JasperReports is a powerful open source Java reporting tool that has the ability to deliver rich content onto the screen, to the printer or into PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV and XML files.

It is entirely written in Java and can be used in a variety of Java enabled applications, including J2EE or Web applications, to generate dynamic content.

JasperReports is main purpose is to help creating page oriented, ready to print documents in a simple and flexible manner.

Here are some key features of "JasperReports":

· Report Design
· Header Sections
· Footer Sections
· Columns
· Groups
· Calculations
· Text format
· Images

Whats New in This Release:

· This version introduces support for external style templates, a new report section for better control over empty reports, an enhanced XLS exporter, and various bugfixes and improvements.

iReport project is a powerful, intuitive and easy to use visual report builder/designer for JasperReports written in 100% pure java.

This tool allows users to visually edit complex reports with charts, images, subreports,.... iReport is integrated with JFreeChart, one of the most diffused OpenSource chart library for java.

The data to print can be retrieved through several ways including multiple JDBC connections, TableModels, JavaBeans, XML, etc...

Whats New in This Release:

· Full support for JasperReports 1.3.4.
· A new XML field mapping tool.
· A new document structure outline.
· Improved refactoring capabilities.
· An improved report query dialog.
· An improved UI with sortable tables.
· Several bugfixes.

JasperReports is a stand alone Java library that can be configured to generate pixel-perfect output in HTML, PDF, RTF and Excel. It can easily be embedded into Web and Java applications. The JasperReportsTM definition language, JRXML is (of course) XML. There are a variety of report editors that can provide a WYSIWYG user interface for generating and editing JRXML, including iReport. JasperReports has been a open source project since 2001 driven by Teodor Danciu and supported by JasperSoft.

The large JasperReports community most often uses JasperReports within a Web application. Java developers have to surround JasperReports in some form of application, and while JasperReports comes with a variety of samples showing how to use JasperReports in a variety of situations, it does not provide a complete Web application for running JasperReports.

JasperServer is specifically designed to provide a Web application around JasperReports. Continuing the philosophy of JasperReports, JasperServer is aimed at providing a managed, stand alone Web reporting environment, as well as being able to be embedded in existing Java Web applications, and services to a variety of technologies through Web services, including the LAMP stack. By focusing on a clean business API and using an advanced inversion of control architecture, JasperServer can be easily integrated and customized for your needs.

JasperIntelligence is an open source business intelligence platform from JasperSoft, providing common services like security and metadata management, and the capability to easily add additional functionality. The JasperServer is the first service using the JasperIntelligence platform. Following soon will be:

· Report and metadata designers integrated with the platform
· OLAP user interfaces
· Data warehouse management environments
· Data integration services (ETL)

Whats New in This Release:

· Interactivity was enhanced with hyperlinks in reports and charts for drilling down.
· Queries are now provided as managed objects.
· Query backed input controls were added for reports.
· Bugs were fixed.

JasperReports is a stand alone Java library that can be configured to generate pixel-perfect output in HTML, PDF, RTF and Excel. It can easily be embedded into Web and Java applications. The JasperReportsTM definition language, JRXML is (of course) XML. There are a variety of report editors that can provide a WYSIWYG user interface for generating and editing JRXML, including iReport. JasperReports has been a open source project since 2001 driven by Teodor Danciu and supported by JasperSoft.

The large JasperReports community most often uses JasperReports within a Web application. Java developers have to surround JasperReports in some form of application, and while JasperReports comes with a variety of samples showing how to use JasperReports in a variety of situations, it does not provide a complete Web application for running JasperReports.

JasperServer is specifically designed to provide a Web application around JasperReports. Continuing the philosophy of JasperReports, JasperServer is aimed at providing a managed, stand alone Web reporting environment, as well as being able to be embedded in existing Java Web applications, and services to a variety of technologies through Web services, including the LAMP stack. By focusing on a clean business API and using an advanced inversion of control architecture, JasperServer can be easily integrated and customized for your needs.

