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

Last Week in the Forums - 9/17/12

The first post, for this week, is about showing a default result set if the main one is empty. The poster wanted to be able to show a default table if the parameter entered by the user returned no results. An example is posted in the thread that shows how to set the visibility of the two tables based on a variable that is set in the onFetch of the parameterized dataSet.

The next post, for this week, is about how to parameterize the from portion of an SQL query. The poster wanted to be able to use a parameter value to choose which table to use in the from portion of an SQL query. The solution provided was to use the report parameter in the beforeOpen of the dataSet, like:

this.queryText = "select * from " + params["myparameter"];

Here are a few more :

• Why so many date-time datapoints on chart?
  
• how to get a chart svg output as an object
  
• Dynamic Report Based on User Selection
  
• Cant Startup the OSGI Framework in BIRT
  
• Serial number for newspaper columns

Here are a few unanswered posts, from last week:

• ClassCastException on WebLogic BEA Servers
  
• Birt Reports not working other then maxadmin user

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 - 8/13/12

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. The forums continue to pick the pace back up and are pretty busy, now. 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!

The first topic, for this week, is about flowing report content across multiple page columns. The issue in this post is that there is not a standard newspaper layout, in BIRT, yet. The normal solution for this is to use a grid, duplicate tables, and filters to make the appearance of wrapping columns. The issue the poster was having with this was that they had multi-line rows that caused issues with ordering. The solution provided was to break the original dataSet's long rows into single line rows, allowing the normal solution to work. An example is posted in the thread showing this. Another example showing this with grouping, is also attached in the thread.

The last in detail topic, from last week, is about formatting currency values in an HTML text box. The poster was displaying a value using the <value-of> tag, in an HTML text box, so they could include it in a string, but they wanted it to come as a currency value, with symbol and decimal. The solution is that you can set a format property on the value-of tag, telling it how you want the value formatted, like: <VALUE-OF format="$#,##0.00{RoundingMode=HALF_UP}">row._outer["yourColumn"]</VALUE-OF>

Here are a few more :

• iServer Users Jobs View of Others
  
• Exception Handling in BIRT Viewer
  
• Couldn't Export Different Locale to the PDF Report
  
• Flash Map Questions
  
• Dynamically Scale SVG Graph

Here are a few unanswered posts, from last week:

• Centering an A4 Size Report in any Monitor
  
• How to get Client IP Address
  
• Send Parameters to Reports/Dashboards from the SecurityAdapter

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.

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 new year is almost here! Just a few more weeks to go in 2011. The forums have been very busy all year and I don't expect them to slow down in these last few weeks. 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 unanswered question for this week is an issue with SVG in PDF. The question is, when a SVG image is created with Adobe Illustrator, it works in the PDF. However, when the SVG is made with Inkscape, they receive an error message like, "Current report item is not supported in this report format." If anyone has experienced this issue with SVG images and PDF, please post your suggestions or solution in this thread!

The next post I'll cover from last week is, dropping a series from a chart. The question was, how do you drop a series from a chart if it's an empty series. A devShare post is linked as an answer. The devShare post shows how to drop a series based on a parameter. So, the only work left to do to solve the poster's question is to determine if the series is empty or not. This can probably be done outside the chart and passed in just like the parameter value in the example. This information can also probably be found out in the afterDataSetFilled function in the chart script.

The last topic for this week is, changing negative numbers to red. The question is, if you have a field of positive and negative numbers, how do you make the negative ones red. The solution provided is to select the data element for the field, and go to the highlight section of the property editor and add a highlight rule.

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.