. Another way to specify the JDBC driver name is to edit and add the driver name to the file %InstallRoot%\bin\jdbcdriver properties. 9. Click the OK button, then use the Add Table dialog to add tables into the catalog. Now that your data source is all set up, you may proceed to Lesson 2 where you will learn how to design a simple report using the Report Wizard. Page 8

11 3 Lesson 2: Creating a Simple Report Using Report Wizard 3.1 Lesson Background You can build a report with JReport Designer in one of two ways: Using JReport Designer s Report Wizard, or From scratch using JReport Designer. While using the Report Wizard, JReport Designer provides you with thirteen report templates intended to simplify your reporting process. You can choose the template you like in the initial Open Report dialog. Example: Shown below is an example of a Customer Sales report. The title "Customer Sales Report" is displayed in left alignment format. Detailed customer records are grouped by Country and within each country by Region. The Sales from the previous year are totaled for each Region and for each Country. Customer Sales Report Country: USA Region: CA City Customer Name Phone Number Annual Sales Cupertino The Island Coffee (408) $98, Irvine Cafe International (714) $51, Los Gatos International Coffee Hut (650) $81, Palo Alto Automatic Java Machines (650) $74, San Francisco Cafe San Francisco (415) $67, Annual Sales Totals: <>$374, Page 9

12 Region: NY City Customer Name Phone Number Annual Sales Dix Hill The Ultimate Bean (212) $54, New York Starmug Coffee (212) $101, New York Absolute Java (212) $50, Scarsdale The Java King (914) $78, Annual Sales Totals: $284, Annual Sales Total in the USA: $659, Building a report from a database is time-consuming, but with JReport Designer, it takes a mere few minutes to compile your data into a professional-looking report. 3.2 Lesson Objective This lesson aims to show how to create a simple report with data from one table using the JReport Designer Report Wizard. 3.3 Lesson Outline The steps involved in creating a simple report using JReport Wizard are as follows: 1. Launch JReport Wizard. 2. Specify data retrieval and display. 3. Specify search criteria. 4. Specify grouping and sorting criteria. 5. Define report layout. 6. Fine-tune and finalize report. 7. Specify parameters to refine your report.. Each step is separately expanded on below. 3.4 Detailed Instructions Launch Report Wizard 1. Start JReport Designer as detailed in Lesson One. 2. When the Open Report dialog appears, use this catalog for this tutorial:c:\jreport\demo\reports\tutorial.cat, where c:\jreport is the path where you installed JReport Designer. You can use the Browse button to browse to the catalog file. 3. With the New tab active, click the Left Alignment icon to select it. Page 10

13 4. Click the Create button to launch Report Wizard Specify Data Retrieval and Display Note that the Report Form Creation Wizard dialog that appears has several tabs. The first four tabs will help you specify the source of data, specify search criteria, and select which ones to be displayed. Each tab allows you to achieve the following: Data - Select the data source from all data objects to form a working set. Joins - Join multiple tables in the default or the manual way. Conditions - Specify the criteria by which to retrieve data from the database to form the query of the report. Display - Select which fields to show in the report. 1. Data: On the Data tab, you need to first select a data source from the Catalog data source drop-down list, then choose the objects you want from the list below and place them in the Working Set list to the right. For this example, select the Default data source, as shown, and in the list below, expand the Connection item. 2. Next, click the Jinfonet data source and select the Customers table. Click the button in the center to add all fields in the table to the working set. You can also expand the table and add individual fields one by one to the working set. Page 11

14 By placing objects in the Working Set, you are implicitly instructing JReport Designer to create a query, which will retrieve all the data you will need for the report. 3. Joins: Skip the Joins tab, since the report we are creating is a one-table report. 4. Conditions: Click on the Conditions tab. Here the table(s) you selected is shown. You can add search conditions in the grid below. 5. You can type your search criteria in the format of either AND or QBE. AND: If you select the AND format, a search expression will appear on the screen, which enables you to type your search criteria. The expression includes not only the DBField selected, but also formulas and parameters. You can also manually type the strings supported by the database. QBE: If you select the QBE (Query By Example) format, a template resembling the data record appears. All data fields are displayed. To specify search criteria, you need only to enter information to restrict your search to the specified criteria. NOTE: a. In the QBE format, the column name may not show completely. For example, the column name "Customers_Country" above is cut off and shows only "Customers_Cou". To show the full column name, move the mouse cursor onto the line between the two columns until the cursor becomes a double-headed arrow, then drag the line across to expand the column and column name. b. You can adjust the order of the column. Move the mouse cursor on the column name, press the left button of the mouse, and drag the column to the place you want. Page 12

15 6. Here we want to compare the sales in California and New York. Therefore, select QBE, and type the conditions shown in the screen graphic above. Once finished, click the View SQL button to preview the SQL statement about your selection query so far. 7. Display: Click on the Display tab. Usually not all fields from a query need to be visible in a report. Therefore, you should indicate which fields to display by selecting objects from the working set and adding them to the list on the right. 8. For this example, select: City, Customer Name, Phone, Fax, and Annual Sales to display in the report. NOTE: You can remove selected fields using the backwards-arrow button,or change their order using Up and Down buttons or displayed above the list to the right. Page 13

16 3.4.3 Specify Grouping and Sorting Criteria Records in a report are usually organized into groups based on certain criteria. With the Group and Sort tabs you can enter the criteria to define multi-level groups. You can also specify the ordering of groups and sorting of records within each group. 1. Group: Click the Group tab. 2. To follow the example shown, group the data by selecting Country and then Region. Note: The arrows in the Direction field indicate the sorting sequence of the groups. You can choose from descending order (c,b,a), ascending order (a,b,c) or specify a special ordering criteria. Page 14