JasperIntelligence is an open source business intelligence platform from JasperSoft, providing common services like security and metadata management, and the capability to easily add additional functionality. The JasperServer is the first service using the JasperIntelligence platform. Following soon will be:

Report and metadata designers integrated with the platform

OLAP user interfaces
Data warehouse management environments
Data integration services (ETL)

Whats New in This Release:

· An Extensible Web Services module was added.
· Support was added for passing the locale when running a report through Web Services.
· Support for adding custom data sources was enhanced.
· Custom data source example files were added.
· The JPivot dependency is built as a separate project.
· Better, more data-centric and configurable Excel output was implemented.
· Ant support for running the import/export tool was added.
· JasperReports was upgraded to Mondrian 2.3.2.
· Other enhancements and fixes were made.

SWTJasperViewer is a JasperReports viewer component for SWT/JFace based applications and Eclipse plug-ins. The component is designed with reusability in mind so it can suit as many projects as possible.

SWTJasperViewer is developed as part of the JasperAssistant report designer where its used for report preview.

SWTJasperViewer component is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Here are some key features of "SWTJasperViewer":

· "What you see is what you get" visual report designer.
· Complete integration with Eclipse IDE environment.
· An integrated report compiler.
· Report preview support
· Report Export wizard
· Support for compiled report files (*.jasper)
· Drag-and-drop interface.
· Unlimited Undo/Redo support.
· Cut/Copy/Paste support.
· Properties View.
· Outline View.
· Problems/Tasks View.
· Intuitive Context Menus.
· A dedicated toolbar for text objects.
· Zoom support.
· A customizable palette.
· A comprehensive set of align and resize actions.
· Intuitive Expression Editor.
· Integrated user documentation.
· Field Wizard.
· Grid and Snap To Grid support.
· Rulers, Guides and Snap to Guides support.
· Extensible shortcuts support.
· Full support for JasperReports data sources.

iSAK, Internet Secure Access Kit, is an integrated Open Source applications package that gives an efficient departmental access control of Internet services. Right now, many installations of iSAK have been made by Savoir-faire Linux.

Multiple versions of iSAK will be available shortly. Each version differs by its features and the way the Open Source applications are integrated together. Moreover, each installation of iSAK is different because it meets the enterprise requirements.

Whats New in This Release:

· This release includes a new log processing engine for Squid.
· The engine is based on JasperReports to produce professional reports of your network Web activity.
· This version can categorize your Web traffic because of a complete integration of iSAKurlDB.
· Note that is it possible to use this log processing engine without using all iSAK features.
· You can plug it into your actual squid server.

OpenXava project is a framework to develop easily business applications with XML and Java.

OpenXava Eclipse Plugin provides a database reverse engineering utility for the OpenXava framework.

Its virtue resides in the fact that the heart of our applications is XML instead of Java.

Here are some key features of "OpenXava":

· Has been used during years to develop real applications.
· High productivity for developing business applications.
· Short learning curve and easy to use.
· Flexible enough to create sophisticated applications.
· Its possible to insert your own functionality in every place.
· Based in the concept of business component.
· Adapted to work with legacy database schemas.
· Generate a full J2EE application: including User Interface and model classes (with POJOs or EJBs)
· Supports WebSphere 6.0, 5.1 and 5.0, JBoss 4.0.x and 3.2.x using native EJB CMP2 EntityBeans.
· Supports any application server (Tomcat, JBoss, WebSphere, etc) using POJOs + Hibernate.
· Supports JSR-168: All OpenXava modules are standard portlets too.
· EJB3 JPA complete support: But still BETA until 2.1
· Its tested with the portals: JetSpeed 2, WebSphere Portal and Liferay.
· Easy integration of reports made with JasperReports.
· Some little support for aspects.
· Licensed under LGPL.
· The developer can use English or Spanish.
· All labels and messages are in English, Spanish, German, Indonesian, French and Catalan, with more coming.

Whats New in This Release:

· This is the first version, and it includes support for connecting to a database to retrieve metadata from Eclipse, full customization for generated code, and support for advanced mapping features.

jZeno is a meta-project that integrates a collection of java open source libraries, to form a ready-to-use web development environment. jZeno is made to allow people to create web applications by using pure java development as much as possible. The main architectural goal of Largely reducing the need to know technologies like javascript, HTML, CSS, database specific SQL, and tons of different APIs.

Limiting the amount of APIs, technologies and programming styles allows developers to learn a smaller set of skills much deeper. We think this set of skills should be : a thorough understanding of java, OO development and design patterns.

