I-net Crystal-Clear
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| i-net Clear Reports (formerly i-net Crystal-Clear) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | i-net software |
| Initial release | 1999 |
| Stable release | 11.0
/ May 16, 2011 |
| Written in | Java, .NET |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Available in | English, German, Spanish |
| Type | Reporting software |
| License | i-net software EULA |
| Website | inetsoftware.de/crystalclear |
i-net Clear Reports (formerly known as i-net Crystal-Clear) is a Java-based cross-platform reporting application providing a report designer and a server component to create reports in numerous output formats like PDF, HTML, PS, RTF, XLS, TXT, CSV, SVG, XML, as well as being viewable in a Java applet or Swing component.[1] Application programmers can integrate i-net Clear Reports using the public API which spans over 200 classes.[2] Starting with release 11.0 i-net Clear Reports also supports the .NET programming language and offers a public API for further integration in other products.
In Version 11.0 i-net Crystal-Clear was renamed to i-net Clear Reports. At this time it also gained .NET integration as a major feature.
i-net Crystal-Clear was primarily designed to read Crystal Reports templates. It had to be capable of reading the RPT report format and producing a reasonable output. For exporting and saving reasons a new file format had to be created later on, enabling Crystal-Clear to save the API results back and make them editable by a designer.[3]
In 2002 the first version of i-net DesignerXML, the report designer, was written using Java Swing. The editing concept is slightly different from some other designers, using a band-oriented report template format, meaning that reports are designed based on rows of data.
The development efforts have changed in more recent years to a full reporting platform approach, rather than the developer-only, framework-based one.
True to its roots, i-net Crystal-Clear still has the ability to read and execute Crystal Reports report templates up until the latest versions of Crystal Reports.
Unlike Crystal Reports, however, the i-net Crystal-Clear report file format has always been an open format. Until version 9.0 it was an XML format. Since version 9, the report file format is in a zip-based format similar to OpenDocument.