17 3. Sort: Next you can sort records within the groups you created by clicking the Sort tab and selecting the sorting fields. Highlight the field you want and use the arrow button to move it to the right. Here, choose the City field to sort the records, as shown below. Page 15

18 3.4.4 Specify Summary Functions 1. Summary: Click the Summary tab to specify summary functions. 2. To generate a total sales amount for each Region group, select Annual Sales, then click to move the selected field to Source Fields. The Function drop-down list allows you to select a summary function like sum, count, minimum, maximum. Select Sum for this example to see a total of Annual Sales. The Sum function is computed when Break Field changes value at the end of a group. Clicking the Region field will cause a sum to be created for each Region group. 3. To generate a total sum of annual sales in the Country, move Annual Sales to Source Fields again, select the Sum function for it. Leaving Break Fields empty, you can see Grandtotal in the Style column; JReport Designer will calculate the total annual sales for the country. Page 16

19 3.4.5 Define Report Layout 1. Style: Click the Style tab to specify page orientation and set-up for your report. 2. Make the entries shown below Finish and Fine-Tune Report When you click Finish, the report is generated and displayed in the Design mode. When this report Design window appears, you can make any adjustment you like to the report layout. Editing Report Layout: You can make some edits here in Design mode. A simple way to edit your report is by dragging and dropping report objects, and clicking open tools from the Tool bar and the Menu bar. In the Design mode, first highlight the object you want to edit by clicking it. When the cursor becomes a cross, you can then move the highlighted object by dragging and dropping. You can also make edits using the Report Inspector, available from the Standard Toolbar or from the View menu. Report Inspector can be used to examine and change objects in the report. Highlight objects in Report Inspector to change the property of the object such as font, size, or color. For more information, please refer to the JReport Designer User's Guide/Refining the Report Layout/Report Inspector. Page 17

20 1. Click Finish to generate your report. Shown below is part of the report as it appears in Design mode. For this example, manually move the column names from the PageHeader section to the second GroupHeader section, and move Report Title to the PageHeader section. After the editing, your report may appear as follows in Design mode: Page 18

21 2. View: Click on the View tab to run your report and view it. What you will see is still a rough copy of your report. 3. Now you are ready to fine-tune your report and give it a professional look. Remember, Report Wizard provides you with a quick start but JReport Designer provides a wealth of tools for you to adjust the report to your preference. Use Report Inspector to change font, size, position, and other variables. 4. Do not forget that you can also move items in the Design mode. Try to insert labels and texts and place objects in headers/footers. Work on the details to finetune your report presentation Specify Parameters to Refine Reports Specifying parameters while running reports allows you greater flexibility in refining your report display and layout. For instance, you may want to input an order date as an input parameter so that only orders on that date will be displayed. Typically, parameters are used as part of the query conditions (search criteria) so that only records satisfying that parameter will be retrieved to become part of the report. This sub-section details how to specify a parameter to refine your report layout. 1. Select DBField from the Insert menu list, and then on the Insert DBField dialog that appears, select the Parameters tab. Page 19

22 Or, on the Edit toolbar, click the Insert Parameter button directly. 2. Click on the New button to create a new parameter. Page 20

23 3. The Create Parameter window should appear, as shown below. The example parameter below allows the last person who edited the report to place his or her name on the report. 4. To set up this parameter, in the Parameter Name text box, type in a name for your parameter. We chose "Editor" for this example. In the Prompting Text area, enter the message: "Please type in the name of the last person who edited." Note: You can create a one-line statement only. 5. The Value Type should be left as String. This allows the parameter to remain the same as text. (There are other Value Types, appropriate for other uses. For more, please see JReport Designer User Reference/JReport Objects/Parameter.) 6. Finally, place a default entry in the Default Prompt Value field so that you have a format to follow. We chose "John Smith" since our parameter deals with name. 7. Click OK to finish. 8. On the refreshed Insert DBField dialog that appears, select the new parameter and click the Insert button to place the parameter in your report. Page 21

24 9. Click on the View tab to view your report. The following window should appear when you view the report. You can type in any text in the field shown. Clicking the Default button will change the value back to its original value. (In this case, that value is John Smith.) 10. Click OK. The final outcome of your report should be as shown below. In the Design mode: Page 22

25 In the View mode: For further instruction on how to utilize JReport Designer s many features to create a more polished report, see the next lesson, Lesson Three, Creating a Sophisticated Report Using Report Wizard. Page 23

26 4 Lesson 3: Creating a Sophisticated Report Using Report Wizard 4.1 Lesson Background In the last lesson, you learned how to create a simple report in Report Wizard using a single table from the database. In this lesson you will learn how to create a more detailed report in Report Wizard using data from several tables, and also learn how to format and fine-tune it for a sophisticated presentation in print or on the Web. Example: Shown below is a sample standard report using data from multiple tables. Jinfonet Gourmet Java 03/07/2001 Bill to: Washington Java Order ID# Edward Lane Order Date 1/2/98 Washington D.C Shipping VIA DRY Shipping Co. Product Name Category Price Quantity (lbs) Discount Total Chocolate Hazelnut Flavored $ $0.00 $ French Vanilla Flavored $ $0.00 $ French Roasted Roasted $ $20.00 $ Irish Cream Flavored $ $0.00 $ Mocha Java Straights & Blends $ $0.00 $ Vienna Roast Roasted $ $0.00 $95.00/td> Subtotal $1, Shipping $99.00 Tax $77.75 Total Order Amount $ This report can be created in JReport Designer by adding fields from the Customers, Products, Orders, and Order Detail tables found in the demo database. Subtotals, Taxes and Total Order Amount are calculated using the formula and summary objects of JReport Designer. Page 24

27 4.2 Lesson Objective This lesson aims to show how to use Report Wizard to create and print a sophisticated report using multiple tables. Before going through the step-by-step process of creating the report for this lesson, you may want to first examine the fully executed report titled lesson3 which can be found in the Tutorial catalog file. This lesson also assumes that you have gone through the previous lesson in this Tutorial, Lesson Two. 4.3 Lesson Outline The steps involved in creating a sophisticated report using multiple tables are as follows: 1. Create a simple report with multiple tables (using Report Wizard). 2. Format and edit the rough report. 3. Add color to the report. 4. Add images to the report. 5. Add and edit formulas and summaries. 6. Format fields. 7. Print and export to HTML. Each step is separately expanded on below. Page 25

28 4.4 Detailed Instructions Create a Simple Report Using Multiple Tables 1. Start JReport Designer as detailed in Lesson One. 2. Launch Report Wizard, and create a new report using the Standard template, as detailed in Lesson Two. 3. On the Data tab of Report Wizard, select Customers, Products, Orders, and Orders Detail tables for the working set. 4. Click the Joins tab, and manually join fields by dragging and dropping fields together. Join fields as detailed below: Orders Detail_Order ID = Orders_Order ID Orders_Customer ID = Customers_Customer ID Orders Detail_Product ID = Products_Product ID Note: For more information on the Join feature, please refer to JReport Designer User s Guide/Developing Reports with Report Wizard/Join Tab. Page 26

29 5. Click open the Conditions tab. Choose QBE. Type >3010 in the Order ID column of the Orders table, as shown, to view order IDs greater than Note: For more information on the Conditions feature, please see Lesson Two, or refer to JReport Designer User s Guide/Developing Reports with Report Wizard/Conditions Tab. 6. Click the Display tab. Select the following fields from the following tables: Customers Table: Customer Name Products Table: Product Name, Category Orders Table: Shipping Cost, Order Date, Ship Via Orders Detail Table: Unit Price, Quantity, Discount 7. Click the Group tab. For this example, group the data by Orders_Order ID, which means you will keep data with the same Orders_Order ID together in one group. Choose Orders_Order ID to group by this field in ascending order. 8. Skip Sort, Summary, Other, and Style tabs. Click Finish to generate the report. Page 27

30 4.4.2 Format and Edit the Rough Report 1. Your report design so far may appear as follows: This is a rough layout and far from the polished report you would like to have. With JReport Designer, it is easy to format this report and give it a professional look. 2. First picture where you want the data. Do you want to put the ordering information in the group header and summary in the group footer? Draw a rough sketch of your report on paper to clearly envision the layout. 3. Start by editing the system-generated field labels into user-friendly, readable labels. Use the mouse to select a label. You can edit the label directly by double-clicking it. Resize, drag, and drop labels to make them look the way you want. 4. The example below can be used as a guide to organize fields. Use the View tab frequently to examine the progress of your design. Page 28

31 4.4.3 Add Color to the Report Plain text can often look boring. JReport Designer provides the option of changing the background and foreground color of any object. 1. Make sure all label objects are aligned as in the example shown above. 2. Note that you can change object properties for each object. Click on an object to highlight it and display its property values in Report Inspector. You can manually adjust any value. For example, you can specify the width of a field with a high degree of precision by entering the exact number of pixels. 3. Select the label field Product Name. Go to the Report Inspector and under Color select Background. Choose dark blue. Next, under Color, select Foreground, and choose white. 4. The result of your color selection will display instantly on the screen, as shown below: 5. Repeat Step 3 to highlight and resize other labels. Try to make your highlights look like the highlights in the graphic below: Note: A quicker way to change colors is to click and drag the mouse and define a box that selects all the objects at once. Then use Report Inspector to change the color for all objects at one time. Page 29

32 4.4.4 Add Images to the Report Adding an image to the report is a very simple task. 1. From the main Design window, go to the Insert menu and select Image. 2. Select a GIF or JPEG file located in the Catalog directory. For this example, use the image file Coffee.jpg under the Catalog directory. 3. Place the image in the upper right corner (or anywhere else) on the report. You may resize it as necessary by dragging the handles or by using Report Inspector Add and Edit Formulas and Summaries Formulas and Summaries can streamline your data and present totals to give meaning to your report. This sub-section details how to define formulas and summaries in Catalog Browser and add them to the report. 1. Note that the example invoice report has the following components: A Billing Address The Total Unit Cost for each Product ordered The Total Cost of all the Products ordered or Subtotal The Shipping Charge and Tax The Total Cost of the Invoice 2. Let's first add the Billing Address. A typical address contains the street, city, country, and postal code. The components are usually concatenated to form the full address. Care must be taken to skip the missing components and trim off excess blanks. In JReport Designer this can be done using Formula. The Tutorial catalog provides two predefined formulas called Customeraddress12 and city_state_postcode (see the table below) to format the address. 3. To access the formula editor from Catalog Browser, first select the View menu, and choose the Catalog Browser item to bring up the Catalog Browser. 4. Then click the Data Tab, expand Formulas and right-click on either Customeraddress12 or city_state_postcode. Select Edit Formula to bring up the Formula Editor. The examples are self-explanatory. A precise syntax definition is available for your reference, as shown below. 5. Customeraddress12 6. city_state_postcode 7. if ( ) else if ( ) + ", " 8. if ( ) ) { trim(@"region") + ", " + trim(@"postal Code") } else if ( ) ) { trim(@"city") + ", " + trim(@"postal Code") } else { trim(@"city") + ", " + trim(@"region") + ", " + trim(@"postal Code") } Page 30

