QAuCK birdy book

Tribix 2.5.2 Released

2011-07-18T02:39:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.5.2 is released.

New Features:
=============
o Better custom color support for Excel output.

Bugs Fixed:
===========
o Support orientation setting for Excel output.
o Fix the error for export_page_body_only option for RTF output.
o Respect close_stream option in render option now.

Other Changes:
==============
o Fix compatibility issue with BIRT 3.7.
o Updated POI dependency to 3.7.

You can also simply use the update site to install this release from Eclipse IDE:

http://tribix.sourceforge.net/update

Tribix 2.5.1 released

2010-01-21T22:52:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.5.1 is released.

What's New:
==========

o Added customizable sheet name support for XLS output.
o Fixed totol page support(BIRT 2.5.1 or above).
o Updated POI dependency to 3.5 final.

Tribix update site is also available since this release:

http://tribix.sourceforge.net/update

Tribix 2.5.0/2.3.1 performnace comparison

2009-07-17T00:43:00.001-07:00

In Tribix 2.5.0 release, the style processing part is totally rewritten during the effort to adapt the new BIRT 2.5 API change. So I've done some simple tests to see how it goes for the performance improvement. The result is interesting. Seems for certain reports, the single sheet exporting time looks much better, but the overall exporting time doesn't look much different.

The result can be viewed here:

http://tribix.sourceforge.net/performance250.html

Here's another earlier performance report for the old 2.1.0 release, compare to 2.5.0, we can see more than tenfold performance gain out there. Good job, BIRT:

http://tribix.sourceforge.net/performance.html

Tribix 2.5.0 released

2009-07-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.5.0 is released.

This release mainly contains the change to synchronize with BIRT 2.5 essential API change plus some minor bug fixing.

Tribix 2.3.1 released

2008-12-29T00:08:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.3.1 is released.

Some main changes follow:

1. Support BIRT 2.2/2.3 series.
2. Add hyperlink support for PPT and RTF.
3. Add comments support for XLS
4. Make source code compatible with BIRT 2.2.
5. Update POI dependency to 3.2 Final.

Tribix 2.3.0 released

2008-07-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.3.0 is released.

Some main changes follow:

1. Support BIRT 2.2/2.3 series.
2. New layout mode support, which effectively reduces the count of columns generated and provides better look.
3. Enhanced image formats support, now support any image format that recognized by AWT.
4. Support hyperlinks for text element.
5. Update POI dependency to 3.1.0 Final.

Tribix 2.3.0rc released

2008-04-01T04:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.3.0rc is released.

Some main changes follow:

1. Support BIRT 2.2/2.3 series.
2. New layout mode support for XLS emitter, which effectively reduces the count of columns generated and provides better look.
3. Enhanced image formats support for all emitters, now support any image format that recognized by AWT.
4. Update POI dependency to 3.0.2.

Tribix 2.2.0 released

2007-07-25T19:04:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.2.0 is released. This release updates the POI dependency version and contains no feature change.

Tribix 2.2.0rc released

2007-05-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.2.0rc is released.

Several main change involves:

1. Adapt api change since BIRT 2.2.0rc.
2. Reorganized plugin structures.
3. Several minor fix in RTF emitter.

Tribix 2.1.2 released

2007-02-12T21:00:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.1.2 is released.

Not much change since 2.1.2rc, main change involves:

1. Added option to suppress unsupported image.
2. Sync up with BIRT 2.1.2 release.

Tribix 2.1.2rc released

2007-01-12T04:19:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that Tribix 2.1.2rc is released.

Several main changes in this release involve:
----------------------------------------------------
1. Updated POI dependency to 3.0-alph3.
2. Added support to read emitter configs through rendering options per task.(Note this is only available for later BIRT2.2 series)
3. Better border support for PPT emitter.
4. Background image support for PPT emitter.

RTF Emitter 1.0.0 preview released

2007-01-11T01:48:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that RTF Emitter 1.0.0 preview is released. This release is part of the Tribix main project.

Features
-------------
1. Basic rtf output support for BIRT.
2. Support specific page ranges for ouput, e.g. "1-3", "odd", "1,3,5-7".
3. Support export page body only(e.g. not include page header/footer).
4. Support disk-cache option for large report.

For more details, please visit the Tribix project site.

Tribix 2.1.0 final released

2006-07-03T03:20:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announced that Tribix(XLS Emitter for BIRT) 2.1.0 final is released, along with a PPT emitter preview release. Please visit https://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/ for more detail.

Changes
----------------
since 2.0.1rc1:
1. Added support for export page body only(not include page header/footer)
2. Added support for export all pages as one single sheet.
3. Code refactor.

Notes
----------------
This version is compatible with BIRT 2.1.0 final only, NOT compatible with any earlier version.
Later BIRT version may work, but not guaranteed.

For questions about xls emitter

2006-06-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

For questions about xls emitter, please post at the Tribix forum here. I will regularly check the forum but not often in this blog. Thanks.

Tribix 2.1.0rc released

2006-05-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announced that Tribix(XLS Emitter for BIRT) 2.1.0rc is released. Please visit https://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/ for more detail.

Change Log
-------------
since 2.0.1:

1. Added page range support. e.g. "1-3", "odd", "1,3,5-7"
2. (experimental)Added support to output fixed-column-width sheet(aka. neat mode).
3. Support specify if show grid lines in output.
4. Support specify if remove blank rows in output.
5. Performance tuning.
6. Fixd a memory issue.

