Jasper Reports

John is cofounder and managing director of Loop Factory, a Java focused education company. He has spent the last decade teaching IT; from OO to Java, going through AS/400 systems, methodologies and Delphi; to professionals, unemployed and children.

John has recently cofounded JavaBlackBelt.com, a community web site dedicated to technical quizzes about Java related technologies.

What is a TechMap ?

A TechMap is a kind of visual article which explains a technology with a minimal amount of words and maximum amount of graphics.
Its main purpose is to help understanding and learning the covered technology.

How to use a TechMap ?

You are not supposed to read a TechMap from A to Z. There is no real order for the diagrams. Just let your instinct set your reading path.
The more you watch them, the more information amount you will get. Maybe will you be satisfied with just very little info and give this TechMap only 15 to 30 seconds of your attention. Maybe you still want more after 10 minutes. In this case, you will probably need another resource to go further (as the source code, the documentation for the covered technology, etc.).

Making of this TechMap

I've made this TechMap from notes I took when trying to understand JasperReports to use it in a project. I just went the classic way, from the official documentation on JasperReports web site and from the source code. Then, I modified the most interesting example that came with the framework, to remove as many redundancies as possible. I felt it was important to simplify this example to ease the learning curve. After this example, if you want something more complex to look at, you'll be quite comfortable with the original.

Notation

The notation used in the diagram is not formal UML. I've taken much freedom in the form wherever I felt it would help understanding and brevity.

Version

This is the first version of the JasperReports TechMap, released in January 2006. It covers JasperReports v1.0.

Contribute to this TechMap

Should you find any error or improvement ideas, you are welcome to contact me: John [at> JavaBlackBelt dot com. If you know other areas of JasperReports that would extend this work, I would be glad to help you being co-author. Some ideas: fill package, xml package, design package, update to next version.

Reviewers

Barry Klawans

Barry is the Chief Technical Officer of JasperSoft. He has over 20 years of experience is data management and presentation, specializing in making data understandable.

Teodor Danciu

Teodor is the founder and architect of the JasperReports library. He has more than 8 years experience in the software industry and in the last few years he was involved in the development of various B2C, B2B, ERP and other data management applications using Java technologies.