33 5. To insert a formula, double-click the formula. You will enter the Insert mode which will allow you to place the formula anywhere in the report. Double-click the formula Customeraddress12 and place it under the Customer Name section. 6. Next, go back to Catalog Browser, and double-click on city_state_postcode. Place this formula under the Customeraddress12 formula in the Design window. Delete the labels that come with these formulas. 7. Total Unit Cost: The next step is to figure out the Total Unit Cost for each product. In Catalog Browser, double-click Formulas, and right-click Total. Select Edit Formula. You should see a menu appear as shown in the screen graphic below. 8. Enter the formula as shown, with Unit Price, Quantity and Discount preceded by sign as the three field names of the Orders Detail table. This formula calculates the total by multiplying the Unit Price by Quantity and subtracting the Discount. Note: If you double-click the field names to select them under Connection/jdbc:odbc:Jinfonet/Tables..., then the sign will be automatically added. If you manually type the sign to introduce the field name, make sure you add the table name before the field name so as to distinguish the common field name. As a general precaution, it is recommended that you run the Check feature to correct syntax errors by clicking on the Check button each time you create a formula. 9. Click the Check button to make sure this formula has no syntax errors. If everything is correct, click OK. 10. Next, double-click on Total. Place this formula next to the Discount field as shown below. Because the total will be computed once for each Detail item, make sure that the field is located within the Detail section and the label is placed within the Group Header section. Add colors as you did in the section titled "Adding Color to the Report". 11. Total Cost or Subtotal: To calculate the total cost for all products, you will need a summary function. Summary functions are used to compute aggregated detail values. Page 31

34 Select View/Catalog Browser to bring up Catalog Browser and double-click on the Summary to reveal all existing summary functions. Right-click on Subtotal and select Edit Summary. 12. Notice how the summary works. The function Sum takes the values from the formula total applied to a group of detail records defined by identical Order_Orders ID. You can edit the summary function by selecting fields from the Resource and clicking the arrow button. Note that the break field you choose must be the same exact field you grouped your report by at the very start of using Report Wizard. 13. Now close the Summary Editor dialog. Go back to Catalog Browser, and double-click on Subtotal. Place this summary function in the Group Footer at the bottom as shown below. 14. Tax: The next formula to set in place is Tax. Bring up Catalog Browser and double-click on formula. Select tax, right-click and select Edit Formula to see the formula: (@Subtotal+@"Shipping cost") * Click OK. Double-click on tax and place the formula under the shipping formula in the Group Footer section, as shown below. 15. Total Amount/Total Cost of the Invoice:The last formula to be placed is the Total Amount of the Subtotal plus shipping cost and tax. In Catalog Browser, double-click the Page 32

35 Formulas and select formula TotalAmount (if there is no such formula, then create one). Right-click and select Edit Formula to see the cost" Click the Check button to verify the formula. Click OK. Double-click on the formula and place it in the Group Footer section under the tax formula, as shown below. 16. You have now completed defining all formulas and summary functions for your invoice Format Fields JReport Designer allows you to control the look and feel of your final report by allowing you to specify the result format for various field types including cost data and dates. To format some cost and date fields, do the following: 1. First, activate Report Inspector (from the View menu or Standard toolbar). Then, highlight the field Unit Price in the Detail Panel. Next, in Report Inspector, find TextFormat and click Format. In the drop-down menu that appears, as shown below, select $#,##0.00 which specifies a leading $ sign and the required comma and decimal places commonly used for currency. Page 33

36 2. Continue this formatting for all other cost data such as total, Subtotal, shipping cost, tax and TotalAmount. 3. Similar format changes can be made for dates. Select any date field, and select the format MM-dd-yy in Report Inspector Finish and Fine-Tune the Report To see what your report looks like, note that you can move between Design and View modes at any time while you format and fine-tune your report design. To fine-tune your report a little further, do the following: 1. Begin by changing label names to user-friendly names. 2. Move data and titles to areas on the report you consider more appropriate. 3. Delete unnecessary headers and footers by first selecting the area and right-clicking your mouse to reveal a menu. Then click on Hide to get rid of the unwanted section. 4. Create a separate invoice for each client, since invoice pages usually show only one order. Since the report is grouped on Order_ID, you can simply make each group occupy a separate page. To do this, click the background area of the Group Footer to select the section. Bring up Report Inspector. Scroll down till you see a section called Others. Under that section, find FillWholePage and select true in the drop-down list. This function will "fill" the entire page with the section you highlight. 5. Our report looked like this in its final stage: In the Design mode: Page 34

37 And, in the View mode: Page 35

38 4.4.8 Print and Export to HTML Once your report is finished, you can either store it as an electronic file, print it, or place it on the Web. This sub-section illustrates how to print your report and how to export it to HTML so that you can place it on the Web Print the Report To print your report, select File and Print. The report will be printed at your default printer Export Report to HTML JReport Designer offers a compact HTML conversion feature which allows you to easily transport your files onto the Web. To convert your report to HTML, do the following: 1. Under File, go to Export, and select To HTML. The following Web Wizard dialog should appear. 2. Report: On the Report tab, under Web Page Name, type in a name. Otherwise, JReport will use the report name as the default HTML file name. Since JReport Designer adds the extension *.html automatically, you do not need to add an extension to your report name. 3. Multifile, Single File: On the Report tab, two options for conversion are provided, Multifile and Single File, with Multifile selected by default. This means that by default, Page 36

