BIRT Exchange Forum: BIRT Exchange Forum -> Michael's BIRT Blog

Last Week in the Forums - 9/10/12

The first post, for this week, is about adding text to an image. The poster wanted to be able to add text to an image, within BIRT. One option could be to use the image as a background image on a grid or text element. The poster wasn't able to use this method, because background images don't export to Excel. Another solution that adds the text to the image, in script, using the image data, is attached in the forum thread.

The next post, for this week, is about using a table's output as input to a crosstab. The poster wanted to be able to feed the final results of their table to a crosstab. An example is posted in the thread that shows how to grab the table data and use it in a scripted dataSet that is used to build the cube.

Here are a few more :

• Optional grouping breaking pie chart
  
• onclick on a image
  
• Need "get started" for birt charting api
  
• Exception java.lang.NoSuchMethodError
  
• [chart]Mixing stacked and unstacked bars

Here are a few unanswered posts, from last week:

• How to use jquery or other javascript frame work in BIRT for client side scripting
  
• Stored procedure not returning expected data
  
• Birt chart overriding Birt report style
  
• Using ReportEngine in a Java Applet

If you have a suggestion or solution for any of these, please post in the thread!

Thanks for reading this weeks blog! Again, this is just a small sample of what went through the forums this past week. For more questions and answers that have been posted, check out the forums. As always, if you have a question, feel free to ask it, and if you see a question you know the answer to or have a similar experience to, feel free to post an answer or comment.

Last Week in the Forums - 8/20/12

The first post, for this week, is about coloring a bar based on a threshold value. The poster wanted to be able to color the portion of the bar that passed a threshold value. Say, there was a chart threshold of 50 and there were three bars valued at 75, 55, and 45. The first two bars would be one color up to 50, then another color above. The last bar would be entirely the first color. What is done in this case is to use two series. One that goes all the way up to the threshold, if the value is that high, and the other to continue above the threshold if needed. This allows for two colors at the threshold line. An example report can be found in the forum thread.

The next post, for this week, is about creating a chart in script. The poster wanted to know if it was possible to create a chart, on the fly, in script. An example can be found in the forum that shows how to create a chart, in script, using an existing dataSet.

Here are a few more :

• Alternating row colors for detail row?
  
• Create pie chart programmatically ?
  
• Compare date ranges
  
• Reading and setting the report-parameters in Birt Report Viewer jsp
  
• Setting Image on Runtime

Here are a few unanswered posts, from last week:

• AuthenticationMethod SQL connectivity
  
• JSAPI to get list of reports

If you have a suggestion or solution for any of these, please post in the thread!

Thanks for reading this weeks blog! Again, this is just a small sample of what went through the forums this past week. For more questions and answers that have been posted, check out the forums. As always, if you have a question, feel free to ask it, and if you see a question you know the answer to or have a similar experience to, feel free to post an answer or comment.

Last Week in the Forums - 8/6/12

This blog series takes a look back at the past week in the forums, recalling how active they were and highlights some of the questions asked that seem to frequent the forums or other interesting topics. Forum traffic continues to fluctuate during the summer, which is expected, but they're still fairly busy each week. Keep the good questions and answers coming. As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

I've decided to change the format, slightly. I'll continue to focus on a couple posts, in more detail, as I've always done. Instead of covering an unanswered post, in detail, I'll just list several unanswered posts, from the previous week, in hopes that a few answers will come out of the extra publicity, for them. I'll also list some other questions that have been answered, so this post can be a better summary of the forums, in each week. This hope is that this will aid community members in finding past posts that answer their questions. Feel free to let me know if you like or hate the changes. :)

The first topic I'll discuss, from last week, is about showing a percentage in a pie chart. The issue was that the dataSet consisted of a jobID and a status column. The status column was either "Complete" or blank. The solution given was to create a computed column to give the blank rows a value of "Not Complete", then, to use the computed column for the category and the count of jobs for the slice value. To get the percent, the series label needed to be changed from Value Data to Percentile Value Data. This can be done in the chart wizard. An example is posted in the thread.

The last detailed description post, for this week, is about limiting embedded tables with an outer table value. The issue is, when you embed a table, how can you limit the embedded table with a value from the outer table. There are a couple possibilities, here. One, if you're using SQL, is to use a dataSet parameter in your inner query, and use the dataSet parameter binding option, which can be found on the binding tab of the inner table, to pass row._outer["myoutertablevalue"] directly to the inner query. Another available way, if you're not using SQL, is to use this value in a filter on the inner table, to limit the data. An example of the data set parameter binding way can be found in the thread.

Here are a few more:

• DataSet Filter
  
• How to Give Access Privilege for a User (Not an Administrator) for Restarting the iServer
  
• Update URL in beforeFactory
  
• Table in a Header

And a few unanswered ones:

• Column Names in CSV Export
  
• BIRT PDF Report Print Issue in PDF Complete
  
• Disk Cache Size for Transient Reports Question
  
• Actuate JavaComponent WAR for Tomcat
  
• New Window After Entering Parameters

If you have a suggestion or solution for any of these, please post in the thread!

Thanks for reading this week's blog! Again, this is just a small sample of what went through the forums this past week. For more questions and answers that have been posted, check out the forums. As always, if you have a question, feel free to ask it, and if you see a question you know the answer to or have a similar experience to, feel free to post an answer or comment.

This blog series takes a look back at the past week in the forums, recalling how active they were and highlights some of the questions asked that seem to frequent the forums or other interesting topics. The forums remain extremely busy. I'm finding less time to step into the forums, so there are many opportunities to contribute back to the community sitting there! Many great questions and answers are being posted every day. As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The first topic for this week is exploding the largest slice of a pie chart. When you create a pie chart, there are options to explode the slices of a pie chart, but there is not an option to explode only the largest slice. To do this, you'll need to use script to grab the largest slice value and then use the expression builder in the chart editor, for what value to explode, to grab the variable you set so that the largest slice is the only one that separates from the pie. An example is included in the forum thread.

The second topic I'll discuss is the script tag issue with BIRT and Firefox 5+. It seems that there is a bug with HTML script tags and Firefox when using BIRT. When using client side scripting in an HTML text box in your BIRT report, the script tag seems to be ignored in Firefox 5 and 6. I have checked this up to BIRT 3.7.1 with the same issue. They do still work with IE, so I'm not sure if this is a BIRT change issue or a change in how FF looks at script tags that hasn't been addressed in BIRT yet. A bug has been raised on this. You can view it in the forum thread.

The last topic for this week is how to grab data from your dataSet and store it in a variable for use elsewhere in your report. The poster wanted to be able to grab the value from all lines of their dataSet and store them all in their own individual variables to manipulate within their report. The solution given was to store the values in persistent global variables in the dataSet's onFetch method. With this approach, you can name each variable uniquely according to another value in the row or with a standard base name and an incrementing value concatenated to the end of this base value to make the name. Another possible way would be to create an array and store the values in it. Then, you'd have an array of values you could step through anywhere in your report to manipulate and do what you want.

Again, this is just a small sample of what went through the forums this past week. For more questions and answers that have been posted, check out the forums. As always, if you have a question, feel free to ask it, and if you see a question you know the answer to or have a similar experience to, feel free to post an answer or comment.