The Viewers SDK is an API for deploying report
viewers. This API also lets you incorporate report exporting to a range of
different formats in your web application.
Java viewers
The Java viewers (viewers) are used primarily for
generating Dynamic HTML (DHTML) pages that display Crystal reports. The viewers
are a 'thin-client' technology - users of your web application don't need to
install any additional software in order to view the reports.
There are two Java viewers available to you:
- DHTML report page viewer
- This viewer provides basic thin-client report
viewing capabilities to present data and allow drill down, page navigation,
zoom, prompting, text search, highlighting, exporting, and printing.
- report parts viewer
- This viewer provides the ability to view
individual report parts including charts, text, and fields.
JSF version of the DHTML report page
viewer
The DHTML Viewer is the primary report viewer that
is used to view report files using RAS as the report server.
The JSF version of the DHTML report page viewer is
implemented by the
ReportPageViewer component. The
ReportPageViewer component has
functionality similar to the DHTML report page viewer, including a toolbar that
allows a user to navigate, search, and export the report to other formats.
The
ReportPageViewer component
renders the report in DHTML and provides a toolbar that enables the user to
navigate the report. You can customize the appearance and behavior of the
ReportPageViewer component by
setting its attributes.
To display a report using the
ReportPageViewer component, you
must specify a report source. A report source is an object used by the
ReportPageViewer component to
access the properties of a report. It provides the
ReportPageViewer component with
the means to query for report data, page information, and other internal report
information.
You can customize the appearance of the
ReportPageViewer component by
setting various attributes. Some commonly used attributes include the
following:
toolPanelViewType
attribute
The tool panel appears on the left side of the
ReportPageViewer component and
can display the group tree or the parameter panel. The group tree is displayed
by default. You can set the
ReportPageViewer component to
display the parameter panel or to hide the tool panel by setting the
toolPanelViewType
attribute to
ParameterPanel or
None,
respectively.
displayToolbar
attribute
The Toolbar is the main method of report
navigation. It includes buttons to export, search, and page through the report.
By default, the
ReportPageViewer component
displays the Toolbar. You can disable rendering of the Toolbar or specific
components of the Toolbar, by setting the
displayToolbar
attribute or related attributes to false. For example, to display the Toolbar
but disable exporting, set the
displayToolbarExportButton to
false.