39 JReport Designer will convert the report into multiple files. A serial number will be designated for each HTML page. For example, if you named your three-page report Sales, JReport Designer will create three files named Sales_1.html, Sales_2.html, and Sales_3.html. By clicking the radio button beside Single File, you can choose instead to export the report into one single file. 4. Table Format: When you decide to export your report, you hope to convert it as it appears in the Design window. On the Report tab, the Table Format check box under Parameters records whether you will use the <TABLE> tag to convert the report result or not. By checking the Table Format box, you choose to use the <TABLE> tag. NOTE: JReport Designer supports the using of both the <DIV> tag and the <TABLE> tag, in order to keep and display data in a structured table format in HTML. It is recommended that you select Table Format and the <TABLE> tag for the following reason: The <DIV> tag, which describes the style (left and top co-ordinates) of the content in order to precisely locate it in a page is newly released by HTML 4.0. The commonly used browsers Internet Explorer and Netscape cannot always interpret <DIV> well. As a result, the designated position of an object in a page is often changed when displayed in IE or Netscape. The <TABLE> tag instructs the browser to organize data in a row-and-column table arrangement. This method cannot precisely locate the objects in a page, but it is wellsupported by commonly used Web browsers and can be interpreted correctly. 6. Please also be advised of the following when using the Table Format option to export to HTML: When you choose Table Format, if two objects overlap, JReport Designer will discard one object. Also, any geometric object (lines, boxes, arcs, etc.) will be discarded. Therefore, it is recommended that, with Table Format, you also choose the "Snap To Grid" option when you design your report to get a satisfactory result in HTML. This is because of an inbuilt spacing constraint. Since defining cell unit (size) as one pixel in width and one pixel in height would result in files becoming extremely large, we use the default size of the grid in JReport Designer to define the cell size of the table. It is not recommended that you change the default grid size in JReport Designer, as we cannot guarantee a satisfactory result in that case. Page 37

40 5. Directory: On the Directory tab, you can specify the directory in which you want the HTML files to be saved. Otherwise, JReport Designer will use a default directory. Page 38

41 6. ChartApplet: On the ChartApplet tab, you are offered the option of displaying interactive charts in your report in HTML format. By default, JReport will not show charts in HTML, so if you want such images to be seen, select Embed chart applet. 7. Note: It is recommended that you read the contents on the Note Tab before you convert your report to HTML format. Page 39

42 8. Use Previous and Next buttons to move back and forward in the Web Wizard to change or check your conversion selections. 9. When you are satisfied with your selections, click the Finish button to convert your report to HTML. 10. You can now test your exported HTML file(s) by opening each in a Web browser. Page 40

43 5 Lesson 4: Creating Special Reports 5.1 Lesson Background Tutorial lessons so far have shown you how to create standard reports, using the Standard Template. JReport Designer can also help you create special reports, by building dynamic and exciting formats for you. In this lesson, you will explore some of these special report formats. 5.2 Lesson Objective This lesson aims to show how to create and print special reports, principally focusing on four types of reports: Form Letters, Charts and Graphs, Cross Tab Reports, and Sub-Reports. 5.3 Lesson Outline The creation of each special report is detailed in a separate sub-section, as follows: 1. Create a Form Letter. 2. Create Charts and Graphs. 3. Create a Cross Tab Report. 4. Create a Sub-Report. Each sub-section offers step-by-step instructions. 5.4 Detailed Instructions Create a Form Letter Form letters allow you to create standard, pre-defined letters with great ease. Example: Shown below is a sample form letter. Jinfonet Gourmet Java August 18, Hathaway Road Rockville, MD Absolute Java Atwood Drive New York City, NY 1004 Dear Mr. Smith, The current statement displays your account at our company. Your bill comes out to be $ Thank you for making your coffee purchases with Jinfonet Gourmet Java. Sincerely, Jinfonet Gourmet Java This is a letter to a single customer. If you wish to apprise a thousand different customers of their individual account balances, you can use JReport Designer to send the same letter to all customers, making use of fields to transfer specific account balance and name data from your database into each letter. Page 41

44 Take the following steps to create a form letter: 1. Assuming that you have connected your database as in Lesson One, start JReport Designer, and select the Standard icon on the New tab in the Open Report dialog. Click the Create button. The Report Form Creation Wizard should appear, with the Data tab selected. 2. Assuming that you have completed Lessons Two and Three, take the following steps on each tab to create a form letter. 3. Data: Select the Customers table located under Connection/JDBC:ODBC: Jinfonet/Tables and place it in the working set. 4. Conditions: Select QBE. Under the Country column, type USA, and under Region, type CA (1st row) and NY (2nd row). In this example, you will send statements to customers only in these two states. Note: While inputting conditions in the QBE format, you can take a typing shortcut. If you wish, for instance, to filter data in USA, you can just type USA instead of ='USA' under the Country column. JReport Designer will automatically format USA to ='USA'. 5. Display: Under Tables, select Customer Name. Under Formulas, select Customer_Address12 and city_state_postcode. Note that we are using Formula here to combine the address components from several fields into a two-line address. 6. Group: Add the Customers_Country and Customers_Region fields from the working set. 7. Sort: Add the Customers_City field. 8. Click the Finish button to generate the report. 9. The next step is to insert the letter body by means of a text object while in the Design mode. So, in the Design mode, click the Insert Text button. Or, from the Insert menu, select the Text item. Insert the text box in the Detail section. Next, double-click the text box, and in the blank area, type in the following: The current statement displays your account at our company. Your bill comes out to be 10. After the word "be," insert DBField by clicking the Insert DBField button or selecting the Insert/DBField menu item. Select the Annual Sales field from the Customer table and click on the Insert button. Then, adjust the size of the DBField so that it fits accurately into the grid. Continue typing in the blank area of the text box. Enter this statement: Thank you for making your coffee purchases with Jinfonet Gourmet Java. Page 42

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46 11. Your completed statement should read as follows: The current statement displays your account at our company. Your bill comes out to be $#,##0.00. Thank you for making your coffee purchases with Jinfonet Gourmet Java. Note that the Annual Sales field you inserted is represented by a format item $#,## The next step is to change field properties, as discussed earlier in Lesson Three. Highlight the field you inserted in your Form Letter. This will bring up the properties of the field just as Report Inspector does. You can now change the properties of the field. In this mode, you can, for example, delete a field if unwanted or adjust its size and position. Similarly, text can be highlighted to show its properties. 13. Your rough letter should appear as follows: 14. The final step is to put finishing touches on the form letter. If you have completed Lessons Two and Three, you are already accustomed to moving fields, changing fonts, and inserting objects. If you would like to change the format of your field from #,##0,### to another format such as $#,##0.00, double-click on the text box. Now highlight the field and view Report Inspector. Under the TextFormat, go to Format. From the drop-down list, select the appropriate format. 15. When your letter is completed, it should appear as follows: In the Design mode: Page 44

