Hi. I hope some of you have figured this out. That would be awesome :-)
I would like to have some version control over my server repository. I know that I can use export. But that solution seems mostly useful only for backup.
I can't use the export because :
- files ends in .data instead of .jrxml, .png, etc.
- when editing in JasperSoft it instantly adds uuid's to each node and 4-5 lines of metadata in the top of the file.
- So even if one just looked in the file it will be marked as changed and I will have to do a thorough diff of the xml-file before committing (or reverting).
I would like to find a solution to enable :
- better collaboration across team members
- easier work shared resources such as graphics, subreports, content and other files (linked resources)
When working locally, I want to mimic the structure of the repository. That seems essential when working with referenced resources. Somehow JasperSoft Studio handles linked datatypes and input controls. But not subreports and images, etc. At least not very well.
If I just open the server connection and starts working on a report, then subreports are not available before they have been opened as well. That is unles they are local to the main report, and that was not my goal. I want to be able to reuse subreports, etc. And every time the studio has been closed you will open the report again and it creates a new tmp-folder for the server, and you can start over downloading images, etc. Take a look for youself in your project explorer and see how many copies of server-folders you have.
If I start to create a new report then I have the same problem. But even more so if I don't mimic the repository structure. I want to add a new report at the right place. For if I don't, then the reference-paths will be substantially different.
I can handle path differences like this:
(($P{REPORT_CONTEXT}!=null)?"repo:":"") + "/images/logo/somelogo.png
That is assuming that I have created a local copy with /images/logo/somelogo.png (It should be noted that newer servers can handle paths without the "repo" part, so I am looking forward to upgrading my server.) And it also explains why I want to have the initial structure in my workspace.
There is another problem when uploading from within studio. It will try to consolidate all resources together with the main report. So if I am not careful, then I will have multiple duplicates of my translation bundles and everything else.
In the end my question is if anyone has a sound way to do collaboration and shared resources?
9 Answers:
I think the main problem is with connecting Studio with JasperReports Server. Just keep the files in a svn repository to share and build a script to upload to the server. JasperReports Server updates the reports in realtime and this isn't what needed in the first place in my case. With the script, it's possible to schedule the updates.
Hi hozawa
- Handling of references to subreports, images, etc. when they are shared among multiple reports.
- Any file is rendered as changed even if one just looked inside it.
Hi hozawa
Thanks for your input and involvement 
. I think that the benefits with the current solution outweights the time and money it will cost to create anyting remotely as capable, resource managing, efficient and flexible on our own. Think about creating a new rest api, folder structure, handling of data connections, users, temporary files, scheduled reports, smart caches, a complete administrative interface, not to mention plugins for Eclipse, and a whole lot more. I'm probably better of contributing to the community or simply buying support.
I suspect that a fair part of our trouble is due to the fact that we have yet to find out what is best practice and the best workflow.
Yesterday I realised that some problems is because we are still running a 5.2.0 server. Lots of optimisations and bugfixes have come into version 6. Also JasperSoft Studio is not working right with 5.2.0 but seems much more flawles together with server version 6.x
One trick to handle references seems to copy images, subreports etc. and "paste as link" where the main report is. Then the report uses these "local" resources which really is links. One great benefit is that the server automatically updates these links; if you "cut" an image and then "paste" it somewhere else, then the links gets updated.
I have yet to do some more testing with this practice, but it seems promising.
I think that there are two scenarios where we have to work out best practice:
- Create a new complex report using shared resources
- Collaborating on an existing report.
Here is a recently published WIKI on version control in JasperReports Server. It may help.
https://community.jaspersoft.com/wiki/version-control-jasperreports-server
