- Identifying the content of the report
- Determining how the report will be viewed
- Considering international reporting requirements
- Deciding the layout and format of the report
- Drawing a mock-up
- Considering reuse of report components
- Managing report design resources
- Deciding how the report will be deployed
Managing report design resources
A report design typically uses external resources, such as image files, report libraries, Java files, and message files used for localization. If you work on a suite of reports that use multiple external files, you need a way to organize the files so that you can easily package and deploy them to an application server or migrate your reports to different machines.
BIRT Report Designer provides a resource folder as a way to organize all these external files for ease of deployment later. The default location of this resource folder is specified in the Preferences page, which you access by choosing Windows→Preferences from the main menu, then choosing the Report Design Resource item. On this page, you can specify a different path for the resource folder option.
When you publish a library or create a message file in BIRT Report Designer, these files are automatically saved in the resource folder. To manage files that are created by other applications, such as image files, copy the files into the resource folder before you create the report. Then, when you insert the images in the report, select the image in the resource folder.