Hi Ron and everyone, BIRT is very powerful but by no means easy! I was working for a while on developing an infrastructure for OFBIZ to make it a bit more streamlined across the pages but stopped after a while for two reasons: 1) it was bigger work than I expected and 2) the community seemed uninterested in the component as you can observe in our discussion in this JIRA for example: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-5070
To make it reach its potential, there are multiple things to do of which I did some partially: - Create a BIRT library (filename.rptlibrary) which hold references to javascript source files, CSS files, etc .. and it contains all the assets (logo, fonts, colors, you name it) so that you have a unified look and feel and unified data preparation scripts for all reports - Create CSS files unifying the look and feel of all reports - Create javascript files that contain scripts for repeating tasks (library imports, UI label preparation, report layout, parameter import and validation, exception handling etc ...) - Create sub-libraries that handle business intelligence requirements. For example, you can prepare common cubes on the main entities of the system (Party, Product, OrderHeader, Accounting Transaction, etc ...) - Finally, once the above is in place, then you can design a whole heap of reports, OLAP cupes, Charts, you name it! The question remains, is the community interested in adopting BIRT as its reporting tool? If not, then renaming it would not make much sense given the effort put into fixing all the links to the component and anything else that might break from the rename. My 2 cents! Cheers Taher Alkhateeb ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Wheeler" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, 26 February, 2015 6:01:09 PM Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] Change name of birt component You think that it might be more aspirational than real? http://bod-wiki.birtondemand.com/wiki/index.php?title=App_Mashboard is the kind of thing that I expect OFBiz to support one day. Perhaps a more ambitious name might encourage someone to take an interest in enhancing the capabilities. "BIRT" is just the name of a tool and gives no idea about what functionality is possible. "Reports" seems to understate what BIRT can do. I am not sure of the work required to enhance the existing interface to produce more of what BIRT can do OOTB but it seems to be something pretty easy http://www.theserverside.com/news/1364376/Using-Eclipse-BIRT-Report-Libraries-and-Templates Ron On 26/02/2015 9:19 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote: > My main concern is that assigning a generic name (such as "reports" or > "analytics") to a component that is just one very specific way (and in some > ways limited/questionable for the way the Birt has been integrated) to > implement an integration with a reporting tool may be misleading. > > Jacopo > > On Feb 26, 2015, at 12:46 AM, Pierre Smits <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> Currently, all component names describe - in one word - what the components >> are about and what kind of functionality the user - from a business point >> of view - can expect. As examples: accounting is related to the various >> accounting (financial, gl, invoicing, payment, , etc) functions and >> services, and projectmgr is related to program and project management, >> project task assignment and time registration. >> >> The birt component is a bit the odd one out. The name doesn't say in that >> one word what it delivers. In stead it is an acronym for a specific third >> party integration solution and another open source project with the same >> name (birt, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIRT_Project ). One could >> even say it is the name of a tool, not the name of a business >> functionality. >> >> In order to be able to increase awareness of the multitude of business >> functionalities (as could be done by using the name of the components) and >> improve adoption, I suggest to change the name (and the references to it in >> the component and others) to something that is more to the point business >> wise. >> >> I propose we rename it to 'reports'. >> >> What do you think? >> >> Best regards, >> >> >> Pierre Smits >> >> *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>* >> Services & Solutions for Cloud- >> Based Manufacturing, Professional >> Services and Retail & Trade >> http://www.orrtiz.com > -- Ron Wheeler President Artifact Software Inc email: [email protected] skype: ronaldmwheeler phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102