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48 In the View mode: 16. You have now successfully created a form letter report. 17. For another example of a form letter, select and explore the report formletter.cls in the Tutorial.cat catalog file. You may also peruse Lesson4a.cls for further information on the form letter you have just created Create a Chart and Graph Report Charts and graphs (such as pie charts or bar graphs) create graphical views intended to help you visualize the relationships between quantitative data in a report. This sub-section will show you how to create and place charts and graphs in your reports. To create and use a sample chart, take the following steps: 1. Select the Left Alignment icon on the New tab in the Choose Report dialog. 2. Assuming that you have completed Lessons Two and Three, take the following steps on each tab in order to build the basic structure for your report. 3. Data: Select the Customers table located under Connection/JDBC:ODBC: Jinfonet/Tables and place it in the working set. 4. Conditions: Select QBE. Under the Country column, type USA, and under Region, type CA (1st row), NY (2nd row), GA (3rd row), MD (4th row) and TX (5th row). 5. Display: Under Tables, select Customer Name and Annual Sales. 6. Group: Add the Customers_Country and Customers_Region fields from the working set. 7. Summary: Under Field, select Annual Sales, under Function select Sum, and under Breakfield select Customers_Region. Since you chose Annual Sales for the summary, your chart will now display graphical analysis of this data. 8. Now you can finish building your report by clicking the Finish button. Page 46

49 9. The next step is to insert the chart while in the Design mode. So, in the Design mode, select Chart on the Insert menu, or click the Insert Chart button on the Edit toolbar. The following dialog should appear: 10. You can select any of the graph formats from the group above. Refer to the User Reference section of the manual for more information on each type of graph. For this lesson, choose 3D Bars (Side by Side). 11. Next, click the Report Data tab. The Graph Position will place the graph in the specific location you choose (Detail, Group Header/Footer, etc.). To view results within the country (USA), select Customer_Country from the drop-down list, and check the Footer radio button to place your graph in the Group Footer. Page 47

50 12. Select the summary Sum_Annual Sales2 under Customers_Region and add it to the Show Data list. JReport Designer will add the DBField Customers_Region to the Group Names list automatically, as shown below. 13. Click the OK button. Make any other adjustments to modulate the appearance of your chart. When you are done, your report should appear as follows: Page 48

51 Page 49

52 14. You are now ready to do some final editing. A tip here is that if you first double-click the graph, then click on the graph and drag the mouse, you can rotate the graph. This facility is available only for 3D graphs such as the 3D Bars and the Pie Chart. 15. You can also add a title to the chart. To do this, select the chart platform and right-click the mouse. Click the Add Label item on the pop-up menu and a label will be displayed in the top left corner. To format the label, select the label and use Report Inspector to change label properties. Or select the label and right-click for a menu. Click Format Label to bring up the Chart Label dialog. Change the following properties to the following values: Text: Graphical Analysis of Annual Sales FontFace: Verdana FontStyle: Bold FontColor: 0x0000c0 16. Note: The graph you see in the Design mode will not be identical to the one in the View mode. Do not worry if there are values that do not make sense in the Design area. They are only there so that you can get a sense of how your chart will finally appear. 17. Your final chart should appear as follows: In the View mode (First Page of the report) Page 50

53 In the View mode (Last Page of the report) 18. You have now successfully created a chart and graph report. 19. For another example of a chart and graph report, select and explore the report salestrend.cls in the Tutorial.cat catalog file. You may also peruse Lesson4b.cls for further information on the chart and graph report you have just created Create a Cross Tab Report A Cross Tab is a tabular report object that summarizes and presents data in a compact row-andcolumn format to facilitate quick visual comparisons and trend identifications. Below is an example of a Cross Tab object. This sub-section will show you how to create a Cross Tab report. To create a sample Cross Tab report, take the following steps: Page 51

54 1. Assuming that you have connected your database as detailed in Lesson One, start JReport Designer and select the Cross-Tab icon on the New tab in the Open Report dialog. Click on the Create button. The Report Form Creation Wizard appears. 2. Assuming that you have completed Lessons Two and Three, take the following steps on each tab in order to build the basic structure for your report. 3. Data: Select the Customers, Products, Orders Detail, and Orders tables under Connection/JDBC:ODBC: Jinfonet/Tables and place it in the working set. 4. Joins: Join the tables manually as follows: Orders_Order ID = Orders Detail_Order ID, Orders_Customer ID = Customers_Customer ID, Orders Detail_Product ID = Products_Product ID. 5. Conditions: Select QBE. Under the Country column, type USA, and under Region, type CA. 6. Click on the Cross Tab tab. The following dialog should appear: 7. Note that the Fields menu lists the working set you created. You can select any of the fields or formulas on this menu. Select Customer Name under the Customers table, then click to place your field in the row section of the Cross Tab. Next, select Category under the Products table, and click section. to place your field in the column Page 52

55 8. Select Price under the Products table and click to place the Price field in the Aggregations menu. Next, highlight the Price field under the Aggregations menu. Click the Average function beside Price. This drop-down list lists all the functions you can use for your fields in the Aggregations menu. Select the Sum function for the Price field, as shown below. Next, repeat this step to select the Annual Sales field under the Customer table and apply the Sum function to the field. Page 53

