Okay, so I wanted to talk to you about the velocity report. I don't know if anyone here has already used it. One or two, a few. Yeah, I know you. So this is about the velocity report. So I don't know if you like me and you're a bit tired of slow reporting solutions and some of them are very slow to set up, slow to build, slow to run. It's really boring. So if you want to outgrow the competition, you do like me and using velocity report. That's the guy. So why is it better? Because yes, there's some other options. And some of them are quite nice. You can actually do some reports with the voice and it's working fine. You can use Jasper reports. It's also working fine. There's loads of options with that. But it can be quite complicated. And it's also very specialized. You will not find people, regular report designer, in very easily. Those things are very specialized. So why is it better? It's because basically it's based on very well used standards. So the first ones are X, HTML, XML. Well, X, HTML is actually only HTML, only well-formed. Because the HTML that you can find on the internet sometimes is not very well done. And you have some tags which are not closed. For example, the IMG, IMJ tag, most of the time not closed. So if you use an XML parser to try to get that, it will choke. So yes, you need your HTML to be well-formed. That's one of the requirements to use the plugin. It's also using CSS. This is 2.1. And also all the page extensions of CSS3. Page extensions allow you to set headers to manipulate certain zone on a page, on a printing page, to put some header which will be repeated on each page, for example. So all sorts of things that you will need for reports. And then of course it uses JavaScript and especially server-y JavaScript with the plugin. It uses it will export to PDF. And it's also used Google charts. Or it's equivalent. So all of these are standards. So that's a good thing. And there's also the fact that it is built on the best of read, open source Java libraries. First one is, of course, velocity. Which is very well-named because it's very quick. It's one of the fastest templating tool existing. It's capable of merging text with objects and rendering text very fast. And very efficient. It's really built on efficiency. Then I'm using the XHTML renderer to preview and output to PDF. This one was actually done by Jeff Bader. And it was a commercial plugin at the time. But Jeff donated it to open source and he asked me to maintain it. And at the time it was only an XHTML viewer, basically. Except that I already had that at the browser bin, which was a lot more advanced. So you could do a lot more stuff with it. So this one I thought, well, what can I do with it? I'm not really sure. So I thought, well, maybe that's, and that's one of the big strength of XHTML renderer. It's that it can do PDF very easily out of HTML. Actually, it was already using this one in some previous Java projects. So I knew about this capability and I thought, well, maybe you could use that for the build to use templates and build reports and all of that. So that's what we did. And then, of course, if you have reports, you will need some charting. So we explored a few options. And one of them was, which was very easy to use, was the Google chart engine. Except that Google charts is really nice, but it has some limitations. And some of the limitations are with the size of the image. And the size of the URL. And also stuff like that, which doesn't fit really, if you want to do some reports for printing. So we found this other project with this call, Eastwood, which is based on J3 chart. Then again, it's an open source project. And which actually uses the exact same syntax as Google. So we could use Google or Eastwood. And so we thought that, well, maybe you can allow people to use one or the other, depending on what they want to do. So that's what we did. And that's why Eastwood is part of the various theory-port package, I would say. Then there is a barcode, which we're using barcode for G. This is another open source project. And a lot more libraries. So back to the advantage of HTML, the thing is that it's very easy to edit. And we will see that you can use any HTML editor. And one of the good things too is that you can, you can hire HTML designer. You can pass them well. I want to learn it. I want a very nice report. Can you do the template for me? And they will do that. It's very easy. And they will use CSS, of course, which will work as well. These images and stuff. And all you will have to do is to place a set of number of place-holders' variables inside those HTML pages templates. So there's no need for any specialized report designer, like I report. There's no need for that. It's just HTML. And one of the strengths of HTML is flexible, especially in terms of layout. You can very easily create tables, which will resize depending on what you want to do on the side of your page. And you can actually use width in percentage for examples, which you cannot really do with just very broad wire report. Because most of the time, we'll have to give a fixed size. So just by a field, we'll be very good for something which is pixel-perfect placement on a report. This one is going to be very much easier