11 Oct 2024

How to Create Alternate Row Background Color in Jaspersoft Reports

In Jaspersoft reports, alternating row background colors are a common requirement to improve readability. This can be achieved using conditional styles in combination with Jaspersoft's built-in variables, which track the current row position during the report-filling process.

The detail section in a report is responsible for displaying the records from a dataset. Since it repeats for each record, adding alternate row colors helps distinguish between rows and provides a clearer visual representation, especially in table layouts.

Implement alternate row colors in Jaspersoft using conditional styles and built-in counting variables.

Steps to Implement Alternate Row Background Colors:

To achieve alternating row colors, you need to:

1. Determine the Current Record Number: This is done using Jaspersoft’s built-in counting variables, such as:

REPORT_COUNT: Tracks the current record count for the entire report. Use this if the row color alternation should be consistent across the entire report, unaffected by page breaks.
PAGE_COUNT: Resets the count for each new page, ensuring the same row color starts on each page.
COLUMN_COUNT: Resets the count for each new page column.
GROUP_COUNT: Resets the count for each new group of records, starting with the same row color for each group.
ROW_COUNT: For crosstab reports, this variable returns the current row number in the crosstab.

2. Set Up Conditional Styles: Conditional styles consist of a Boolean condition and a style definition. The style is applied only if the condition evaluates to true.

Example: Applying Alternate Row Background Color

Here’s an example of how to create a conditional style that alternates row background colors between blue and red.

XML
Copy code

                                    <style name="defaultRowStyle" fontName="Arial">
                                       <conditionalStyle>
                                          <conditionExpression><![CDATA[$V{REPORT_COUNT} % 2 == 0]]></conditionExpression>
                                          <style backcolor="blue"/>
                                       </conditionalStyle>
                                       <conditionalStyle>
                                          <conditionExpression><![CDATA[$V{REPORT_COUNT} % 2 != 0]]></conditionExpression>
                                          <style backcolor="red"/>
                                       </conditionalStyle>
                                    </style>

In this code:

The condition expression ($V{REPORT_COUNT} % 2 == 0) checks if the current row number is even. If it is, the row’s background color is set to blue.
The second condition applies the red background color to odd-numbered rows.

Applying the Style in Jaspersoft Studio:

1. Open your report in Jaspersoft Studio.

2. Select the Detail band where the records are displayed.

3. In the Style Properties section, create a new style and add the conditional logic shown in the XML above.

4. Apply the style to the elements in your detail section (e.g., text fields, background elements).

Advanced Considerations:

Grouped Data: If your report contains grouped data, you can use the _COUNT variable to apply alternating colors based on each group’s starting point.
Performance: Be mindful of performance when applying complex styles to large datasets. Conditional styles add processing overhead, particularly for large reports.

For more detailed information on using conditional styles, refer to Jaspersoft’s official documentation.

Conclusion

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