Compatibility
-------------
This version is compatible with BIRT 2.1.0rc2, 2.1.0rc3, NOT compatible with 2.0.1rc1a and earlier.
Later BIRT version may work, but not guaranteed.

SourceForge Ready

2006-05-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

Buddies, the xls emiiter now is SourceForge ready. You can download the files from SourceForge site right now. Thanks SourceForge for the space and radek for the good hint.

Link: https://sourceforge.net/projects/tribix/

P.S. I came into a problem when try to use SVN on SourceForge. I already migrated the local repository to the server. But every time I perform an operation needing write access, an "org.tigris.subversion.javahl.ClientException: RA layer request failed
svn: MKACTIVITY of '/svnroot/tribix/!svn/act/e56a5cd4-d865-7547-9624-d07e56ce996e': 403 Forbidden (https://svn.sourceforge.net)" error appears(I'm using the SVN plugin for Eclipse). Any ideas?

New release of XLS Emitter deferred

2006-04-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

Seems Birt2.1 rc0 is not a good entry point. A lot of api and structure have been changed. So I decided to wait a little longer, maybe rc1, or rc2. Just sorry about that.

PS. A good news ahead, the optimization of the new emitter looks good, now it costs less memory and cpu time, comparably maybe 30% saved:)

New XLS emitter on the way

2006-04-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

Once BIRT 2.1rc0 is ready, I will release the new version of the XLS emitter. This time, it will support several configurable rendering settings, such as "show gridlines", "use fixed column width", "output specific page range", etc. I think this may help to make itself more attractive. So let's wait and see:).

XLS(MS Excel) Emitter for BIRT

2006-03-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

For those who wanted an xls emitter for a long time, finally here may be a chance to taste. Thanks the Apache POI project and the new layout engine of BIRT 2.0, now we can easily create an xls emitter though it looks obviously not that fancy yet.

To install and use:

1. Install and run Birt correctly first. Since various api changed between 2.0RC and release version in birt engine, This plugin will only work with BIRT 2.0.0/2.0.1 final release(You need to download corresponding packages).

2. Extract the downloaded plugin file into the eclipse plugins directory.

3. Download Apahce POI library from apache site, put it in the /lib directory under the extracted xls plugin folder. You must donwload the latest 3.0 dev version, since the 2.5 release version doesn’t support the image output. A tested and recommended version is poi-3.0-alpha1-20050704.jar.

4. Download and apply the chart&designer&viewer patch file so to make the xls plugin work correctly both in the designer and viewer. If you are building BIRT from a CVS source tree, override the soure file; if you are just using the binary BIRT sdk, replace the class files in related plugin jar. Here is the list:

org.eclipse.birt.chart.reportitem org\eclipse\birt\chart\reportitem\ChartReportItemPresentationImpl in plugins/org.eclipse.birt.chart.reportitem_2.0.x/reportitem.jar

org.eclipse.birt.report.designer.ui org\eclipse\birt\report\designer\ui\actions\PreviewToolbarMenuAction in plugins/org.eclipse.birt.report.designer.ui_2.0.x/ui.jar

org.eclipse.birt.report.viewer org\eclipse\birt\report\viewer\aggregation\layout\EngineFragment in plugins/org.eclipse.birt.report.viewer_2.0.x/birt/WEB-INF/lib/viewservlets.jar

Though only three files are involved, this is just to make the designer/viewer simply work with the xls emitter. So the xls option will only appear in the preview toolbar action, sure you can apply your own patch to make it visible in the File menu as well.

5. Ok, now create a report as usual and choose preview as XLS, enjoy:)

Both binary and source are available now:).

For BIRT2.0.0
Download binary: http://qauck.host.sk/xls-emitter.zip
Download source: http://qauck.host.sk/xls-emitter-src.zip

For BIRT2.0.1
Download binary: http://qauck.host.sk/xls-emitter-bin_2.0.1.zip
Download source: http://qauck.host.sk/xls-emitter-src_2.0.1.zip

(If you have problem downloading the above files, try right click the link and select "save target as..." or use some web proxies.)

XLS Emitter patch for BIRT2.1

2006-03-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

Since BIRT2.1 layout api changed, I updated the source code to make it work with the 2.1 version. Note this will make it no longer compatible with BIRT2.0, and because BIRT2.1 is not formally released yet, this patch is just experimental and subject to change.

Download patch: http://qauck.host.sk/xls-emitter_2.1patch.zip

Integrate XLS emitter with standalone Java applications

2006-03-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

Since many people asked how to integrate the XLS emitter with standalone java applications or servlet environtment, I investigated a little on this.

Unfortunately, Current BIRT framework can't handle the new OSGi form plugins when running in a standalone mode(e.g. not in eclipse workbench/rcp). So the resolution is just to downgrade the plugin manifest file to the old style plugin.xml.

For testing, I used an handy report framework introduced by Mark Lorenz, and everything looks fine.

The example just shows how to integrate the emitter with a standard file ouput. To support servlet environment, you can simply redirect the output to an OutputStream and specify a proper mime type ("application/vnd.ms-excel" for this case). The birt newsgroup already hosts a lot discussions on how to integrate birt with the servlet environment.

Download integration example: http://qauck.host.sk/standalone-integration.zip