to use when you want to adapt your layout to different kind of of page outputs, for example. And something else also that you can generate templates on the fly, building strings, from strings. You can generate HTML with the voice. The whole template itself can regenerate and on the fly. And so I know this in the end is only text. So it's very lightweight. And with velocity, it goes very fast. So what's behind it? Well, there's areas of velocity. And in 10 seconds, you can actually learn velocity. Because that's all there is about it. That's all there is to know about velocity. That's the whole language. It's a macro language. You've got basically a dollar sign, which denotes anything that after this dollar sign is is a variable. So you can put any kind of variables. You can name them. It's just like variables like you will use in JavaScript. So any name like that. There's also also an exclamation mark sign, which goes for silent exceptions. This one will, if you don't use this one, if there is an exception, then you will not be able to render something. But if you use this one, all that will happen is that the exception will be logged, but the output will still be possible. There will just be a blank instead of the variable. And then there's the dot notation, which is standard. It's just like a JavaScript notation. For every object that you use in a template, you can use object notation and goes into the whole set of properties of any object that you will inject in an template. And of course, you have a very little set of commands, like if else else, if and for each and answers at the end, you can set variables inside the template. You can include other templates inside or other resources, like plain HTML. You can include that. And you can also pass over templates. It will be just like server reports in Jasper. You just pass another template inside this one. So you can actually build a library of templates. And you can have a meta template, which will only use the passing parts that you want to use. And you can also create macros out of those little set of this little set of instructions. So you can build your own functions inside the templates as well. So what can we do with this language? Well, the thing is that velocity and the velocity report plugin allows you to what we would say inject inside the template any kind of server object. And I've actually done wrappers around all those kinds of objects. So velocity in itself doesn't know anything about that. But the velocity report plugin allows velocity to understand what the found set is, what the work, what workouts are, what data sets are, errors, JavaScript, any kind of JavaScript object functions, strings, dates, media images that you can have or blob images that you can put inside your context, primitives of course, and there's some special objects which are the charts and the barcodes which are created by the plugin itself. So you can all inject that inside one big object that we will name maybe context. And you pass that to the plugin. And it will use that to fill your template. And we'll see that it's just playing JavaScript. There's also inside the template you can also use some what I've called ALP object for those who are familiar with Rails and Ruby on Rails. That's exactly the same concept. There's a few objects that you can use. There's a globos which give you access to any globos from the server, IITN gives you access to IITN values. There's a date function to format dates, there's a math function to perform a little power or whatever kind of function you want. There's a number function to allow you to give you some formatting as well. There's an Alten, Alten object which is only there to give you two values. That's very useful when you're building tables and you want two kinds of CSS use for even or other rows, for example. So that's what you can use. There's a plugin in the object itself which is there if you want to use some of those internal functions. And then there is a base-ash-ash-ref object that you can simply put inside your header in the HTML itself. It's here to tell the HTML where to find all the related resources, resources being CSS and images, for example. So to use this base-ash-ref and of course in the end it will be the output in the HTML as a base tag. And there's this new thing which is another object. The full name is HTML. HTMLize get. That's what I have. When I build the macro out of that it's only H. So you can put any value in there and it will avoid escaping your HTML. If the values you are using are contain tags, HTML tags, they will not be escaped. Otherwise they are going to be escaped as I don't know for. They will use the proper HTML entity instead of the actual tag. So those are the Elpos you can have. And also then you can use Google charts or Eastwood to create charts with it. So you can use that as a templating engine. You can use that as a chart engine. You're not forced to use both. You can use that only to fill charts if you want. So Google charts basically that's what they are. That's a big URL with loads of parameters. And you can go to the Google charts site and I will look at all the parameters you can use. It's very boring to build all those stuff. So I've built a wrapper around