Index

Installing and Launching JReport Designer

System Requirements

JReport Designer
Minimum Workstation Requirements
OS: Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Solaris, Linux
CPU: PIII - 450MHz PIII 450 or sunSPARC 400
Memory: 128 MB 128 MB
Disk: 128 MB free 128 MB free
JDK: 1.3.0 or above 1.3.0 or above
Recommended Workstation Requirements
OS: Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Solaris, Linux
CPU: P4 - 1.5GHz P4 1.5G or sunSPARC 1G
Memory: 256 MB 256 MB
Disk: 256 MB free 256 MB free
JDK: 1.4.1_02 or above 1.4.1_02 or above

Note: JReport supports Java VMs from Sun and IBM. Other vendor's Java VMs may cause unexpected errors. Jinfonet technical support welcomes any feedback on the use of other Java VMs.

Installing JReport Designer on Windows

Please follow the steps listed below to install JReport Designer:

  1. Download the JReport install program jrpsetup.exe from the Jinfonet website: http://www.jinfonet.com.
  2. Run jrpsetup.exe and follow the default prompts to install.

During installation, please note that:

Uninstalling JReport Designer on Windows

Use one of the following ways to uninstall JReport Designer:

Note: The uninstaller will remove all files generated by the installer, while the files that are created later by the program will be retained. You can remove these manually.

Running JReport Designer On Windows

Use one of the following ways to run JReport Designer:

Installing, Running and Uninstalling JReport Designer on Unix

To install JReport Designer on Unix, please follow the steps below:

  1. Download the JReport Designer install program for Unix jrpsetup.sh (JReport also provides jrpsetup_linux.bin for the Linux users) from the Jinfonet web site: http://www.jinfonet.com.
  2. Click the executable file jrpsetup.sh to launch the InstallShield wizard. Or, open a console window. Change the directory to the location of the jrpsetup.sh file. The following are the examples of the commands that can be used:

    $ cd thepath
    To make jrpsetup.sh executable, type the command:
    $ chmod +x jrpsetup.sh
    Run jrpsetup.sh:
    $ ./jrpsetup.sh

    Note    : The InstallShield will first find a JVM to get started. If no JVM is found, the installer is failed to launch. To solve this issue you can specify a JVM for the InstallShield with the option -is:javahome like below.

    $ ./jrpsetup.sh -is:javahome /home/j2sdk1.4.1_06

    For the Linux users, if the InstallShield still cannot find the JVM, you can use jrpsetup_linux.bin instead of jrpsetup.sh.

    You are recommended to use JDK version 1.4.1 or above. We have found some known issues like designing problems with JDK 1.4.0.x.

    In addition, The InstallShield will generate temp files during installation. You can specify the temp directory with -is:tempdir option like below. Otherwise, system temp directory will be used. Temp files will be automatically removed once the installation is complete.

    $ ./jrpsetup.sh -is:tempdir /home/temp
  3. Once InstallShield has been successfully loaded, you can follow the default prompt to install JReport Designer.

To run JReport Designer on Unix, run the script file JReport.sh under %install_root%/bin.

$ ./JReport.sh

Note: you can modify this script file to add additional classes before launching JReport Designer.

To uninstall JReport Designer on Unix, execute uninstaller.sh under %install_root%/_uninst, or open a console window. Change the directory to the location of the uninstaller.sh file. The following show examples of the commands that can be used:

$ cd thepath
Run uninstaller.sh:
$ ./uninstaller.sh

Setting up the ODBC/JDBC Driver

Data Source

You need to create a data source before you can start designing reports with JReport Designer. JReport Designer is relational database oriented reporting software. That is, the data for reporting is a relational table such as a two-dimension data sheet. Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) or Java Database Connectivity - Open Database Connectivity (JDBC-ODBC) connection are the basic approaches for connecting to a database for data. Additional methods have also been provided to access data stored in various ways.

Currently, there are four approaches with which you can connect to data:

Setting up JDBC Driver if Necessary

To connect to a database via a JDBC driver,

  1. Install the JDBC driver according to the instructions provided by the JDBC driver provider.
  2. Edit JReport.bat/JReport.sh or setenv.bat, which are contained in the bin folder under %install_root%, by appending the classpath for the JDBC driver. %install_root% is the path where you installed JReport Designer.

    Note: This step is very important, missing JDBC driver for JReport start-up batch or command line will result in the "ClassNotFoundError" message when you try to run a report.

Here we will show you two examples for setting up JDBC Driver.

Example 1: Installing a Sybase JDBC Driver:

  1. Install Sybase JDBC driver Jconnect.class, run the SQL file sql_server.sql to create the JDBC metadata tables. (Please refer to the user's guide of Sybase installation for further details.)
  2. Modify the setenv.bat by appending the archive file path of the driver to the set ADDCLASSPATH system variable:

    set REPORTHOME=C:\JReport
    set JAVAHOME=C:\j2sdk1.4.2_01
    set ADDCLASSPATH=c:\jconnect\classes

    Or edit JReport\bin\JReport.bat/JReport.sh by appending the archive file path of the driver to the classpath:

    Change: ... -classpath "%REPORTHOME%\lib\SwingDesigner.zip;%REPORTHOME%\lib\resources.zip;..."
    To : ... -classpath "%REPORTHOME%\lib\SwingDesigner.zip;c:\jconnect\classes;%REPORTHOME%\lib\resources.zip;..."

Example 2: Installing an Oracle JDBC Driver:

  1. Install Oracle JDBC driver classes12.zip/Classes12.jar (for Oracle 8i or 9i) or ojdbc14.jar (for Oracle 9i).
  2. Modify the setenv.bat by appending the archive file path of the driver to the set ADDCLASSPATH system variable:

    set REPORTHOME=C:\JReport
    set JAVAHOME=C:\j2sdk1.4.2_01
    set ADDCLASSPATH=c:\orc\thin\lib\classes111.zip

    Or edit JReport\bin\JReport.bat JReport.sh by appending the archive file of Oracle thin driver to classpath:

    Change: ... -classpath "%REPORTHOME%\lib\SwingDesigner.zip;%REPORTHOME%\lib\resources.zip;..."
    To : ... -classpath "%REPORTHOME%\lib\SwingDesigner.zip;c:\orc\thin\lib\classes111.zip;%REPORTHOME%\lib\resources.zip;..."

Launchers Under JReport Designer

The information in this topic was current at the time of release. However, it may no longer be valid due to changes during the release cycle. The most current information can be found in the readme.txt with each version under the path %installroot%.

You can find a set of utilities in the directory %installroot%\bin\. All of these batch files (Win)/script files (Unix) can be edited to suit different circumstances. However, always do this before making sure of their functions.

Command-line Startup

You can launch JReport Designer from the Command Prompt window. This method is optional on some platforms (Windows for example) and preferred on others. Using command-line startup enables you to use command-line syntax options.

java -Dreporthome=path -classpath path jet.builder.JReport -vError -vDebug -hideBrs -log[:<file>] -help

The command line arguments for JReport Designer are described below. Please note that the setup process creates several startup batch files which may contain additional parameters.

Index