We decided to create jZeno after growing more and more frustrated with JSP and Struts over the years. We hoped JSF would improve things but have come to the conclusion that it is mainly a commercially-driven API that does not really make development life any easier. So we started looking further and came across Echo, a toolkit for developing web applications in pure java. In a nutshell Echo provides you with an implementation of the Swing API for developing web applications. We have created an optimized version of the Echo toolkit to allow partial, and highly compressed updates of web pages, providing AJAX like performance (available in the upcoming 0.9 release).

While Echo provides an easy way of creating the presentation layer of a web application, some glue was still missing to turn it into a rapid development platform. So we decided to add a set of easy to use dynamic components, that provide an easy way to do data-binding, validation, event handling and such. Many useful components are also provided by the EchoPoint library, a collection of rich Echo components.

Besides the presentation layer jZeno also provides a number of services for facilitating the creation of business facades. This environment is similar to stateless session beans in the EJB specification, but witout the overhead of EJBs. These services include transaction management, dead-lock detection and retrying, performance monitoring, security checking, etc...

jZeno also uses Hibernate for O/R mapping inside you business facades. Besides these major functions jZeno contains out-of-the-box solutions for a host of other features any real-life web application needs. This inluces things like genrating reports in a pdf,xls,rtf and other formats (through JasperReports). It also includes live performance monitoring (JAMon) and heap monitoring of your application in its production environment, among other features...

jZeno applications have a traditional layered architecture. The tradidional 3 tiers are seperated : the presentation tier, the business tier and the domain model. The first tier is created by using the jZeno dynamic components and the lower level Echo and EchoPoint components. The business tier contains support for running your business logic, decorated with a stack of aspects that together create an environment very similar to stateless session beans (but with less requirements and configuration overhead). The domain model tier is basically the O/R mapping provided by Hibernate. jZeno provides a tightly integrated environment for all these tiers. In the future support for deploying on an EJB container may be added if required.

Whats New in This Release:

· A bug in errormessagescomponent (warnings) has been fixed.
· Validation has been fixed to pre-render/rebind invisible pages on DynaTables before validation.
· The TTL for DNS caching has been set to a maximum of 5 minutes.
· SessionSyncFilter will always serialize unless using an image/script service.
· A McKoi startup bug when using hibernate annotations has been fixed.
· Processing of radio buttons with action listeners has been fixed.
· BigDecimalViewer and ComponentUI have been added for consistency.
· A bug in the NewsTicker component has been fixed.

Spring is a layered Java/J2EE application framework, based on code published in Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development by Rod Johnson (Wrox, 2002).

Here are some key features of "spring":

· The most complete lightweight container, providing centralized, automated configuration and wiring of your application objects. The container is non-invasive, capable of assembling a complex system from a set of loosely-coupled components (POJOs) in a consistent and transparent fashion. The container brings agility and leverage, and improves application testability and scalability by allowing software components to be first developed and tested in isolation, then scaled up for deployment in any environment (J2SE or J2EE).

· A common abstraction layer for transaction management, allowing for pluggable transaction managers, and making it easy to demarcate transactions without dealing with low-level issues. Generic strategies for JTA and a single JDBC DataSource are included. In contrast to plain JTA or EJB CMT, Springs transaction support is not tied to J2EE environments.

· A JDBC abstraction layer that offers a meaningful exception hierarchy (no more pulling vendor codes out of SQLException), simplifies error handling, and greatly reduces the amount of code youll need to write. Youll never need to write another finally block to use JDBC again. The JDBC-oriented exceptions comply to Springs generic DAO exception hierarchy.

· Integration with Hibernate, JDO, and iBATIS SQL Maps: in terms of resource holders, DAO implementation support, and transaction strategies. First-class Hibernate support with lots of IoC convenience features, addressing many typical Hibernate integration issues. All of these comply to Springs generic transaction and DAO exception hierarchies.

· AOP functionality, fully integrated into Spring configuration management. You can AOP-enable any object managed by Spring, adding aspects such as declarative transaction management. With Spring, you can have declarative transaction management without EJB... even without JTA, if youre using a single database in Tomcat or another web container without JTA support.