all this. And all you have to do is to put parameters inside an object and ask the plugin to give you the chart. And it will build this. But Google charts is nice and it's accessible for me anywhere. But the thing is that it's located on Google servers. So you will have an overhead to get this image and to get it back and to get it back again to your client. And there's a low definition, low DPI. You cannot print those charts. It's good for display. It's good for, I don't know, on screen. But if you print it, they will be quite jaded. Not very nice. Because there's a limit in terms of size, which is 300,000 pixel. But this is width times 8. So all I know you will have something maximum, which would be around 750 per 500 pixel. And if you try to print that, you will have something very, very tiny. And then there is also a limit on the get URL size, which I think must be something like 2k only. They now accept post with a limit of 16k. But if you have loads of parameters, if you have a big bar chart with loads of bars and loads of bars, and loads of parameters and legends and colors and all sorts of parameters, you will quickly hit that limit. So that's one of the problems as well. So instead, what you can use is wood. And this was part of the package. When I say it's part of the package, it's actually a war. You can put inside your Servoyor your web apps, it's just a plain file, which is called Eastwood.war. It drops out into your web apps, server web apps in servo. And you will have this service, which will be accessible on localhost on your own server. So it's installed there. There's no limit on image sizes. So you can have a very wide and very big and high-di-di-pi resolution. There's no limit. Well, there is one, but there's no limit on get 64k, and there's absolutely no limit on post. So that's one of the advantages. And most of the charts, I have implemented in Google charts as well. Most of the shows that you can find on Google apps, you will find them with Eastwood. So one of the examples I have here is how do you build a chart? Well, basically, it's just an object, which here you can find, I create a new object, a shot depth. I set some title, and you can see that I can use IATN. I can set some parameters as one, which is called 3D. And I can set the slices of the object. It's an array of objects. An array of objects with a percent, color, label, legends, and stuff. There again, you could use IATN. Every time you can use text, you can use IATN. There's an orientation that's the start of the pie. There's some margin. You can put some legend margins. You can use a legend. You can use 3D as loads of stuff. And I will refer you to a survey forge on the site itself. If you go to velocity reports, you will see in the wiki, there's all of the documentation about that and about charting. You will see all the possible values that you can use for those are the type of charts you can use. Out of the chart is explained. And you have all sorts of properties you can use. Those are the global parameters you can use. And for each object, for each type of chart, there are specialized parameters that you can use. And basically, you will see that that's most of what is used in Google. And some of them are even going further than what Google is doing. So, for example, for the pie charts, these are the things that I can use in the slices. So, the percent, label, color, legends, that's what I can use. And the type of it and what are they required in everything. So, there's extended documentation of all the parameters you can use for charts and for the plugin as well on the project. So, that's how you build a chart. Basically, same thing for barcode. You basically create an object and you will ask the plugin after that. Give me the barcode. Let me return a URL that you can use in a simple HTML area. Or an object that can inject in a template. So, we can have a look. A quick demo. So, this is the demo, the sample solution, which goes with the velocity report with my legendary, very nice UI. So, basically, that's just a bunch of options. First, you can try the charts. There's a few options here. Right now, it's using Google. So, that's Google. That's why it takes some time to get back. Some of them are not clever, but here. That's Google. But if I want, I can change that to Eastwood. And Eastwood is actually local. So, most of the time, it's some subtle differences, but you need to try them. And all of this is done on the local server. It's done by the plugin itself and by the Eastwood context, which is the one we talked about. All of this is done here. And I can also have this barcodes. Then this is just the charts and the barcodes. And this part is where you can see the image. It's actually just a simple HTML area. It's a field regular HTML field in server. I just put the URL inside it. Now, there's something else that you can use. It's the actual reporting tool. So, this report I've been done based on data coming from the sample data, UDM, or example, I don't remember exactly which one. But basically, all of this is done coming from data from the database. And it's all built on HTML. And you can use the charts. And you can use a very fancy stuff. And all of the charts as well. And blobs and barcodes