MyEclipse Reports (built on BIRT) has been upgraded and now integrates BIRT 2.5.1, a major update from version 2.3 used by MyEclipse 7.5. For a complete list of improvements in the mamoth BIRT 2.5.1 release, be sure to check out the BIRT 2.5 New and Noteworthy.

The features in this release expand on the already impressive features of BIRT 2.3 and offer improvements in many areas such as page management and creation, study charts, parameter scripts, and event hander performance improvements.

Default Parameter Values
Most developers use parameters to customize reports to the consumer’s needs. MyEclipse Reports provides fully functional parameter capabilities, including dynamic parameters, where values are retrieved from a dataset to populate list and combo boxes. Parameters can be required or optional and when a user does not enter a value for a parameter MyEclipse Reports provides the capability to use a default parameter. In BIRT 2.5.1, this feature has been improved to support both JavaScript expressions and event scripting. The Parameter editor now provides an expression builder button to set the default value for a parameter using a JavaScript expression. In the example illustrated below, the expression is just converting the current date into a string, for the default value of a string parameter.

Page Management Improvements
Master pages can now use an SVG image for the background and support setting border properties using the advanced tab within the master page property editor.

Column page breaks for crosstabs and tables have also been improved. Within a crosstab it is now possible to set a page break interval for columns. The engine will then insert a page break every n columns where n is the page break interval.

Page Level Variables and Events
In addition to the new page management features MyEclipse Reports now includes new page scripts that can be used in conjunction with new page variables to provide such features as individual group page numbering, first and last page contents, and page level aggregation. Page Variables are created using the Data Explorer view and can be one of two types: Report Variable or Page Variable. Report Variables are evaluated when the report is complete and Page Variables are evaluated at the time a page is written. Either type can be placed on the master page by selecting the Palette View and selecting the Variable AutoText field.

Chart Improvments
In BIRT 2.5.1 it is now possible to set Z-order rendering priority for combination charts.

MyEclipse Reports now supports study charts which allow stacked Y axes. This can be enabled with any multi-y-axis chart by selecting the format chart tab of the chart wizard and clicking the enable study layout checkbox.

Independent Locale Formatting
MyEclipse Reports currently supports automatic formatting of report elements based on the current user’s or server’s locale. This feature has been enhanced to allow users to define a given locale for strings, numbers, currencies, and dates. This feature is available in the report designer, within the properties editor for any given element that allows formatting. In the example illustrated below, two elements an aggregation element and a date element are formatted using the German locale. The rest of the report is formatted based on the English locale.

Pasting Formatted Text
With BIRT 2.5.1 a new feature has been added to the designer to allow pasting of formatted text (RTF or HTML) into a text element. This feature is available in the context menu of the Text Item editor and is labeled Paste Formatted Text.

Crosstab Time Dimensions and separate Measure/Measure Total columns/rows
MyEclipse Reports uses the crosstab report item to display hierarchal data that is constructed using MyEclipse Reports data cubes. With this release many crosstab improvements have been made. One feature that has been available since 2.3 of BIRT is the ability to show empty values. This feature has been improved to better support time dimensions where corresponding dates do not exist in the data source. For example, suppose we have crosstab that shows the number of cancelled orders for a product over time. It may be desirable to show all the months and quarters for data points that are not present in the database. The Empty Rows/Columns property has been enhanced to support this feature. The following illustration demonstrates how to achieve this using MyEclipse Reports.

Designer Improvements
The property editor has been improved to support resetting default properties and added support for listing properties by alphabetical, local, or grouped categories.

Style Editor Improvement
MyEclipse Reports uses styles to format report content. These styles can be imported, referenced, or created using the style editor. Standard report styles can be overridden or new styles can be created. When using the style editor it is now possible to determine which style properties for a given style have been altered. In addition a restore defaults button is also available.

Image Enhancements
Image DPI can now be set using an advanced property on the report design and the engine will use this setting when rendering. If the report design dpi setting is set to 0, the engine will interrogate the image to retrieve the dpi.

508 Properties
In an effort to continue to better support 508 compliance, three new properties are now available on table cells (headers, scope, and bookmark).

Event Handler Performance Improvement
MyEclipse Reports provides a framework where events are fired during the lifecycle of report generation and presentation. These events can be hooked using either Java or JavaScript to control the behavior of report items. In previous releases of MyEclipse Reports when an event handler was implemented in Java, an instance of the handler was created for every instance of the report item. For example when using an event handler for a data item located in a table, the handler class would be instantiated for every runtime instance of the data element. This can have an adverse effect on performance. BIRT 2.5.1 now provides an advanced property that allows the designer to control how the event handlers are instantiated.