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

Last Week in the Forums - 9/24/12

The first post, for this week, is about placing a marker in the middle of a gantt series bar. The poster wanted to be able to have a marker in the middle of a gantt chart bar, that was not at the beginning or the end. A gantt chart only has the option to have a marker at the beginning or end of a series. An example is provided that shows how two series can be used to make it appear as if there is a marker in the middle of the bar.

The next post, for this week, is about getting multi-level numbering in html lists. The poster wanted to be able to take an HTML list like:

<ul class="numericbullets"> 
<li>Cats</li> 
<li>Dogs 
    <ul> 
        <li>Birds</li> 
        <li>Rats
                                <ul> 
                                                <li>Birds</li> 
                                                <li>Rats</li> 
                                                <li>Rats</li> 
                                                <li>Rats</li> 
                                </ul> 
                
                </li> 
    </ul> 
</li> 
<li>Rabbits</li> 
<li>Ants 
    <ul> 
        <li>Lions</li> 
        <li>Rats</li> 
        <li>Rats</li> 
        <li>Rats</li> 
    </ul> 
</li> 
<li>Ducks</li> 
</ul>

and make it look like:

    1. Cats
    2. Dogs
        2.1 Birds
        2.2 Rats
            2.2.1 Birds
            2.2.2 Rats
            2.2.3 Rats
            2.3.4 Rats
    3. Rabbits
    4. Ants
        4.1 Lions
        4.2 Rats
        4.3 Rats
        4.4 Rats
    5. Ducks

The needed CSS styles to make this happen were failing to upload into the design. The solution that was found to work was to take the css styles:

ul.numericbullets { counter-reset:section; list-style-type:none; } 
ul.numericbullets li { list-style-type:none; } 
ul.numericbullets li ul { counter-reset:subsection; } 
ul.numericbullets li ul li ul{ counter-reset:subsubsection; } 
ul.numericbullets li:before{ 
    counter-increment:section; 
    content:counter(section) ". ";
} 
ul.numericbullets li ul li:before { 
    counter-increment:subsection; 
    content:counter(section) "." counter(subsection) " "; 
} 
ul.numericbullets li ul li ul li:before { 
    counter-increment:subsubsection; 
    content:counter(section) "." counter(subsection) "." counter(subsubsection) " "; 
}

and place them in style.css in webcontet -> birt -> styles. This style sheet is used in run and frameset. It won't work with preview, so don't be worried if you don't see this in any output that uses the preview option.

Here are a few more :

• Invalid Design file
  
• dataset parameters disappear
  
• Create Global Function
  
• Calculate between rows
  
• Named parameters in DataSet Query

Here are a few unanswered posts, from last week:

• How to connecting to database during param validation
  
• Cross Tab -data not to sort alphabetically
  
• Can I flip the origin of bar chart?
  
• Flat file on iServer
  
• Exporting report with 'https' images

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. As expected, the forums are starting to slow a little, over the summer, at least for now. That being said, they're slowing down from a state of high traffic, so there are still many posts coming in, each week. As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered post, this week, is about scroll bars on a chart. The poster has a gantt chart that they want to have vertical scroll bars on. If anyone has done this or has ideas, please post your suggestions in the thread.

The next topic, for this week, is about line height in PDF. This question comes through the forums often enough. When you set the line height in BIRT to a larger value than the text, all outputs show a larger line height. However, when you try to have a smaller line height, the HTML outputs show this, but PDF does not. The reason that some people tried to reduce the line height was because PDF seemed to show extra spacing between lines. This should be solved in BIRT 3.7, as there is a new line height algorithm for 3.7+. So, if you're using an older version and having issues with line spacing, upgrading will be the easiest option. The next option is probably to edit the pdf emitter.

The last topic, for this week, is about passing multiple values to a report through a parameter. The poster had a HTML select form in their report in a HTML text box that they wanted the user to be able to select multiple values from and submit the form and recall the design passing the multiple selections through their parameter. A sample report is included in the thread that does just that. It passes the current values through the parameter and uses them in the query to limit the dataSet. It also sets them as the selected values in the drop down.

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 continue to be busy. There's also lots of community support right now, which is great. As always, a big thanks goes out to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered post from last week is about passing a date parameter to the report through a batch file. The poster is having a problem passing a time stamp through from the command line to their report. They get an error when giving the time stamp as the parameter in the batch file. If they set the default value in the report, it works, but they need to pass it in dynamically. If anyone has experience with this or any suggestions, please post them in the thread.

The next post I'll cover is about setting the DateTime axis min/max dynamically. The poster was trying to set the dateTime scale in a gantt chart because the chart was showing one time unit earlier, so there was a blank area to begin the chart. They didn't want this. They wanted the chart to begin with the first data point. The following script can be used to set the chart axis min value to the actual minimum value in the chart, so there is no space.

importPackage( Packages.org.eclipse.birt.chart.model.type.impl );
importPackage( Packages.org.eclipse.birt.chart.util);
importPackage(Packages.org.eclipse.birt.chart.model.data.impl);

function afterDataSetFilled(series, dataSet, icsc)
{
ps = PluginSettings.instance( );

dsp = ps.getDataSetProcessor( series.getClass() );
//find min date
if (series.getSeriesIdentifier() == "Series 1"){
        mmin = dsp.getMinimum( dataSet );       
        mmax = dsp.getMaximum( dataSet );
}
}

function beforeGeneration( chart, icsc )
{
var yAxis = chart.getAxes().get(0).getAssociatedAxes().get(0);
var yScale = yAxis.getScale();
yScale.setMin(DateTimeDataElementImpl.create(mmin));
yScale.setMax(DateTimeDataElementImpl.create(mmax));
yAxis.setScale(yScale);
}

The last topic for this week is about alternating the color of the row dimension field in a crosstab. The poster wanted to be able to alternate the color in the row dimension column, in a crosstab. For example, they wanted to have the first row be blue, the second gray, the third blue, and so on. They were pointed to the following devShare post to help them achieve what they were wanting to do:

http://www.birt-exch...t-using-script/

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.