Text and Dynamic Text

Text components are similar to Label components. They provide much more flexibility than Labels, in that they allow HTML formatting inside of the definition for the text. They also allow for some special tags that will display data from a JavaScript environment. This becomes important if we want to add AJAX or dynamic DOM manipulation to our report. It is even possible to put in images without using the BIRT Image component and anchor tags.

For the following example we will build on to our Hello World report by adding in a list that will be formatted with HTML. The items will be Item 1, Item 2, and Item 3 respectively. Item 1 will be set to bold using HTML, whereas Item 2 and Item 3 will be left alone. For the purpose of this example, you do not need to be familiar with HTML as I will walk you through the steps. A detailed tutorial on HTML is beyond of the scope of this book.

1. 1. Open HelloWorld.rptdesign from the Classic_Cars_BIRT_Reports project.

2. 2. From the Palette...