Visualization Platform client web application structure and contents
Actuate Visualization Platform client generates web pages using a set of default JSPs. Visualization Platform client JSPs use cascading style sheets, JavaScript, and custom tags to generate dynamic web page content. The JavaScript and tags provide access to other JSPs, JavaBeans, and Java classes.
The Visualization Platform client web application organizes these inter-operating components into a Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. To operate a web application, the MVC components perform the following functions:
Model contains the logic for sending requests to and processing responses from the repository. This component is the data model for Visualization Platform client.
View contains the pages that display data prepared by actions. This component is the presentation portion of Visualization Platform client.
Controller contains the servlets that implement actions. This component is the program control logic for Visualization Platform client and manages actions initiated from the browser.
The controller maps actions, designated by URLs with the .do extension, to an actionServlet. The actionServlet is configured with action paths specified in <Actuate home>\iPortal\iportal\WEB-INF\struts-config.xml.
Typically, an action path leads to a JSP with parameters as a web resource. Visualization Platform client file and directory names are case‑sensitive. The first time you use a JSP, your web server compiles it into a servlet. Servlets are compiled Java programs or JSPs that run as part of a network service such as a web server. After compiling a JSP into a servlet, a web server can fulfill subsequent requests quickly, provided that the JSP source does not change between requests.
Users make requests to view the contents of a repository, run and view reports, and so on. Each JSP processes any URL parameters by passing them to JSP tags, including Actuate custom tags or your own custom tags.
You specify the user’s Actuate BIRT iHub System and volume as URL parameters. To specify the locale and time zone to which to connect, use parameter values in a Visualization Platform client request within a URL or by specifying the desired values in the login form. For example, the following URL specifies the en_US locale for U.S. English, and the Pacific standard time for the timezone parameter:
Model contains the logic for sending requests to and processing responses from the repository. This component is the data model for Visualization Platform client.