Jasper Report Part : 3A Creating Report design using i-Report Netbeans Plugin

Posted by vivek shah

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Main Features of iReport Plugins For Netbeans

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, text fields fields, charts, sub reports...
• Built-in editor with syntax highlighting for write expression
• Support for Unicode and non Latin language (Russian, Chinese, Korean,...)
• Document structure browser
• Integrated compiler and exporter
• Support of all JDBC compliant databases
• Support of all kind of JRDataSource
• Wizard to create automatically reports
• Support for sub reports
• Save backup
• Support for templates
• Facilities for fonts

Creating a NetBeans database JDBC connection

The first step is to create a database connection, which will be used by the report data sources. Follow the listed steps:

Select the Services tab from the left side of the project window.
Select Databases.
Right-click on Databases, and press New Connection….

In the New Database Connection dialog, set the following under Basic setting, and check theRemember password checkbox:

Option	Value
Driver Name	MySQL (Connector/J Driver)
Host	localhost
Port	3306
Database	inventory
User Name	root
Password	packt

Press OK. Now the connection is created, and you can see this under the Services | Databasessection, as shown in the following screenshot:

Creating a report data source

The NetBeans database JDBC connection created previously will be used by a report data source that will be used by the report. Follow the listed steps to create the data source:

From the NetBeans toolbar, press the Report Datasources button. You will see the following dialog box:

Press New.
Select NetBeans Database JDBC connection, and press Next >.

Enter inventory in the Name field, and from the Connection drop-down list, selectjdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/inventory [root on Default schema].

Press Test, and if the connection is successful, press Save and close the Connections / Datasources dialog box.

Creating a simple report

We are going to create a report, which shows the list of products. Just follow the listed steps:

Go to File | New File….
Select Report from the Categories: section and Report Wizard from the File Types: section, as shown in the next screenshot:

Press Next >. Select the Simple Blue layout and press Next > again.

Enter ProductListNB.jrxml as File Name:, and Browse… to the reports folder.

Press Next >.

Select inventory from the Connections / Data Sources options.

Write the following SQL command as the query:

SELECT ProductCode, Name, Description
FROM Product

Press Next >. You will see the following screen:

Select all the fields, press >>, and then press Next >.
Press Next > again without selecting any group.

Press Finish. You will see the following output:

Click on the Preview button to see the output, as shown in the following screenshot:

You can design the report in the Designer section as per your design requirements.

Creating a parameterized report

We are going to create a report in NetBeans that shows the personal information of a particular customer. Follow the listed steps:

Go to File | New File….
Go to File | New File….
Select Report from the Categories: section and Report Wizard from the File Types: section.
Press Next > and select Simple Blue and press Next > again.
Enter ParticularCustomerNB.jrxml as the File Name:.
Browse… to the reports folder.
Press Next >.
Select inventory from the Connections / Data Sources drop-down list.
Write the following SQL command as the query:
```
SELECT * FROM Customer
```
Press Next >.
Select all the fields, press >>, and then press Next >.>>
Press Next > again without selecting any group.
Press Finish. You will see the Designer view of the report.
From the Report Inspector (see bottom left of the designer), select Parameters. Right-click on it, and click on Add Parameter.

A parameter named parameter1 is added to the Parameters list. Select parameter1, and go to the parameter Properties window (see bottom-right of the designer).

Change the Name to customerNo.
Change the Parameter Class to java.lang.Integer.
Check the Use as a prompt checkbox.
Now, click on Report query (beside the Preview button), and replace the query with the following one: