BIRT 2.0.1 Released

BIRT 2.0.1 has been released and is avaiable for download.

This release now supports Firefox 1.5. An issue with rendering PDF on Linux has also be addressed.

The Project Plan for BIRT 2.0.1 is available on the BIRT Website

Top N/Top M% BIRT Report Example

A new solution report example has been added to the BIRT website that shows off new filtering functionality. New operators were added to the BIRT filters, which allow you to specify Top N or Top M Percent of data results.

In the example there is a graph that list the Top N customers. This is achieved by setting the filter to use the Top N operator. This is pictured below:



So this graph is taking the Customer Totals and filtering on the Top N, where N is passed in as a parameter to the report.

This report also has a table that list the Top M Percent Customers. This is achieved similarly to the graph and is pictured below.



The final report is shown below. You can download the report from the BIRT Website

BIRT Web Site - Rises Again

Some of you may have seen that the BIRT web site was down for a while last week. A potential security issue was discovered in the old web site, so we were shut down. Fortunately, Jason Hellman had been working on a conversion to the new Phoenix style that has been adopted by the Eclipse Foundation.

Thanks to a late night (early morning?) by Jason Weathersby from the BIRT PMC, we were able to bring the BIRT web site up in the new Phoenix style. Thanks a lot to both of the Jasons (Weathersby and Hellman) for keeping the web site up.

We are currently trying to update the content in the BIRT web site to reflect the changes made by BIRT 2.0. Look for lots of new and improved content as we get things posted.

If anyone has a request for a particular type of content, or if they have content they would like to share with the BIRT community, let us know and we will do our best to help out.

BIRT Update Manager

The BIRT Dev team has added support to use the Eclipse update manager to get distributions of BIRT. To use this feature, use the Eclipse menu system to Help => Software Updates => Find and Install. This action will bring up the Features Update screen.



Click Next and get the following dialog



Select the New Remote Site option and get the New Update Site dialog, fill the dialog in as follows:


After adding the site, make sure the site has been checked and press Finish.

If this is a first time BIRT install you will get the following dialog:


Select the BIRT checkbox and click Next will bring you to the license screen, select Next again and you will be given a choice on where you would like to install BIRT. Click Next a final time and BIRT will be installed.

There are a coupe of things you should be aware of:

1. At this time the update site seems to be slower than a download from one of the major distribution sites i.e. ibilio or TDS Internet Services.


2. This option only downloads the birt-report-framework distribution. If you would like any of the other downloads (RCP, Runtime, Charts…) you will need to go through the standard download site.


3. You are still required to download the Axis libraries, iText.jar and prototype.js files by hand.*

* We are very aware that the download of these files is a nuisance. We are working with the Eclipse Foundation to clear up the licensing of these products so that they can be included in the standard BIRT download. As soon as we clean up the process, we will let you know.

Swapping Databases at Runtime with BIRT 2.0

Swapping Databases at Runtime with BIRT 2.0

Often it is desirable to compose a report against a development system before promoting it to a production system.  Although this could be done prior to BIRT 2.0, it required scripting.  A new Database Property Binding editor is now available that speeds this process.

To use the Property Binding editor, edit the data source as shown below.



  Select the Property Binding item.



Within this editor, the JDBC Driver Class, JDBC Driver URL, User Name and Password properties can be changed dynamically.  The values for these properties can be typed in or entered through the BIRT Expression Builder, which is accessed by clicking the elipse icon ("...").  

To swap the database at runtime the JDBC Driver URL will need to be modified.
In this example, this will be accomplished by adding a report parameter that determines if the report is to run in Production or QA.  This parameter will be accessed in the expression set on the JDBC Driver URL property.



The JDBC URL is swapped based on the Production boolean parameter using this expression.

if ( params["Production"] ){
     "jdbc:mysql://localhost/production";
}else{
     "jdbc:mysql://localhost/qa";
}

That’s all there is to it.  

Eclipse BIRT 2.0 Released!

The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) team is pleased to announce the release of BIRT 2.0.

Including over 200 enhancements derived from community feedback, BIRT 2.0 f eatures a new and improved viewer based on AJAX, which supports HTML pagination, CSV Output and Table of Contents functionality.

Other compelling features include template and library support, event coding in Java as well as JavaScript, Multi-pass Aggregates, Stored Procedure support and importing of Style Sheets.

To learn more about the notable features of BIRT 2.0 take a look at
New and Notable BIRT 2.0

We are also currently in the process of updating the web site and adding new examples to reflect the changes and show off the new features.

As always we appreciate any feedback.

Mike Fox Joins the BIRT PMC

The BIRT Team is pleased to have Mike Fox joining our ranks.
Mike has over 20 years of experience in software development and project management. He is currently the Technical Lead and Architect for the reporting components of IBM/Rational’s Team Products. Mike has been very instrumental in the progress of BIRT, and has demonstrated superior knowledge on the APIs and data access layers of BIRT. We look forward to having him on the committee.

Welcome to the team Mike.