+1 birt to extra
and there will also a jasperReport in extras
Le 20/03/2012 15:34, Mansour Al Akeel a écrit :
+1 birt to Extra.
On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:31 AM,<adrian.c...@sandglass-software.com> wrote:
I like the idea of keeping reporting tools separate from OFBiz. In my
experience, IT departments are already using a reporting tool for other
applications and they would prefer to integrate that tool with OFBiz,
instead of learning/using a new tool that comes bundled with it.
-Adrian
Quoting Jacopo Cappellato<jacopo.cappell...@hotwaxmedia.com>:
L) framework/birt (and related dependencies/reports spread around): move
to "Extras"
M) framework/bi (and related dependencies - ecas/business rules and data
- spread around): move to "Extras"
This is an area where Hans and I are in disagreement and we didn't get
much feedback from others.
So I would like to explain here why I think we should move the Birt
component and the Birt reports out of the framework and consider them as
optional tools.
There are currently 18 reports in the applications implemented with Birt;
but they really seem experiments rather than something really usable; to
give you some examples:
* in most of them there is this code like this:
userLogin = null;
try {
userLogin =
delegator.findByPrimaryKey("UserLogin",UtilMisc.toMap("userLoginId","admin"));
} catch(e) {
Debug.logError(e,"");
}
* all the retrieval logic (scripts) is inlined with layout definition and
this is something we try to avoid in all the existing screens
* entity list iterators are not properly closed
* some of the widget based financial reports have been converted to Birt:
their layout is still very simple and comparable to the widget based
versions available before Birt; so the conversion to Birt added a
dependencies on this component without adding real value (the rptdesign
files mix together data preparation scripts and ui definitions and in order
to maintain them you have to use the Birt designer); also some of them are
now broken: Income Stetements, Balance Sheet etc... This is probably caused
by the recent refactoring of JSR-223 but the original widget based PDF are
still there and are working fine...
* building a report with this Birt integration still requires a lot of
development work (similar to the one required to create a screen); but then
the code in the rptdesign is very difficult to maintain without the editor
My questions are:
* do you really think that this way of integrating rptdesign reports is
the answer to fill the gap of a good reporting tool in OFBiz? Are you
actually using this integration for your reports?
* do we all agree to make this Birt integration the best practice
mechanism for all OFBiz reports?
* do you really think that we should replace all the existing widget
generated reports and FOP reports with rptdesign reports built using the
existing Birt integration under the framework?
If any of your answers will be "no" then in my opinion it would be much
better to:
1) make Birt integration an optional component, downloaded separately
2) move the existing rptdesign reports out of the applications and keep
them in the external Birt component
3) at this point users will have the option to use the Birt component or
not, but the ootb code will be clean and without dependencies on it; most of
all, we will not deliver reports that looks similar (ugly) but they are
implemented randomly with Birt or Widgets
4) start evaluating, as a community, what should be the best practices for
ootb reports: what is the tool we want, what are the minimal requirements
etc... and then work together to get it in place and then migrate all
existing reports to it in order to have a consistent system; if the
community will not be able to reach a consensus on this, then we should
leave the decision about the reporting tool to use to the end user
I think that the Birt integration is a nice optional component, and I see
that there may be interested parties, but in its current status it is not
something ready for becoming the primary reporting tool for the ootb
applications.
Jacopo
