With a focus on Web publishing, Oracle Reports has moved more fully into its role as a universal publishing solution. In prior releases, Reports Builder's Web feature simply displayed paper reports (that is, multiple pages) in HTML or PDF. This moves corporate data onto the Web, but also results in large and somewhat inflexible HTML pages.
While all the prior Web report functionality remains for paper-based reports (see Preparing a paper-based report for the Web), Oracle Reports can also use JavaServer Pages (JSPs) as the underlying technology to enable you to enhance Web pages with information retrieved using Reports Builder. This introduces the Web Source view of a report, and enables you to have both JSP-based and paper-based definitions in a single report. In other words, you can either publish your paper reports to the Web in various output formats, or take more advantage of Web features by adding JSP coding in the Web Source view. For example, you can create a report that has a paper PDF version and a JSP-based Web version; what you choose depends on your needs and whether you are able to produce the desired results more easily in the Web Source view or in the Paper Design view.
Oracle Reports also includes servlet technology. Servlets provide a Java-based alternative to CGI programs. Servlets provide a platform-independent method for building Web-based applications, without the performance limitations of CGI programs.
You can create a Web report in any of the following ways:
In the Report Wizard, select whether the report layout is both Web and paper, Web only, or paper only. The layout for both Web and paper reports defaults in the Paper Design view. You can view the source code for the Web report in the Web Source view.
Open an existing HTML document (Web page) and imbed a report in your Web page using the Report Block Wizard. This provides tremendous flexibility in creating reports that meet the demands of completely integrating multiple sources of information within a single Web page.
Display the Web Source view and manually insert the Oracle Reports custom JSP tags.
Insert an existing report into an existing Web page, by displaying the Web Source view for the report and the source code of the Web page, then copying and pasting the report block into the desired position in the Web page.
Use the functionality available since Oracle Reports 6i to add HTML and hyperlinks to an existing report to create a paper-based Web report (HTML file).
To preview your report output in a Web browser, choose ProgramRun Web Layout.
This enables you to immediately see the effect of your changes on the output.
Note:
If Netscape 7.0 is your default browser, and the browser does not display,
set the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\Software\Oracle\Toolkit\Tkbrowser
to the default browser location. Ensure that the BrowserName
and the BrowserPath
keys reflect the correct values. For example:
BrowserName=Netscape 7
; BrowserPath=C:\Program Files\Netscape\Netscape\Netscp.exe
.
If Run to Web Layout fails with an error related to the major.minor
version, you will need to update the environment variables CLASSPATH
or REPORTS_CLASSPATH
, as follows: remove the 9.0.x
ORACLE_HOME
specification in the oc4j.jar
file path (the oc4j.jar
file path should specify only the 10g
Release 2 (10.1.2) ORACLE_HOME
).
About JavaServer Pages (JSPs) and servlets
About Parameter Forms for Web reports
About previewing JSP-based Web reports
Adding a report block to a Web page
Viewing the source code for a Web report
Displaying report output in your Web browser
Printing a report from your Web browser
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