· A flexible MVC web application framework, built on core Spring functionality. This framework is highly configurable via strategy interfaces, and accommodates multiple view technologies like JSP, Velocity, Tiles, iText, and POI. Note that a Spring middle tier can easily be combined with a web tier based on any other web MVC framework, like Struts, WebWork, or Tapestry.

· You can use all of Springs functionality in any J2EE server, and most of it also in non-managed environments. A central focus of Spring is to allow for reusable business and data access objects that are not tied to specific J2EE services. Such objects can be reused across J2EE environments (web or EJB), standalone applications, test environments, etc without any hassle.

· Springs layered architecture gives you a lot of flexibility. All its functionality builds on lower levels. So you can e.g. use the JavaBeans configuration management without using the MVC framework or AOP support. But if you use the web MVC framework or AOP support, youll find they build on the configuration framework, so you can apply your knowledge about it immediately.

Whats New in This Release:

· Package org.springframework.aop
· fixed ThrowsAdviceInterceptor to log at DEBUG level rather than INFO level
· changed CustomizableTraceInterceptor to use "$[...]" syntax, to avoid conflicts with PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer

· Package org.springframework.beans
· reworked ArgumentConvertingMethodInvoker to determine an appropriate overloaded method (with assignable arguments)
· refined BeanWrapperImpl and PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to never log property values (which might be sensitive data)
· fixed PropertyResourceConfigurer to actually call "convertProperties" and *convertPropertyValue" for merged properties
· fixed MethodInvokingFactoryBeans "getObjectType" implementation to return null if not fully initialized yet
· added "getBeanPostProcessorCount" method to ConfigurableBeanFactory interface
· fixed AbstractBeanFactory to destroy chains of beans in correct order even with non-disposable beans in the middle
· fixed AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory to only match untyped argument values as fallback (avoid unintended matches)
· added "ignoreDependencyInterface" method to AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory and ConfigurableListableBeanFactory
· reworked AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactorys dependency exclusion check to support ignored dependency interfaces
· AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory registers BeanFactoryAware as default ignored dependency interface

· Package org.springframework.context
· AbstractApplicationContext registers MessageSourceAware/ApplicationContextAware/etc as ignored dependency interfaces
· fixed AbstractApplicationContext to not exclude dependencies of type MessageSource/ApplicationContext/etc by default
· AbstractApplicationContext logs message when a bean is not eligible for getting processed by all BeanPostProcessors

· Package org.springframework.dao
· fixed DataAccessUtils "(required)UniqueResult" methods to treat a passed-in null value as empty Collection

· Package org.springframework.ejb
· adapted LocalSlsbInvokerInterceptor to support a local EJB that does not directly implement the business interface

· Package org.springframework.jms
· moved "sessionTransacted" and "sessionAcknowledgeMode(Name)" bean properties from JmsTemplate up to JmsAccessor

· Package org.springframework.mail
· fixed MimeMessageHelper to use a "multipart/mixed" root with nested "multipart/related", for Lotus Notes compatibility

· Package org.springframework.orm
· DefaultJdoDialect integrates JDOException message into translated DataAccessException even with nested SQLException
· HibernateAccessor and HibernateTransactionManager integrate JDBCException message into Spring DataAccessException
· SessionFactoryUtils keeps nested exception even case in case of TransientObjectException/PersistentObjectException
· fixed Hibernate SessionFactoryUtils to correctly handle asynchronous timeouts in case of mixed JTA/Spring transactions
· fixed SessionFactoryUtils for Hibernate 2.1 to not prevent transaction synchronization when allowCreate=false
· fixed LocalSessionFactoryBean for Hibernate3 to use connection release mode "on_close" as default (-> safe tx cleanup)
· fixed LocalSessionFactoryBean for Hibernate3 to register type definitions before any Hibernate configuration loading
· fixed TypeDefinitionBean for Hibernate3 to use empty Properties as parameters and to check "typeName" and "typeClass"
· refined HibernateTransactionManager for Hibernate3 to not call "Session.toString" (which is broken in Hibernate3)
· added "filterNames" property to HibernateTemplate/Interceptor, allowing to enable a list of filters for all operations

· Package org.springframework.samples
· added demonstration of JMX export to PetClinics JDBC version: exposure of the CachingClinic management interface
· added demonstration of JMX export to PetClinics JDBC version: exposure of a CallMonitor that monitors the Clinic
· switched PetClinics default data access strategy to JDBC, to highlight the JMX export