and any kind of tables with data that can use images coming from the database. And you can also see what it looks like in preview. There you can see that I've added some some editor and footer. And that's what I was going to be cut when you print. That's the print preview. That's a real thing. And that's basically what you can do. You can also, of course, save directly as PDF. OK, you can create the PDF out of that. And let's say, OK, it's all happening in the background. Actually, I can continue using the rest of the way in the meantime. I was just saving that. I think it's a eye definition. Hopefully. There it is. So it's done. And I can probably see on my desktop. Should be here. I've got my report. It's using, it's capable of embedding the fonts as well. The fonts you can actually push those fonts to the client. If you want to be sure that your client is going to use those fonts. You can simply drop those fonts in a dedicated folder in the, in the, in the velocity report default folder. So you can also use that. So basically, it's very basic. What you can also do is render inside. Oh, yeah. I'm on Google. So that's why it takes some time. And I want to. But you can render inside J panel, which will be inside your, your form. OK. I'm going to go back and see that I want. Well. Look at this. I'll stop that. I'll stick it to much time. Well. It's strong. OK. I want to be killed. Let's try it again. No. OK. Well, I know the solution is to do that. OK. So yes, if I use it, it's true. It will take less time. I guess with the network here, I don't, a very good access to Google. But let's tweak it again. OK. Back to it. I'm going to go there first. Go to Eastwood. It should be OK. Just inside a component. Go then. Well. Let me go. In the meantime, I'm going to show you what's behind it, really. And what's behind it is not really that complicated compared to what Robert just showed us. So basically, I have only a few functions in the main one is to get the report. OK. And to get the context from a report, get a report context. And what do I do here is I create an object once again, which is called context. It's here. And I put everything I want to have access to in the report after that. I basically feel this object with all of those data. OK. So I put a here, I put a found set, I also put a record into my object. I have a first record, I put a record in there. I have a found set, I put it here. I have some some another found sets, which I've called countries. I have all sorts of stuff. I'm getting my my charts where I get them from the plug-in itself. I also give just strings. I can also have callbacks functions, which will inject the result inside my my my my reports. And also, blobs and I can get some media files. All of those are just regular. Objects, you know, and I can do that. And for example, when I get the pie chart, I get this definition. And I simply install that. I get the chart, get chart itself is just. Just that it's using the get chart with the type of chart I want. The chart definition, which is what I've been building is just an object. Does it use Eastwood or not? And what kind of resolution I want? And the kind of resolution I want can be your screen or very eye definition. Okay. And hopefully it's there. No, it's still not there. Where else? Okay. Well, then my fact again. So basically it's quite quite easy to use. Or you have you have a certain number of of a function that you can use on it. And it's all there velocity reports. So that's so you can set a lot of default stuff, but you can get the barcode, the chart, media, and then you will evaluate the context or you will get the PDF report out of it. Okay. And if I look at the actual report, which was used to build what we saw, it's not that complicated. I'm going to go in there and my reports looks like that. I'm using some CSS, using some page CSS. And there's a few posts for to add some some over files. There's some macro that I did to build the table, but they are not that complicated. And this is what I use. I use the this is an object and get the total form for a few things. I access the the objects directly. And when I want to output something, I just get this. Whatever has been added to the context. Okay. So in my context, I have something which is called context dot by chart. And what I have to do is to put this, to output it in the in the HTML. So it's not a very complicated HTML. And it's using very simple stuff. And it's very easy to put in any kind of design actually. So that's. Let's go. The rest of it is just only a few fly a few slide more. So you can you can grab that. It's on server. It's free BSD license. So do whatever you want with it. Sell it if you want. It's quite stable. Nice one tone. Free point 15. We've got quite a lot of iteration on that. And quite a few reports for users. And it's very, very safe. You can grab the code if you want to have a look at how it's done. And watch maybe extend it. So that's what that's what it is. And but now there was this question about how do you create those reports. Because yeah, HTML, not very confident in HTML. And so the boring really to build HTML. So yeah, basically you can use any kind of editor. For example, this one is Dreamweaver. It's one of the most