Using the Oracle report builder

[soaring_eagle]

Hi,

Today I decided I wanted to have nicer reports than the standard ones provided, so after some googling I decided to install the Oracle report builder. It installed correctly, but now I can't create a new report, either by using the design view or by using a wizard

Thanks,
Naomi

[soaring_eagle]

Also, I got it from: http://extensions.services.openoffice.o ... portdesign

[F3K Total]

Hi,
whitch Java Version do you use?
R

[soaring_eagle]

java version "1.6.0_24"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.11.5) (6b24-1.11.5-0ubuntu1~12.04.1)
OpenJDK Client VM (build 20.0-b12, mixed mode, sharing)

I also checked http://www.java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp and it says that Java is working.

[soaring_eagle]

I also tried removing the report builder in order to be able to create a report. Now I have an error message "No valid report template was found".

[soaring_eagle]

The only way that I can create a report is to remove this completely

[aplucini]

The only way that I can create a report is to remove this completely

Yes, unfortunately, after you have installed Oracle Report Builder (ORB), if you want to create a report using the standard built-in report design tool then you have to go into the extension manager and disable and REMOVE the ORB. Then you you MUST exit OOo and restart it for the removal to take effect. It's really kind of a pain. If you want to use ORB again then you have to go back to the extension manager and ADD and ENABLE it again. You can't use the standard report design tool and ORB at the same time.

This is one of many non-user-friendly features of OOo that make it difficult to make the transition from MS Office to OpenOffice.

[threenorns]

this is from back in november last year and i'm having this exact same problem?

i've used openoffice writer for years and i've bigged up the suite to everybody - now i'm so angry and so frustrated with the database application i'm regretting i said anything at all and i'm ready to switch to Access.

honestly: why did everyone on the development end apparently think that generating actual, meaningful reports with totals based on data, was NOT part of a database program? without being able to generate reports, the whole thing is useless! ARGH!

[acknak]

this is from back in november last year and i'm having this exact same problem? ...

What problem? This thread deals with installing/uninstalling the ORB and there seems to be a solution given above.

If you have a specific problem with generating a report, you're more likely to get help if you start a new thread, clearly state the problem, and leave the complaints for some other time/place.

[Villeroy]

In all those years, the report builder extension never got beyond alpha status. Each new office version required another new version of report builder and each new version of report builder suffered from another set of bugs and regressions (things that stopped working but worked in previous versions). Report builder never worked as advertised.
I believe that LibreOffice does some maintainance on this tool.

[acknak]

I've never tried it myself. Does the report builder do anything that you can't do manually inserting fields in a Writer document?

[Villeroy]

I've never tried it myself. Does the report builder do anything that you can't do manually inserting fields in a Writer document?

It prints whole tables in various layouts whereas the fields print one document per record. The tables can be grouped by categories, years, months, quarters, whatever.
It puts totals and subtotals for the respective groups into headers and footers.
Like Calc, it can generate charts and fairly complex calculated fields.
Unlike Calc, it includes picture fields (pictures as "cell contents").

It would be the most professional tool in the whole office suite if somebody would maintain it (and the Base component, of course).

Example document with some simple report builder reports by sliderule: http://www.mediafire.com/?q6ksrpaowgk6lsv

[acknak]

Nice. Thanks!

[RGB]

Ariel Constenla-Haile, an AOO commiter and PMC member did some work on ORB extension to make it work on 3.4.x. You can find the result here:

http://people.apache.org/~arielch/exten ... rtbuilder/

(he is also working on the MySQL driver for AOO).