Adding a BI Beans Dialog or Wizard to a JSP Application

In a BI Beans JSP application, you can easily add dialogs, wizards, or wizard pages that allow users to manipulate a BI Beans presentation. For example, you can present a Graph Type page, which allows users to change the graph type of a graph. You can display an Export Options page, which allows users to specify how they want to export a presentation. You can also add a PresentationBuilder to a JSP application, allowing users to create new crosstabs and graphs.

There are two ways to incorporate most dialogs and wizard pages in a JSP application. Which way you use depends on how much control you want over the page that is created.

Displaying a built-in dialog or wizard page

Displaying a built-in dialog, wizard, or wizard page is the easiest way to add the page to an application. To display the page, you set a BI action on a button or link object, by completing the following steps:

  1. Open the page that contains the presentation that you want users to be able to customize.

  2. In the Component Palette, select BI Beans General Tags.

  3. Drag the Button JSP tag to the page.

    Tip: Alternately, you can drag an Image Button, Link, or Submit Button from the HTML Component Palette.

  4. Define the properties for the Button tag and click Finish. The text property specifies the text that appears on the button.

  5. In the JSP page, right-click the button and choose Set BI Action from the menu.

  6. In the Target Objects box of the Set BI Action dialog, specify the presentation that will be modified by the dialog or wizard. The Presentation tag must be in the same page as the Button tag.

  7. Specify the dialog or wizard that you want to display from this button by selecting the appropriate Show action. For example, to display an Export Options dialog, select Show Export Options from the list of BI actions.

  8. Choose OK to close the Set BI Action dialog.

The dialog or wizard page does not appear as part of your application, but it will appear when users choose the button on which you set the BI action. To specify a logo, branding, and copyright information on all the dialog and wizard pages in the application, edit the bibeans_builtin_pages.properties file.

Creating a new dialog, wizard, or wizard page

When you want to be able to customize the dialog or wizard page, complete the following steps to create the page:

  1. Right-click the BIClient project for the JSP application, and choose New from the menu.

  2. In the New Gallery, under Business Intelligence Beans, select the Java Server Pages (JSP) category.

  3. In the Items box, select BI Beans Dialog or Wizard JSP Page.

  4. Choose OK.

  5. In the BI Beans Wizard or Dialog JSP Page dialog box, select the type of dialog or wizard that you want to add to the application. For example, to create an Export Options dialog, select Export Options. For the other items in this dialog, you can accept the default values or specify other values.

  6. Choose OK to close this dialog and create the page.

  7. In the page from which you want to display this dialog, add a DialogLink tag. Specify the newly created page as the targetPageId, and specify the wizard or dialog targetID value as the value of the targetToolId property of the DialogLink tag.

    For a PresentationBuilder, use the CreatePresentation tag instead of a DialogLink. As the presentationId, specify an identifier for the new presentation. Also, specify, in viewType, whether to create a crosstab or a graph.

    For a SaveDialog, use the SaveDef tag instead of a DialogLink. As the mode, specify whether the dialog should be a Save dialog or a Save As dialog.

List of BI Beans JSP Tags