56 9. Next, highlight the Customer Name field under the Rows menu. Select the palette box beside the field to display a drop-down color palette, as shown below: Clicking on Customer will open the palette for more colors. For this example, select Dark Blue. Repeat this step for the Category field under the Columns menu. 10. Now you can finish building your report by clicking the Finish button. Your report should appear as follows: 11. You are now ready to do some final editing and fine-tuning. Page 54

57 12. As a final step, create a label for your summarized fields since JReport Designer does not automatically generate a label for these fields. 13. Your final report should appear as follows: In the Design mode: In the View mode: 14. You have now successfully created a cross-tab report. Page 55

58 5.4.4 Create a Sub-Report In JReport Designer, a report is termed a sub-report when it is inserted into another report, termed the primary report. There is no structural difference between the sub-report and the primary report. A sub-report can be stand-alone, i.e., it can be run separately like a normal report, or it can include another sub-report. You can create a sub-report object in one of two ways: Use the Sub-Report Report Wizard. Click the Insert/Subreport menu item.or click the Insert Subreport button on the Edit toolbar. This sub-section will show you how to create a report with a sub-report object using Report Wizard. The report you will create will list all employee names with salaries lower than a group average salary. To create this report, take the following steps: 1. Start by creating the sub-report. Assuming that you have completed Lesson Two, take the following steps on each tab to create a standard report for use as the sub-report. Name the report SalaryList.cls. 2. Data: Select the Employee table under Connection/JDBC:ODBC:Jinfonet/Tables and add it to the working set. 3. Display: Add Employee Name, Employee_Employee ID, Last Name, First Name, Position, Hire Date, and Salary fields into the report. 4. Select the Subreport icon under the New tab on the Open Report dialog. Click on the Create button, and the Report Form Creation Wizard appears. 5. Now create the primary report Assuming that you have completed Lessons Two and Three, take the following steps on each tab. 6. Data: Select the Employee table under Connection/JDBC:ODBC:Jinfonet/Tables and add it to the working set. The set query name is Lesson4d. 7. Group: On the Group tab, add the Reports To field from the working set. 8. Summary: On the Summary tab, add the aggregate Average function to Salary, and break by Reports To. Page 56

59 9. Click on the Subreport tab. The following dialog should appear: 10. On this Subreport dialog, Style indicates the type of report selected. Section displays the section where the sub-report will appear. To fill the field Choose a report, click the Browse button to select the report SalaryList.cls as sub-report. Links delineate the relationship between the primary report and the sub-report. When you build a link, JReport Designer will match up all records with equal relationships within the sub-report and the primary report. 11. Create two links: "Reports to = Reports to", and "Average_Salary2 >= Salary". Select the field "Report to" in the Field in main report box, click to add the field to the Links table. In the Links table, choose the operator " = " from the OP drop-down list. Then select the field "Report to" in the Fields (Subreport) drop-down list. Create the second link "Average_Salary2 >= Salary" in the same way. Page 57

60 12. Click the Finish button to generate the report. Your final report will appear as follows in the Design mode: 13. Edit the report as follows: Select the Detail section, then go to Report Inspector, and set property Invisible to be true. Place the subreport in the GroupHeader section. Delete the column name "Salary" in PageHeader. Select the field Salary, and change format #,##0.### to $#,##0.0# in Report Inspector. Also change the format of summary field Average_Salary2 to $#,##0.0#. Finally, select the subreport "SalaryList.cls", and set background to light gray in Report Inspector. 14. Now the report in Design mode should appear as follows: Page 58

61 15. In the View mode, the report should appear as follows: 16. You have now successfully created a sub-report within a primary report. For instruction on how to utilize JReport Designer s features to create a different kind of special report, a columnar report, see the next lesson, Lesson Five, Creating a Columnar Report. Page 59

62 6 Lesson 5: Creating a Columnar Report 6.1 Lesson Background The term columnar report refers to a horizontally-aligned report, where header fields are displayed by row rather than by column, and record data is grouped by column. JReport Designer offers the option of creating columnar displays for all reports. Example: Shown below is an example of a columnar report. EMPLOYEE INFORMATION Employee ID First Name Laurena Jonathan Jerenny Jennifer Last Name Croft Hopkins Miner Lee Position Sale Representative Sale Representative Marketing Vice President Hire Date 09/12/ /03/ /19/ /09/1981 Home Phone ( 301) ( 301) (410) (703) Lesson Objective This lesson aims to show how to create a columnar report. 6.3 Lesson Outline The steps involved in creating a columnar report are as follows: 1. Launch the Hblank feature of Report Wizard. 2. Create a columnar report template. 3. Fill the columnar report template. 4. Fine-tune the report. Each step is detailed below in a separate sub-section. Also included is a note on columnar report limits, at the end of the lesson. Page 60

63 6.4 Detailed Instructions Launch the Hblank Feature The first step in creating a columnar report is to launch the special JReport Designer feature, Hblank, an extension of Report Wizard. 1. Assuming that you have connected your database as detailed in Lesson One, start JReport and select the HBlank icon under the New tab in the Choose Report dialog. Click on the Create button. 2. The following Hblank window should appear. Page 61

64 6.4.2 Create a Columnar Report Template 1. Assuming that you have completed Lessons Two and Three, take the following steps on each tab to create a columnar report template. 2. Data: Select the Employee table under Connection/JDBC:ODBC:Jinfonet/Tables and place it in the working set. 3. Conditions: Select QBE, and under the Employee_Employee ID column, type < Click the Finish button to generate the report. You will find that all sections are aligned horizontally, as shown below: Page 62

65 6.4.3 Fill the Columnar Report Template 1. Select Label from the Insert menu, and place the label in the ReportHeader section. Double-click the label to edit it, and type "Employee Information." Modify the font and resize the label to fully display label text. 2. Click the Insert DBField button on the Edit toolbar to access the Insert DBfield dialog box, and select the fields Employ_Employee ID, First Name, Last Name, Position, Hire Date, Home Phone (use the Ctrl key to select multiple fields). Click to check the Vertical layout radio button, then click the Insert button to insert all fields into the Detail section. Page 63

