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

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. There seemed to be a little bit of a lull in traffic this past week. That's probably a good thing, because I was out of town the last half of the week. I know if everyone else's weather is anything like the weather here, in Kansas, people are probably running off to vacation, in a cool place! :) 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 unanswered post, from last week, that I'll cover, is about using a JAX-WS (axis 2) data source, with BIRT. The poster is currently running into issues with getting the schema from the response, while using Geronimo. If anyone has set something like this up or has any web services wisdom to pass along, please post in the thread.

The next topic I'll discuss is about using lots of data in a scatter plot. The poster was having troubles plotting the data they had. Using a line chart, they ended up with weird straight lines running across the chart where they shouldn't be. With this happening, they turned to a scatter plot, but the smallest size of marker was too big to show the intricate details of the plot, as there was lots and lots of data and multiple series close together. A solution is provided that shows the output of using a 1 pixel image as the marker with the size set at 0. With this setting, the marker truly is a 1 pixel dot, which allows the plot to render clearly, even with lots of data. The poster ended up using a different route, that required more work, to get around the issue. Their solution is detailed step by step, in the thread.

The last topic, for this week, is about using row data to auto-fill values in a standard text. The poster had several rows of data and wanted to use the values from their dataSet rows to personalize a text. One solution to this is detailed in the thread. It is to use a text box in a table bound to the dataSet and use the <value-of> tag inside the HTML text box to be able to call the current row's data to complete the text. Within the table, this will dynamically fill in the appropriate information into the text, for each row.

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. Lots of good questions were asked in this first week of the second half of the year. Doesn't look like we'll be slowing down much, at all, this year. 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 unanswered post, for this week, is about a problem with fragmented wsdl schemas, in BIRT. The poster is having an issue using a fragmented schema in their web service dataSet. They show their original wsdl and original schema in the thread, along with a changed schema that they found they could do to make it work, but they don't want to have to do. If anyone has run into an issue with this before or has an idea of something they could do to get around it without changing the schema, please post in the thread.

The next topic I'll cover is about modifying the contents of a grid dynamically. The poster wanted to be able to create an array from the rows in a dataSet and, then, step through their grid and change the values of the labels in each grid cell. The problem they were having was that they didn't have access to their data until the onCreate, but weren't able to step through their grid and modify the contents, at this point. They also didn't want to have to place script on each cell/label. A solution is provided that uses script in the before Factory to step through the grid and modify each label's onCreate script, so that the code only has to be done in one place. The example can be downloaded from the thread.

The last topic, for this week, is about adding grouping to a table dynamically and forcing a space between the groups. The poster wanted to be able to group their data and have a space between the groups, using the DEAPI, not the designer. Some beforeFactory code is shown in the thread that grabs the table, creates a grouping, adds it to the table, and adds group header and footer rows. The footer row's height is set to force a spacing between the groups. As described in the thread, the script to add the header row and group header data element is commented out, as the poster did not want this.

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. We're halfway through the year, already. The forums are still steadily busy and I look for that to continue. It seems like yesterday we were kicking off the new year. We've had a good first half, let's make the second half just as good or even better. As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered question from last week is about passing connection credentials through XML. The poster is using an XML dataSource. They want to know if there is a way to pass the database connection credentials through XML. If anyone has experience with this issue or suggestions, please post in the thread.

The next topic for this week is about dynamic column sorting. The poster wanted to know how they could sort their report by clicking on a hyperlink in the column header. An example is posted in the thread which shows how this can be done using parameters, hyperlinks, and some script. The Actuate Interactive Viewer would be a way to handle this for all reports without the need to code each report.

The last topic I'll discuss is the newspaper layout issue. The poster was wanting to know if and when the newspaper layout would be supported as a standard feature. The answer is that there is no specific version set, yet. A post to a devShare example showing a way to create a newspaper layout can be found in the thread. The following link is the bug report / enhancement request for the newspaper layout. If you're wanting this feature, please click on the following link and let them know by voting for it.

https://bugs.eclipse...g.cgi?id=133218

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 as we push through the last month of the first half of the year. I'm getting closer and closer to catching up on posts I've been working on. Thanks everyone, for your patience. :) As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered post from last week is about scripting in crosstabs. The poster has some script to set the format, depending on the value of a field in the crosstab. That is working fine for them. They also have some script where they're checking the value of another field and want to set the colors for the cell. This is not working for them. For more specifics, check out the thread. If you have suggestions or solutions, please post them.

The next topic for this week is about showing different content on the masterpage for different pages of the report. The poster wanted a grid on the first page and a different grid on the second page for printing customer invoices. An example report is provided in the thread that shows a way to achieve this. For it to work, the report must be ran using separate run and render tasks. See the thread for more information on this.

