Using Birt with Maven

Hi,
 
My project works well with Birt runtime using the Eclipse platform to develop.
 
But now I would like to make it a bit more industrializable, and want to switch to Maven.
 
I already opened a <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36593124/add-specific-plugins-and-config-when-using-birt-with-maven'>question on stackoverflow </a>about it which I copy here:
 
<div>
I've got a Maven jar project in which I use Birt in order to generate some PDF.
In order to use Birt engine, I've just added this dependency to my <dependencies>:
<dependency> <groupId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</groupId> <artifactId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</artifactId> <version>4.4.2</version> </dependency>
I run my main class using <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.mojohaus.org/exec-maven-plugin/java-mojo.html'>mvn exec:java</a>.
My question is: when I was using the Birt runtime without Maven, I could add plugins in the plugins dir and modify plugins/org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.fonts_4.4.2.v201410272105/fontsConfig.xml in order to add specific <font-paths><path ..., how can I do this using this Maven environment?
I'm not sure also which path I must give to org.eclipse.birt.core.framework.PlatformConfig.setBIRTHome(String) or org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EngineConfig.setEngineHome(String) now.
I've tried to follow <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.eclipse.org/birt/documentation/integrating/reapi.php'>the guide</a> and used config.setEngineHome("absolute_path_to_a_4.4.2_osgi_birt_runtime") but then I've got that stacktrace (inside a call to factory.createReportEngine(config)):
java.lang.NullPointerException 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngine$EngineExtensionManager.<init>(ReportEngine.java:822) 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngine.<init>(ReportEngine.java:111) 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngineFactory$1.run(ReportEngineFactory.java:18) 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngineFactory$1.run(ReportEngineFactory.java:1) 
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngineFactory.createReportEngine(ReportEngineFactory.java:14)
It seems that <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://grepcode.com/file/repo1.maven.org/maven2/org.eclipse.birt.runtime/org.eclipse.birt.runtime/4.4.2/org/eclipse/birt/report/engine/api/impl/ReportEngine.java#822'>Platform.getExtensionRegistry()</a> returns null...
</div>
 
If I don't call config.setEngineHome nor config.setBIRTHome, then I've got org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ParameterValidationException: Required parameter myParam is not set., error that I didn't have before migrating to Maven (actually, my rptdesign use myParam from a linked library).
 
Does someone here has a clue?

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anthony-o

I finally <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://stackoverflow.com/a/37304317/535203'>answered myself on Stackoverflow</a>. Here is a copy of the answer.
 
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First of all, you can use Birt 4.4.2 with this Maven configuration (due to the fact that the pom.xml of the runtime is buggy and declares 2 different versions of those dependencies) :
<pre class="_prettyXprint">
<dependency>
 <groupId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</groupId>
 <artifactId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</artifactId>
 <version>4.4.2</version>
 <exclusions>
 <exclusion>
 <groupId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</groupId>
 <artifactId>org.eclipse.osgi.services</artifactId>
 </exclusion>
 <exclusion>
 <groupId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</groupId>
 <artifactId>com.ibm.icu</artifactId>
 </exclusion>
 </exclusions>
</dependency>
<dependency>
 <groupId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</groupId>
 <artifactId>org.eclipse.osgi.services</artifactId>
 <version>3.4.0.v20140312-2051</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
 <groupId>org.eclipse.birt.runtime</groupId>
 <artifactId>com.ibm.icu</artifactId>
 <version>52.1.1.v201501240615</version>
</dependency></pre>
Then, any Birt plugin can be added just like any classic Maven dependency (provided the fact that there is a correct META-INF/MANIFEST.MF defining Bundle-Name & Bundle-Version properties). 
Then you have to launch the <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://stackoverflow.com/a/37277570/535203'>Birt engine in POJO mode</a>: without calling <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://help.eclipse.org/mars/topic/org.eclipse.birt.doc.isv/engine/api/org/eclipse/birt/report/engine/api/EngineConfig.html#setEngineHome(java.lang.String)'>EngineConfig.setEngineHome(engineHome)</a>.
Finally, for the font config, you can use either:
<ul><li><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://help.eclipse.org/luna/topic/org.eclipse.birt.doc.isv/engine/api/org/eclipse/birt/report/engine/api/EngineConfig.html#setFontConfig(java.net.URL)'>EngineConfig.setFontConfig(pathToFontsConfigXmlAsUrl)</a> (thanks for <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://stackoverflow.com/a/21705054/535203'>that answer</a>)</li>
<li><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='https://github.com/itext/itextpdf/blob/2.1.7/itext/src/core/com/lowagie/text/FontFactory.java#L348'>FontFactory.register("path/to/myfont.ttf")</a> (thanks for <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://stackoverflow.com/a/23058365/535203'>that answer</a>) if you want to load a specific font from the classpath</li>
<li><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='https://github.com/itext/itextpdf/blob/2.1.7/itext/src/core/com/lowagie/text/FontFactory.java#L367'>FontFactory.registerDirectory("/path/to/external/dir")</a> if you want to declare an external directory of font to use (thanks for <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://stackoverflow.com/a/22227211/535203'>that answer</a>)</li>
</ul>Here is an example of bootstrap code (based on <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.eclipse.org/birt/documentation/integrating/reapi.php'>Birt website directives</a>):
<pre class="_prettyXprint">
try{
 final EngineConfig config = new EngineConfig( );

 config.setLogConfig("c:/temp", Level.FINE);
 config.setFontConfig("c:/temp/fontsConfig.xml");

 Platform.startup( config );
 //If using RE API in Eclipse/RCP application this is not needed.
 IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform
 .createFactoryObject( IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY );
 IReportEngine engine = factory.createReportEngine( config );
 engine.changeLogLevel( Level.WARNING );
}catch( Exception ex){
 ex.printStackTrace();
}
// Run reports, etc.
...

// destroy the engine.
try
{
 engine.destroy();
 Platform.shutdown();
 //Bugzilla 351052
 RegistryProviderFactory.releaseDefault();
}catch ( EngineException e1 ){
 // Ignore
}</pre>
</div>