specialpurpose/birt/data/helpdata/HELP_BIRT.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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    xmlns:xl="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" 
    xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook ../../../content/dtd/docbook.xsd"
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    <title>OFBiz BIRT Overview</title>
    <para>
        Welcome to OFBiz BIRT. The part installed within OFBiz allows you to run the reports which are prepared using Eclipse with the BIRT plugin installed.
        As a demo we have prepared a product report as an example.
        Look at the <link xl:href="http://eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/">Eclipse BIRT web site</link> for more information.
    </para>
    <para>
        This is a short document to help you get started using BIRT to make a report.
    </para>
    <section>
        <title>1. HTML tab</title>
        <para>When you click on this tab. It will show the complete report in an iframe.</para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>2. PDF tab</title>
        <para>When you click on this tab. It will render the report in a pdf format</para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>3. Send any format through Mail tab</title>
        <para>When you click on this tab. It will show a form that can send the report per email.</para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>Examine the Example Report</title>
        <para>
            The example report that run in OFBiz is in the file component://birt/webapp/birt/report/product.rptdesign. When you have started Eclipse BIRT, open this document.
            This report show how a report receives data from OFBiz through Scripted Data Source using the OFBiz delegator.
            This report has the scripted data source name "OFBiz" and the data set that use the script data source name is called "Product". 
            Open the script editor for Product data set, it uses the delegator object query data from the Product entity.
            A report that runs on the OFBiz platform can use the delegator object, dispatcher object, security object and classpath of OFBiz environment in the script.</para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>Important file for using BIRT's jsp tags</title>
        <para>
            If a web applications wants to use the report in a screen, copy birt.tld file to [WEB APP]/WEB-INF/ directory and assign in in ftl
            like &lt;#assign birt = JspTaglibs["/WEB-INF/birt.tld"]/&gt;</para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>Important tag's attribute in ftl.</title>
        <para>
            The BIRT uses some servlets for rendering the report.
            When you use the report tag in a ftl file you must add a specific "baseURL" attribute to the birt webapp for these resources like baseURL="/birt".
        </para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>How do I send parameter to report.</title>
        <para>If a report is to be rendered through a view map, you can send a parameter through attribute of the request object, the attribute's name is "birtParameters" which is a map.</para>
        <para>If a report is to be rendered through an e-mail, you can send the parameter through the service's parameter name called birtParameters.</para>
    </section>
    <section>
        <title>Which are the supported content types?</title>
        <para>text/html</para>
        <para>application/pdf</para>
        <para>application/postscript</para>
        <para>application/vnd.ms-excel</para>
        <para>application/vnd.ms-word</para>
        <para>application/vnd.ms-powerpoint</para>
        <para>application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text</para>
        <para>application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet</para>
        <para>application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation</para>
        <para>application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document</para>
        <para>application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet</para>
        <para>application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation</para>
    </section>
</section>