I like the idea of keeping reporting tools separate from OFBiz. In my
experience, IT departments are already using a reporting tool for
other applications and they would prefer to integrate that tool with
OFBiz, instead of learning/using a new tool that comes bundled with it.
-Adrian
Quoting Jacopo Cappellato <[email protected]>:
L) framework/birt (and related dependencies/reports spread around):
move to "Extras"
M) framework/bi (and related dependencies - ecas/business rules and
data - spread around): move to "Extras"
This is an area where Hans and I are in disagreement and we didn't
get much feedback from others.
So I would like to explain here why I think we should move the Birt
component and the Birt reports out of the framework and consider
them as optional tools.
There are currently 18 reports in the applications implemented with
Birt; but they really seem experiments rather than something really
usable; to give you some examples:
* in most of them there is this code like this:
userLogin = null;
try {
userLogin =
delegator.findByPrimaryKey("UserLogin",UtilMisc.toMap("userLoginId","admin"));
} catch(e) {
Debug.logError(e,"");
}
* all the retrieval logic (scripts) is inlined with layout
definition and this is something we try to avoid in all the existing
screens
* entity list iterators are not properly closed
* some of the widget based financial reports have been converted to
Birt: their layout is still very simple and comparable to the widget
based versions available before Birt; so the conversion to Birt
added a dependencies on this component without adding real value
(the rptdesign files mix together data preparation scripts and ui
definitions and in order to maintain them you have to use the Birt
designer); also some of them are now broken: Income Stetements,
Balance Sheet etc... This is probably caused by the recent
refactoring of JSR-223 but the original widget based PDF are still
there and are working fine...
* building a report with this Birt integration still requires a lot
of development work (similar to the one required to create a
screen); but then the code in the rptdesign is very difficult to
maintain without the editor
My questions are:
* do you really think that this way of integrating rptdesign reports
is the answer to fill the gap of a good reporting tool in OFBiz? Are
you actually using this integration for your reports?
* do we all agree to make this Birt integration the best practice
mechanism for all OFBiz reports?
* do you really think that we should replace all the existing widget
generated reports and FOP reports with rptdesign reports built using
the existing Birt integration under the framework?
If any of your answers will be "no" then in my opinion it would be
much better to:
1) make Birt integration an optional component, downloaded separately
2) move the existing rptdesign reports out of the applications and
keep them in the external Birt component
3) at this point users will have the option to use the Birt
component or not, but the ootb code will be clean and without
dependencies on it; most of all, we will not deliver reports that
looks similar (ugly) but they are implemented randomly with Birt or
Widgets
4) start evaluating, as a community, what should be the best
practices for ootb reports: what is the tool we want, what are the
minimal requirements etc... and then work together to get it in
place and then migrate all existing reports to it in order to have a
consistent system; if the community will not be able to reach a
consensus on this, then we should leave the decision about the
reporting tool to use to the end user
I think that the Birt integration is a nice optional component, and
I see that there may be interested parties, but in its current
status it is not something ready for becoming the primary reporting
tool for the ootb applications.
Jacopo
