Chapter 1. An Overview of JasperReports
This chapter presents an overview of JasperReports and explains its capabilities and features. Here is a brief outline of the topics covered in this chapter:
- A brief history of JasperReports
- What JasperReports is, and what it can do for us
- A brief discussion of the JasperReports open-source license
- The features of JasperReports
- JasperReports' class library dependencies
- A brief overview of the steps required to generate reports with JasperReports
- Where to get support for JasperReports
Brief History of JasperReports
JasperReports was started by Teodor Danciu, in 2001, when he was faced with the task of evaluating reporting tools for a project he was working on. The existing solutions that he found were too expensive for his project's budget. Therefore, he decided to write his own reporting tool. The project for which he was evaluating reporting tools got canceled; but, nevertheless, he started working on JasperReports in his spare time. He registered the project on http://sourceforge.net in September, 2001. Shortly after, he started getting emails from interested potential users even though he had not yet released any code.
JasperReports version 0.1.5 was released in November, 2001. Since then, JasperReports has become immensely popular, and is currently one of the most popular (if not the most popular) Java reporting tools available. As a testament to JasperReports' enormous popularity, a Google search for java reporting tool returns the JasperReports website as its first result.
Until recently, JasperReports was basically a one-man project, with Teodor working on it in his spare time. In April 2005, a company called JasperSoft was formally launched at the MySQL User Conference in California. JasperSoft sponsors JasperReports' development, allowing Teodor and other JasperSoft developers to work full-time on JasperReports. JasperSoft also provides commercial support and services for JasperReports and related products, including the iReport Visual Designer for JasperReports. In addition to providing support for JasperReports and iReport, JasperSoft sells commercial applications incorporating JasperReports.
JasperSoft has raised over 8 million dollars in venture capital funding, no small feat in these post-dotcom days. This investment is a clear indication that venture capitalists have confidence in the success of JasperSoft, and, by extension, in the success of JasperReports. According to JasperSoft, JasperReports has been downloaded over 300,000 times, and gets over 20,000 downloads a month. It has been deployed in over 10,000 companies and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).