如何在BIRT报告中绘制图形或自定义设计图表？

Question

I am trying to generate a report based on some data from a XML file. Basically, the first page of the report contains some static text, a logo, some dynamic text and data and two charts. and the next pages should contain some text and a chart next to it. I have a very big issue here. The charts that BIRT provides are not suitable for my report so I thought maybe I can produce some charts(with an external app) based on the data from my xml file, saving the charts into files and eventually, dynamically load those files into my report. This is very easy for the charts on the first page. However, the next pages need to have their own charts and I couldn't find a proper way to include the corresponsing images into the next pages. So here are my questions:

1. Is this possible to somehow creat custom desinged charts? if yes how to do this? and how can I add charts to the 2,3,...pages of my report?
2. I have all the data needed in my xml file, is this possible to draw graphics on the fly with some javascript while the report is being created? I mean by using the data I just draw my own custom designed chart?(this is a very simple chart and no fancy stuff)
3. If I go for the solution of creating my charts externally and add them to the report dynamically, how can I add these images dynamically to the 2,3,..pages of my report.(each page has its own chart!) would using multiple master pages help me?

Answer 1

You can create custom designed charts using D3.js or Flash and add page breaks where you need them in the BIRT Designer 4.x. There are online tutorials for using Flash within a BIRT report.

If you create your own charts outside of BIRT, then you could import them as images using the image gadget and a URI to your images.

If you want to use D3.js,

• Add head.js(" http://d3js.org/d3.v3.js "); to the ClientScript > clientInitialize script of the report design
• Add script to your dataset that creates:
  • an array such as myArray = new java.util.ArrayList(); at beforeOpen
  • a script to fill that array using the onFetch event of the dataset, for example myArray.add("['"+row["date"]+"','"+row["sales"]+"']");
  • a script to copy the array to a global variable such as reportContext.setPersistentGlobalVariable("myArray",myArray);
• Add a text item to the report layout where you:
  • Grab the global variable, for example: var data = reportContext.getPersistentGlobalVariable("myArray");
  • use d3.js JavaScript to build the SVG visualization that you want, using the data from the global variable.

If you move to the commercial BIRT Designer Professional, there are included Flash objects and you also get the highcharts library of HTML5 charts that you can edit with JavaScript using the highcharts.org API.