The Crystal Reports for Eclipse from Business Objects brings the power of the outstanding reporting tool to Eclipse developers.
Crystal Reports for Eclipse has delivered on around 500,000 downloads during its Tech Preview and Beta program, according to Sean Johnson, product manager, posting on the Diamond community site for Business Objects.
Business Objects formally announced general availability of the software as the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo opened in San Francisco. They also disclosed the opening of the Diamond site.
Java developers who pick up a download of the development and runtime tools will find it is free and fully licensed for production use. Crystal Reports for Eclipse is not a time-limited trial.
Of interest to web developers will be the Crystal Reports Web Project Wizard. This utility permits a developer to craft a web project where all of the needed runtime configurations are in place.
Also, the Crystal Reports runtime can be added to new or existing web applications. All of the needed JAR files will be added as well. Developers who still work in JSP can use Crystal Reports to drag and drop a report onto a JSP, or build a new JSP page through the context menu of a report, according to Johnson.
The tool also means that developers need not leave their beloved Eclipse environment just to create or edit Crystal Reports. It has also received endorsement from JavaPro magazine, which declared the year-old project one of its Readers’ Choice award winners.
In the future, Business Objects will make a Professional version of Crystal Reports for Eclipse available. Licensing will cost $495 per server, and deliver a more powerful runtime engine and technical support for purchasers.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
