DataVision is an Open Source reporting tool similar to Crystal Reports.
Reports can be designed using a drag-and-drop GUI. They may be run, viewed,
and printed from the application or exported as HTML, XML, PDF, LaTeX2e,
DocBook, or tab- or comma-delimited text files. The output files produced
by LaTeX2e and DocBook can in turn be used to produce PDF, text, HTML,
PostScript, and more.
DataVision is written in Java and runs almost anywhere. It can generate
reports from databases or text data files. Any database with an available
JDBC driver should work: Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Informix, hsqldb,
Microsoft Access, Progress, and more. Columns read from text files can be
separated by any character.
Report descriptions are stored as XML files. This means you can not only
use the DataVision GUI but you may also edit reports using your favorite
text editor.
DataVision is developed and maintained by Jim Menard (jimm@io.com). The latest version of
DataVision can be found on the DataVision Web page. New
releases are also announced on Freshmeat and on the DataVision mailing list.
Here is a list of DataVision's features, presented in a mind-jarring
random order:
- Drag-and-drop report builder.
- Runs anywhere Java runs: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris, and
more.
- Works with any database that has a JDBC driver: Oracle, PostgreSQL,
MySQL, Informix, hsqldb, Microsoft Access, DB/2, and more.
- Report headers and footers, page headers and footers, group headers and
footers.
- Report field formatting: color, numeric and date format, italic, bold,
border lines, etc.
- Visual table linker.
- Subtotals by group and grand total.
- Record sorting.
- Record selection (SQL WHERE clause for database data sources, Ruby
script that accepts/rejects records for character-separated file data
sources).
- Formulas. The formula language is Ruby (via JRuby).
- Run-time parameters; asks the user for values when the report runs; if
running from the command line, reads values in from an XML file.
- Run-time variables (again thanks to Ruby). A Ruby script run at the
start of each report run is the perfect place to set all your initial
values.
- User-defined SELECT clause columns; useful for calling stored
procedures or SQL functions.
- Hide columns and entire sections.
- Reports can read data from different data sources. Currently, data
sources are defined for databases and text data files (comma-separated,
tab-separated, etc.)
- When reading text data files, translates date and numeric columns into
the appropriate Java classes so they can be manipulated as such (formatted,
used in formulas, etc.)
- Run and view reports on-screen.
- Print report from DataVision.
- Exports to HTML, XML, PDF, comma-separated, tab-separated, DocBook,
LaTeX.
- GUI translated into eight languages.
- Report definitions stored as human-readable XML.
- Open source, so you get all the code to play with and use.
- DataVision is embeddable within your own application.
Here is a short list of things that are not implemented, but are necessary
to make DataVision really useful:
- Paste needs to work properly. Undo, Redo, Copy, and Cut work just
fine.
- Allow arbitrary SQL.
- Joins should support inner and outer joins.
- Sub-reports.
If you would like to help by translating DataVision (the
in-application strings, User's
Manual, or the FAQ) to a new language,
please let me know. Application string
translations that have been completed or are in progress include
- bg_BG (Bulgarian, Bulgaria) by Tony Tomov
- de_DE (German, Germany) by Herbert Dietlmeier
- en_US (English, USA) by Jim Menard
- es_MX (Spanish, Mexico) by Miguel Angel Rojas Aquino
- fr_FR (French, France) by Daniel Essayag and Yaacov Akiba Slama
- it_IT (Italian, Italy) by Guido Amoruso
- pt_BR (Portuguese, Brazil) by Carlos Silva
- pt_PT (Portuguese, Portugal) by Sergio Ferreira
- ru_RU (Russian, Russia) by Igor Osminin
- sk_SK (Slovakian, Slovakia) by Matej "Mato" Holly
- tr_TR (Turkish, Turkey) by Ismail Cansiz
There is now a Chinese version of the FAQ,
thanks to flybean.
The User's Manual and FAQ translations won't be shipped with DataVision;
they would increase the size of the download for everyone too much.
Instead, they will be hosted here and downloadable archives will be made
available.
The documentation page contains links to the User's
Manual, FAQ, and Javadocs. This includes the new Chinese version of the FAQ, thanks to flybean.
A mailing list named
datavision-users@lists.sourceforge.net has been created for
the discussion of tips, tricks, suggestions, bugs, and workarounds. For
more information, see the documentation page.
Download
the latest version () from
SourceForge. The download contains the Java source code, a jar file (so you
don't have to compile anything), scripts for running DataVision, and the
documentation.
Here is a summary of the major changes in version
.
Changes
- The layout engine command line options -c, -d, -f,
-h, -l, and -x now take optional output file name
arguments.
- The Table Linker, Group By, and Sort By dialogs now only list columns
in tables used by the report instead of listing every column in the
database. This should make opening these dialogs much quicker with large
databases.
- Added an "OK" button to the SQL Query window to make it easier to
close.
Bug Fixes
- On Mac OS X with Java 1.4.1 the app hung after running a report from
the command line. The app now exits properly.
The bug list is now being maintained on the SourceForge project Bugs
page. When browsing the bugs, don't forget to search for bugs with a
"Pending" status. Those bugs have been fixed in development and
will be included in the next release (the fixes, not the bugs).
Documentation errata may be found on the Documentation page.
This list of countries includes those from which I have received emails and
those subscribed to the DataVision Users mailing list.
- Australia
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
- Canada
- Colombia
- China
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- India
- Italy
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Pakistan
- Paraguay
- Philippines
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- Singapore
- Slovak Republic
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sweden
- Taiwan
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- USA
- Yugoslavia
There is now a DataVision user's mailing list. For more information, visit
the documentation page.
The notices that were displayed here have moved to the Copying and Warranty section of the
User's Manual.
Projects Used by DataVision
MinML2 is the XML
parser that DataVision uses.
The images (toolbar graphics) are courtesy of Sun Microsystems. They
can be found at the Java
Look and Feel Graphics Repository. On that page is a link to the file
jlfgr-1_0.jar which contains the images.
JCalendar is the
calendar widget by Kai Toedter (kai@toedter.com).
JRuby is a Ruby interpreter
for Java.
Contributions
Pascal Pochet of P3
Consulting has written a Mac
OS X wrapper for DataVision (here's a mirror).
It's freeware, and includes source code.
Projects Using DataVision
The Open For Business Project is an
open source enterprise automation software project licensed under the MIT
Open Source License. The goal of the project is to build a community of end
users and developers that work together directly to create easy to
customize business software based on best practices. Open For Business uses
DataVision.
Cotsec plans to use DataVision as
its preferred/default reporting Enterprise Component for their Enterprise
Components suite.
Other Reporting Tools
JasperReports is a
powerful report-generating tool that has the ability to deliver rich
content onto the screen, to the printer or into PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV and XML
files.
JFreeReport is
an open source report writer for Java with features like full on-screen
print preview, XML-based report definitions and output to PDF.
JFreeChart is an
open source Java class library for generating charts. JFreeChart is brought
to you by the same people that created JFreeReport.
Agata Report is a
Database Reporting Tool and EIS, MIS tool (graph generation), like Crystal
Reports. Its written in PHP-GTK and allows you to edit and get SQL results
from several databases as Text or PostScript Files.
Crystal Decisions, makers
of Crystal Reports and other fine reporting and analysis tools.
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