Overview

History

Up to xReporter 1.2.1, a report had a fixed number of output formats: HTML, XML, PDF, CSV and Excel. These output formats were customizable through report-specific styling. It was not possible to add new formats or multiple variations of the same format.

Since xReporter 1.3, a system is in place to allow to implement new output format types, to configure multiple output formats per report, and to configure the menu of available formats per report. The basic design of these changes was introduced by the "charts patch" (XRP-102).

Terminology

To avoid confusion, let's define the names we use for the various concepts.

format type

A format type implements a specific way of rendering the report output. Examples are HTML, PDF or chart renderings.

format

A format is a specific report output the user can choose. In it most simple form, it is simply a pointer to a format type and a name for the format. It can however contain additional configuration to customize the format type.

You could say that a format is an instance of a format type.

format index

The format index defines the menu with formats the user can choose from. It is possible to define a hierarchy in the menu, i.e. it doesn't have to be a flat list.

report specific styling

The purpose of report-specific styling is to customize the output rendering (= the format type) on a per-report basis.

This system pre-dates the existence of the format system. Previously, the styling files to be used were determined based on the presence of <report-id>.xsl or <report-id>.xml files. This system is still in place, but is now also possible to configure the files to be used in the format, allowing to have more than one configuration of a format type for the same report.

report specific XSLTs

This system allows to replace the default XSLT used to render a report for a specific type (PDF, HTML, ...) with report specific variants.

stylesheet parameterization files

Because writing XSLTs is not always simple, it is also possible to modify the behavior of the default XSLTs by creating configuration files, called the stylesheet parameterization files.