The last topic for this week is about setting the vertical position of a table footer. The poster wanted to know if they could determine the vertical position of the footer so they could push it to the bottom of the page. Unfortunately, I don't know that there's a way to do this, currently. The masterpage footer can be used with page or report variables to put page/report information. Another couple ways would be to add extra footer rows to your table and show/hide them, depending on your count of rows on the page or to use a HTML text box to force the footer down, also depending on your count of rows. Here are a couple devShare posts, showing the last two:

http://www.birt-exch...ting-row-color/

http://www.birt-exch...le-to-fit-page/

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. I'm doing my best to catch up the unanswered posts and the posts I'm working on. I was out a couple days and had the newsletter to get out, so if you know the answer to a post that you see isn't answered, feel free to post. As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered topic, from last week, is about connection profiles. The poster wants to be able to create an editable connection profile for the purpose of editing the parameters for the dataSource for use in many reports. If anyone has experience editing connection profiles in this way, please post your suggestions in the thread.

The next topic I'll cover is about dynamic x-axis chart markers. The poster wanted to be able to create a dynamic marker on their dateTime type x-axis. A couple of examples are in the thread. One shows how to do this with a true dateTime axis and one shows how to do this with a dateTime category axis.

The last topic, for this week, is about getting a border only on the bottom of a group, in a crosstab. The poster wanted to be able to have a border on the bottom of each row grouping, in their crosstab. This would be easy, if they wanted a border on all rows, but with the way a crosstab is formed, it gets harder to put borders on only certain cells. An example is included in the thread that shows how this can be done in 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.

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. It's June! Summer is upon us. I fully expect the forums to begin to slow down, sometime this month, as summer is here and there are vacations to be taken. As always, thanks to those users who help answer forum questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered post for this week is about integrating BIRT reports in Vaadin portlet. The poster is wanting to be able to integrate birt reports into their Vaadin portlet. They are new to Vaadin and they can't figure it out. If anyone has done this or has suggestions, please post in the thread!

The next topic, from last week, that I'll cover, is about having a string field as a crosstab measure. The default aggregation performed on a crosstab element is SUM. If you've tried using a string and didn't know where to change this or have ever tried to sum with a string field, before, you know you end up with an error. When you want to use a string, the other thing you need to do is to change the aggregation to FIRST. To do this, double click on the measure in the crosstab wizard and change SUM to FIRST in the drop down. There is an example in the thread that shows this.

The last question, for this week, is about changing the colors of the series in a chart and setting the legend color to match. This is a very common question. I may have covered this in a past edition of LWITF, but it's worth covering again. In the forum thread, you'll see script that can be added to the chart script to change both the series color and the legend block color, to match, based on the series.

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. Busy, busy, busy! Forum traffic continues to be heavy as we move closer and closer to the half way point. As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered post, for this past week, is about an encoding issue while running a postgresql function in BIRT. When they run the function in pSQL or pgAdmin, they don't have an issue, just when running the function from BIRT. They get the following error:

22021: invalid byte sequence for encoding "UTF8": 0xf6206f72

If anyone has seen this before or has a suggestion for them to try, please post in the thread!

The next issue I'll discuss is about exporting charts to XLS. The standard BIRT XLS emitter doesn't export images. Since charts are images in the BIRT output, the XLS emitter skips over them. There are several third party emitters created to export XLS outputs. Several of the options available can be found linked in this forum thread!

The last topic I'll discuss is about displaying the series name on top of a bar when optional grouping is used. When you use optional y-series grouping, in your chart, the series identifier you have available to you in the data point functions of the chart script will show you the grouped series, not the original series name. The poster wanted to be able to place the original series name at the top of the bar. An example is provided, in the thread, that shows how you can access the original series name and place it over the appropriate stacked bar.

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. School is out for many, so we might have a lull in forum traffic, over the summer, as people head off on vacation. Only time will tell. The forums are still busy, so far! As always, thanks to those users who help answer questions! It is a great help to the community!

The unanswered post I'll cover, this week, is about truncated text in Word output when dynamically hiding columns. The poster is having issues when they hide columns in their report and export to Word. The output is fine, if they don't hide the columns, but if they do there is truncated text. If anyone has experienced this issue or has a suggestion for the poster to try, please post in the forum thread!

The next topic I'll cover, this week, is about creating multiple rows out of a dataSet that has a SSV field for a column. The poster had a dataSet that had a SSV field, i.e. 234;227;24;86, that they wanted to turn into multiple rows. In the example field above, it'd be 4 rows, with all other data fields repeating, for each row. A solution is attached in the thread that uses a scripted dataSet to achieve this result. The data from the first dataSet is stored into arrays, then the scripted dataSet separates the original data into separate rows.

The last topic I'll cover, for this week, is about overlaying charts across a grid. The poster wanted to have a couple grid columns with pie charts "laying across them", so they laid over the grid border lines. A solution is provided that uses grids, cell borders, and merged grid cells to make it appear that the chart is overlaying the grid. The example can be found in the forum thread.

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.