used by HTML designers. And you can use that. And all you will have to do is to put some dollar and name of the variable in there. At some places where you want your real content to appear. But the thing is that right now I am into thinking of how I would be able to build a runtime editor. Something that your users would be able to use to modify the templates themselves. So you could have using the the server y HTML browser, which is part of the browser's route, which is another project, which is also free. Maybe use those capabilities where you can set up a certain number of templates that you have prepared yourself. And propose that to your user. Use your user. We choose a certain set of templates from inside the editor. Click on that and maybe try to modify them. And just click on the button. Generate my reports. And I want to change this image. Well, click on the image. Get the file manager of the server y editor. And get grab another image. I want to change the logo. I want this to be bold. I want this. They could actually modify the template itself. Once it's set up. So that's some of the ideas I have right now. And I'm going to go to that. What is missing now? Basically, you will need to add some custom buttons to add your own functions. So that's basically you want to do well. First, the template is there. You can always already predefined them. It's only a question for me to give you the programmatic access to that. So I'll add a new template to this editor. So it's coming. But you will also need probably to have some custom list. So where you will have some values that people would be able to use. It's coming to have already added custom plugin for that. I just need to put the variables inside the access for you to get the power to add your own list. Same thing for buttons. The only thing where I'm not too sure about right now is the out to build loops. Because loops are quite difficult. But I'm going to go back to that. So that's the kind of thing that you might want to need to to allow your users to modify that. They will choose, I want the title here. So you will have a list of the title, I want the title, I want the description here. This will output this kind of variable, a velocity variable. They will be able to add some new things which are the kind of buttons that I have here. So if you have a problem right now, I think some ideas about that is how to show the value of the user. So if you have a problem with the user, you can see that the user will be able to choose from a certain set of models like that. And the only thing I have a bit of a problem right now, but I want to show you what a loop is going to be. A loop, for example, if you inject a found set, basically you will probably mean to create a table out of it. And this table will have a start and start and probably adders. And all of that, we need to get some access. The user won't be able to change that dynamically because they are not going to work on the final report, but on the template, which is capable of creating this report. So I am looking at a few options on that. But yes, the idea is that if you are interested in that, I know that a few of you are already talked to people here. If you are interested in that, just contact me. Basically, I need help on that because it can take a little bit of time. And if you have ideas or anything, just go on the velocity report forum. You can use the board there as well. You can do the wikis. So go and try that stuff. So if you have questions, very quickly, I think. Yes. Yes, true. Yeah, true. Ben is actually doing, and we are going to put that on server for as well as a sub project of velocity report. He is into building kind of charts builder, actually, which will output all the scripting that you need to create shots. So it will be a simple module. Yes? Sub-summeries aggregation. Can you do calculations in the voice? Yes. Can you iterate on your found set and create your own summaries of any sort of any kind? All that you need to think is that you are building the object, which is going to fill the report. So it is up to you to create all those calculations, summaries and everything. That is basically it. There is no function as such, but you can do that before you inject the object. They say that it is finished, maybe two more. Can I, can we pass parameters to the callback function? No, right now you can't, but yeah, that is a good idea. It is possible to lose that. I might add that. And the last one, I am sorry. Yes? Yes? It goes both. Yeah, yeah, no, it is not that you can choose. The first invocation is go through RMI, because it gets the final URL. And then it is just HTTP. There is actually web services, which is built inside the plugin itself. Because all of this, yes, it is something I didn't say. All of this is working in web clients as well. So it is totally compatible with web client. So the idea is that if you have images or stuff like that or you have access to that from a browser, okay? So there is actually a server that is built inside the plugin, which is serving those static files and blobs and images. Okay, so the first invocation is done via the plugin using the URL. But in the end, it returns a URL to the server, your an HTTP URL, actually. Okay?