66 3. Your report should appear as follows: Fine-Tune the Report 1. Select the Report Header section and open Report Inspector. Set the property Underlay to be true. This will align the title Employee Information with the data. 2. Your report should now appear as follows: In the View mode: 3. You have now successfully created a columnar report. For instruction on how to utilize JReport Designer to create a report using data from an external data source, see the next lesson, Lesson Six, Creating a Report with the User Data Source (UDS) API. Page 64

67 6.5 Note on Columnar Report Limits Currently, the columnar report feature has the following limitations: Fields and objects cannot cross pages. That is to say, you cannot set the section property CanCrossPage = true. And you cannot insert an object, such as a cross-tab object, which will cross pages into your report. If you try to, the generated report will look incomplete. Other normally-aligned reports can be inserted as sub-report objects into a columnar report only if they do not cross pages. If they do cross pages, sub-report contents will be cut off and the report will look incomplete. In order to support the generation of mailing label reports, there is a property named TileDetailSection for use in the Detail section. However, this property does not work in a columnar report, and cannot be set to be true here. Some properties of fields such as AutoFit and WordWrap do not work here. Page 65

68 7 Lesson 6: Creating a Report with the User Data Source (UDS) API 7.1 Lesson Background As a database application, JReport Designer can always access data stored in a database through the JDBC connection. Now, through a User Data Source (UDS) Application Program Interface (API), JReport Designer can also access data from an external data source (such as a text file or a Lotus Notes file) not stored in a database, or when no JDBC driver is available. The UDS API is essentially a Java interface that provides a data set to JReport Designer, and is a part of the JReport Data Access Model as shown in this diagram: The User Data Source API has two methods you need to implement. Below is the Java code for class definition: public class SQLDataSource implements JRUserDataSource { // Define data. public ResultSet getresultset(string param) throws JRUserDataSourceException { // Method body. } } /** * Free the resources such as : Connection, Statement, ResultSet. */ public void releaseresultset() throws JRUserDataSourceException { // Method body. } Page 66

69 The parameter string param can be changed when the UDS object is added to JReport Designer. The result set may be different according to the PARAMETER string. The User Data Source API has been designed to be flexible and convenient for users. 7.2 Lesson Objective This lesson aims to show how to create a report with data from an external data source using the UDS API. 7.3 Lesson Outline The steps involved in creating a report using the UDS API are as follows: 1. Line up your data source. 2. Line up your UDS classes. 3. Compile the data source. 4. Add the UDS to a catalog. 5. Design and fine-tune the report. Each step is separately expanded below. 7.4 Detailed Instructions Line Up Your Data Source The data source you will use for this example is a plain text file AddressesList.txt available on our web site at (under Manual-Related Materials). This lesson shows how to build a report using the data stored in a formatted text file. This text file contains the data information in a dummy table as shown below: Laurena Croft Atwood St. New York City NY USA... Jonathan Hopkins 5062 Brandon Green Ave. Minneapolis MN USA... Jeremy Miner 9283 Cherry Leaf Lane Palo Alto CA USA Each line sequentially records the name, address, state, region, zip code, country, address, and other information. You can modify this example to satisfy your requirements Line Up Your UDS Classes Three UDS classes are used in this example. Their source codes are: AddressListUDS.java, AddressListResultSet.java and AddressListResultSetMetaData.java. These files also are available on our web site at (under Manual- Related Materials). 1. If you use your own UDS classes, you must ensure that the class files can be found while running. Therefore, the directory should be classpath/package name. 2. If you have installed the Help system that comes with JReport Designer, the Help folder will be under %JReportPro_Installroot%. For these demo UDS classes, classes belong to a package named "help." You may copy the above UDS class files under %JReportPro_Installroot%\help, and make the additional entry into the classpath statement of the batch file starting JReport Designer: %installroot%. Page 67

70 3. In Windows, if you install JReport Designer in the default directory "c:\jreport" and all the UDS classes are located under c:\jreport\help, you need the following entry in the batch file c:\jreport\bin\jreport.bat:...java classpath Compile the Data Source 1. To compile the UDS for this example, go to the directory %installroot%\help and enter: c:\jreport;c:\jreport\lib\report.zip;c:\jreport\lib\jrengine.zip 2. In Unix, if you install JReport Designer into the /usr/jreport: classpath = %classpath%:/usr/jreport: javac -classpath ".;%Installroot%\lib\JREngine.zip;" Address*.java Add the UDS to a Catalog 1. After compilation, start JReport Designer with the batch file you have just modified. You will be prompted to use the demo catalog and reports. Click Cancel. 2. Since the UDS API will connect with your user data source, independent of the JDBC connection, you can create a new catalog instead of building reports in the demo catalog Tutorial.cat. Go to File/New Catalog... and create a new catalog UDS.cat. 3. In the Catalog Browser, right-click UserDataSource/General... Page 68

71 4. In the Add User Data Source dialog, enter the following information and click OK: 5. Now expand the added Address UDS and you will see the table-like tree structure showing all fields, as shown below. Page 69

72 7.4.5 Design and Fine-Tune the Report 1. Now go to the File/New... menu item or click the New Report button on the Standard Toolbar to launch Report Wizard. Use this step-by-step report designer assistant to build and finish your report. 2. The report result of our demo lesson7b.cls appears as follows in the View mode. 3. Edit and fine-tune your report to give it a professional appearance. 4. You have now successfully created a report with an external data source using the UDS API. This lesson concludes the JReport Designer Tutorial. For more information on JReport Designer, please see the User s Guide and User Reference. Page 70