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. 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 unanswered post, from last week, that I'll cover, is about outputting the display name in csv export. The issue in this post is that the csv export uses the original column name from the database, rather than the "display name", defined in the report. The output is fine when export report is used, but with export data, it is not. If anyone has a solution or suggestion for this, please post in the thread.

The next topic I'll cover, this week, is about sorting a string field in a custom order. The issue in this post is that the desired sort order for a "status" column should be user defined. The sort order should be able to be any order, not just ascending and descending alphabetically. An example solution is provided that takes the values from the field and puts them in an HTML form with input text boxes, so the user can specify the order. A link to the devshare article can be found in the thread or you can just click here, to go directly to it.

The last topic, for this week, is about hiding the date that always shows at the bottom of the report. I saw this question, last week, and it made me think. If you're new to BIRT, you may not know the whole master page vs design layout setup, so I could see how this could trick a new user. For those wanting to get rid of the date at the bottom of the page, simply go to the master page tab under the design window, and delete the date element from the footer. This is also where you would add any content that you'd like to appear on each page, like page numbers, etc.

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 forums picked back up after their one week lull. 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 an issue opening a report from iServer. Normally, when they click on a report from the iServer, the parameter window pops up, then the report opens in that window. However, sporadically, the report opens in a new window and a new parameter window pops up over it. If the window is closed, the report is there. If anyone has experienced this issue, before, and knows what is happening, please post in the thread!

The next post I'll discuss, this week, is about adding another column to the grand total area in a crosstab. The poster wanted to add a second column to the grand total column to show a percentage of the total. An example is posted in the thread that shows a way in which this can be achieved.

The last post we'll cover, this week, is about creating a TOC in your report. The poster wanted to have a TOC in their report. A devShare example is linked in the thread that shows how a page number TOC and a hyperlink to the internal bookmark, in the report.

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. 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.