· Package org.springframework.transaction
· exposed "hasSavepoint" and "isCompleted" methods on TransactionStatus interface (not just on DefaultTransactionStatus)
· added "getCurrentTransactionName" method to TransactionSynchronizationManager, exposing the transaction name (if any)
· added "isActualTransactionActive" flag to TransactionSynchronizationManager (different from "isSynchronizationActive")
· fixed AbstractPlatformTransactionManager to set the "isCurrentTransactionReadOnly" flag correctly in any case
· added specific "isLocalRollbackOnly" and "isGlobalRollbackOnly" methods to DefaultTransactionStatus
· added "shouldCommitOnGlobalRollbackOnly" callback method to AbstractPlatformTransactionManager, with default "false"
· AbstractPlatformTransactionManager throws UnexpectedRollbackException if attempting commit with rollback-only tx
· JtaTransactionManager expects "doCommit" call for global rollback-only tx, letting JTA handle it (e.g. for tx timeout)

· Package org.springframework.util
· refined MethodInvoker to find matching method with assignable parameters if no direct match found for given arguments

· Package org.springframework.web
· refactored HtmlUtils implementation, reading character entity references from a properties file in the classpath
· changed HtmlUtils "htmlEscape" method to return standard entity references by default (named, not decimal or hex)
· added "htmlEscapeDecimal" and "htmlEscapeHex" methods to HtmlUtils, for escaping in decimal or hex style, respectively
· reimplemented HtmlUtils "htmlUnescape" to correctly handle any entity references, including decimal and hex style
· changed EscapedErrors to not stringify and HTML-escape non-String values, to keep type even with escaping turned on
· changed BindStatus to not stringify and HTML-escape non-String values for "value" but only for "displayValue"
· fixed FreeMarker macro "formSingleSelect" (in spring.ftl) to correctly compare selected numerical values
· AbstractJasperReportsView exposes current Spring-managed Locale and MessageSource to JasperReports i18n ($R expr etc)
· refined AbstractJasperReportsView to properly handle Internet Explorer HTTPS through resetting the response first

JasperAssistant is a visual report designer for JasperReports, a popular open-source reporting engine. JasperAssistant is built on top of the Eclipses plug-in architecture and its main goal is to help you create JasperReports report definition files through an intuitive graphical interface.

JasperAssistant opens for you the door to the best open-source reporting engine available - JasperReports. JasperReports offers you a free reporting library for your commercial and non-commercial Java projects with no deployment or any other fees.

JasperAssistant in its turn gives you a professional designer that is able to save you a great amount of development time. Combine the two, and you get an accessible reporting solution which easily matches many high-priced commercial counterparts.

Benefits:
· Design and layout your reports using an intuitive visual interface and avoid the need for XML editing of JasperReports templates.
· Take advantage of Eclipse IDE integration and effectively combine Java and JasperReports development.
· Efficiently locate and correct report problems using precise error indications.
· Preview your reports instantly using live data from a JDBC database connection, an XML document, JavaBeans array or a custom data source.
· Export and preview your reports in PDF, Excel, HTML, CSV and XML formats.

Here are some key features of "JasperAssistant":

· "What you see is what you get" visual report designer.
· Complete integration with Eclipse IDE environment.
· Support for all the features of JasperReports up to version 1.2.1
· An integrated report compiler.
· Report preview support
· Report Export wizard
· Support for compiled report files (*.jasper)
· Drag-and-drop interface.
· Unlimited Undo/Redo support.
· Cut/Copy/Paste support.
· Properties View.
· Outline View.
· Problems/Tasks View.
· Intuitive Context Menus.
· A dedicated toolbar for text objects.
· Zoom support.
· A customizable palette.
· A comprehensive set of align and resize actions.
· Intuitive Expression Editor.
· Integrated user documentation.
· Field Wizard.
· Grid and Snap To Grid support.
· Rulers, Guides and Snap to Guides support.
· Extensible shortcuts support.
· Full support for JasperReports data sources.

Whats New in This Release:

· This version adds support for JasperReports 1.3.0; notably a new break element is now available.
· JasperAssistant can now be used with Eclipse 3.3 which also allows it, from now on, to work properly on the Mac OS X platform.