The viewers provided are used primarily for
generating Dynamic HTML (DHTML) pages that display Crystal reports. As a web
application developer, you can use the viewers in your JavaServer Pages (JSPs)
and programmatically manipulate them to send customized reports to your users'
web browsers. The viewers are therefore a "thin-client" technology—users of
your web application don't need to install any additional software onto their
computers in order to view the reports. Additionally, some of the viewers
provide the ability to generate reports for display on mobile devices such as
Personal Digital Assistants.
Note: Crystal Reports
Java does not support generating reports for display on mobile devices.
The different viewers provide varying
functionality. As such, it is important to choose the viewer technology that is
suited for your particular application. The rest of this section describes each
viewer technology in more detail and provides common usage scenarios to help in
choosing the appropriate viewer.