How to draw graphics or custom designed charts in BIRT reports?

hossein761

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:

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?
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)
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?

CBR

Hi,

what do you mean by charts per page? Are you not able to add the charts at a defined position in your report?
You can surely use multiple masterpages to add these charts but i see no gain compared to adding the charts to the report itself.

The best approach is to generate the external chart as an image using java on the server side. Generating the chart on the client side using client side javascript will only work for HTML. The charts will be missing in any other format if you go the client side way.
Images are good because they work for both output format. I would suggest to call a java class that generates the chart using a external chart library and gives back an image as byte array. You can bind this data to a table or list and add an dynamic image element to that table that prints out the byte array as an image.

You have other options as well. Choosing the right approach heavily depends on what you want to do exactly and which options you have on the server side (are you using BIRT Webviewer? Do you have java knowledge? Which external library do you use to generate the charts?)

hope this helps
Christian