BIRT 2 Milestone Features

The BIRT Team released milestone 2 of the BIRT 2.2 release a couple of weeks ago. With this milestone several new features were added that are very cool. We now have a BIRT Web Project Wizard that uses WTP technology to deploy the Web Viewer. Deployment is often stumbling block and ranks as one of the top questions on the BIRT News Group. Web integration will get more updates in later milestones. One in particular is the BIRT tag library, which will allow customized parameter pages and viewer attributes modifications.

Another very interesting project is the new ODA Project Wizards. Open Data Access drivers form the heart of data retrieval for the BIRT engine and are implemented using Data Tools Platform (DTP) project technology. Coding an ODA can be quite daunting to the initiate. These new wizards stub out a working sample ODA that can be customized to your needs. We will be blogging some more on this topic in the coming weeks.

These are just two of the projects in the 2.2 Project plan. Dynamic cross tabs and a new JavaScript editor are on the way. To read more about Milestone 2 features, take a look at the New and Notable Features for BIRT 2.2 Milestone 2

EclipseCon Long Tutorials

EclipseCon 2007 is in March next year. This is a great chance to go out and learn about the various Eclipse projects and to meet the people that are working to build the Eclipse Framework. The content for that program is selected through an open process using a modified version of Bugzilla named EclipseZilla.

Reporting has been given five slots for long talks (one hour presentations). Unfortunately we have 10 really good looking proposals. If you are interested in helping to determine which reporting topics will be presented at EclipseCon, please go to EclipseZilla and vote for your favorites.