Rendering in custom formats
After deploying the custom emitter you can see the new rendering formats displayed along with built-in emitters in the following places:
*Preview report in Web Viewer in BIRT Designer and BIRT Designer Professional.
*Export Content dialog of Actuate BIRT Viewer and Actuate BIRT Interactive Viewer.
The following examples show the deployment and usage of a custom CSV emitter. The emitter allows rendering a report as a comma separated file. The custom format type is CSV and the JAR file name is org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.emitter.csv.jar.
How to deploy and use a custom emitter in Actuate BIRT Designer
1 Copy the emitter to:
<BIRT Designer installation directory>\eclipse\plugins
2 Reopen the designer.
3 Open a report design and choose Run➛View Report. The new CSV format appears in the list of formats, as shown in Figure 2‑3.
Figure 2‑3 List of available formats in BIRT Designer
4 Select the CSV option. A file download dialog box appears as shown on Figure 2‑4. Select Save to save the file. The default file name is the report name with the .csv file extension.
Figure 2‑4 Open/Save exported content
How to deploy and use a custom emitter in Actuate Java Components
The assumption in this example is that the Java Components are deployed to Apache Tomcat 6.0, and are installed in C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 6.0 folder on Windows.
1 Copy org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.emitter.csv.jar to:
C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 6.0\webapps
\ActuateJavaComponent\WEB-INF\platform\plugins
2 Restart Apache Tomcat from Start➛Settings➛Control Panel➛Administrative Tools➛Services as shown in Figure 2‑5.
Figure 2‑5 Restarting the Apache Tomcat Service
3 Open a BIRT report in Actuate BIRT Viewer or Interactive Viewer.
4 Select Export Content from the viewer menu.
5 The new CSV format shows up in the Export Formats, as shown in Figure 2‑6.
Figure 2‑6 Export Content in Actuate BIRT Viewers
6 Choose OK. A file download dialog box appears as shown on Figure 2‑4. Select Save to save the file.