1. Can I use Nerval Reports in a proprietary software?
2. Why do you created this library?
3. Why is it called Nerval?
4. Why is it focused at programmer's side?
5. Do you plan to create a designer application?
6. Which files are supported?
7. I found a bug. What can I do?



1. Can I use Nerval Reports in a proprietary software?
Yes, you can, as long you respect the LGPLv3 license. In short, if you just use Nerval Reports, you are ok. If you modify Nerval Reports, you'll need to public publish the modified version under the same LGPLv3 license as the original Nerval Reports you used.

2. Why do you created this library?
Because we were really upset with the bad performance and bad approaches of most used Java report libraries there. Althought most Java programmers didn't ever though about performance related questions, we believe it's a bad approach (and, sometimes, a side-effect of some easy-to-implement features Java offers). It's easy to write Java code that is functional, but it's also easy to write an inneficient code, which does a lot of memory reallocation, forgot about the structures - and the way they interact - used bellow your code, and even worse, it's very common to see Java applications that don't scale very well. Nerval Reports is a try to do things different. In fact, it's a hope we've done things differently.

3. Why is it called Nerval?
Because Nerval starts with a capital fallen Z and ends with a periscopal L. Even more, we were nervous every time we need to do something in the Jasper Reports we've used before on some applications, and from nervous to Nerval it's a jump. Did I ever said that one friend called its application Toilete Player because every time he wrote some code for it he was at.. ehr, enough, I'm sure you got the reasons why it's called Nerval Reports.

4. Why is it focused at programmer's side?
Because we are coders, not designers. We want to be able to easily debug our reports, and think little about it. I hate XML templates, but we love class inheritance, so why not prototipe a report style with class inheritance in mind? Did you ever wrote a document with LaTeX? It's a big influence for us here: focus should be at the report content, not fully at the way it should appear, let the library worry about putting it on the target file, not you. You just focus in retriveing correct data and sending it in the most efficient way to the target.

5. Do you plan to create a designer application?
No. See question (4) for a more complete answer.

6. Which files are supported?
Nerval Reports can directly generate PDF, HTML, TEX and CSV files. It can also convert generated HTML and TEX files to PDF, if desirable (although if you target to just generate PDF reports, you should directly generate them in PDF format, instead of generating and converting them). Just choose your generator, and include it to your project.

7. I found a bug. What can I do?
The better thing to do if you can't fix it (and send us the fix), is to generate a minimum report case and create a bug with it here. For minium report case, let's say you've found a bug related to the second column of a table in PDF generator: the minimum should be a small application (or procedure) that creates a at least two columns table that should be enough to reproduce the problem. Well reported bugs are usually faster to fix.