Book Image

Learning Pentaho CTools

By : Miguel Gaspar
Book Image

Learning Pentaho CTools

By: Miguel Gaspar

Overview of this book

Pentaho and CTools are two of the fastest and most rapidly growing tools for practical solutions not found in any other tool available on the market. Using Pentaho allows you to build a complete analytics solution, and CTools brings an advanced flexibility to customizing them in a remarkable way. CTools provides its users with the ability to utilize Web technologies and data visualization concepts, and make the most of best practices to create a huge visual impact. The book starts with the basics of the framework and how to get data to your dashboards. We'll take you all the way through to create your custom and advanced dashboards that will create an effective visual impact and provide the best user experience. You will be given deep insights into the lifecycle of dashboards and the working of various components. Further, you will create a custom dashboard using the Community Dashboards Editor and use datasources to load data on the components. You will also create custom content using Query, the Freeform Addins Popup, and text components. Next, you will make use of widgets to create similar sections and duplicate components to reproduce other components on a dashboard. You will then learn to build a plugin without writing Java code, use Sparkl as a CPK plugin manager, and understand the application of deployment and version control to dashboard development. Finally, you will learn tips and tricks that can be very useful while embedding dashboards into other applications. This guide is an invaluable tutorial if you are planning to use custom and advanced dashboards among the solutions that you are building with Pentaho.

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Small book image
Learning Pentaho CTools
Miguel Gaspar
May, 2016 | 388 pages
No titles found
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Learning Pentaho CTools
Learning Pentaho CTools
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with CTools
Getting Started with CTools
Introducing the CTools
Considerations before creating a dashboard
The first steps in creating a dashboard
Team and project management
Developing a dashboard
Concepts and frameworks used
Summary
2
Acquiring Data with CDA
Acquiring Data with CDA
Introduction to CDA
Creating a new CDA data source
Available types of CDA data sources
Common properties
Editing and previewing
Manipulating the output of a data source
CDA cache
Web API reference
Hands-on dashboards
Summary
3
Building the Dashboard Using CDF
Building the Dashboard Using CDF
Understanding the basics of a CDF dashboard
Using components inside the dashboards
Defining data sources for components
Creating and using parameters in data sources
The importance of listeners inside the components
Interaction between components
Using preExecution and postExecution
Understanding how to work with postFetch
Using preChange and postChange
Priority of component execution
Available components and properties
Adding resources – JavaScript and CSS
Dashboards utilities
Dashboard storage
Dashboard context
Useful functions of the CDF API
Summary
4
Leverage the Process with CDE
Leverage the Process with CDE
A brief introduction to CDE
Working with the editor
Parameter, parameters, and listeners, again
Putting it all together
Summary
5
Applying Filters to the Dashboard
Applying Filters to the Dashboard
The select component
The multi-select component
The filter component
Date range input component
The multi-button component
Summary
6
Tables, Templates, Exports, and Text Components
Tables, Templates, Exports, and Text Components
Table component
Template component
Export button component
Export Popup button component
Text component
Summary
7
Advanced Concepts Using CDF and CDE
Advanced Concepts Using CDF and CDE
References to components, parameters, and layout elements
The query and freeform components
Creating add-ins
The template add-in
Extending CDF and CDE with new components
Extending or creating new dashboard types
Creating a new dashboard style/template
Bookmarkable parameters
Internationalization and localization
The dashboard component
Summary
8
Visualizations Using CCC
Visualizations Using CCC
Some background on CCC
Making use of the CCC library in a CDF dashboard
Mandatory and desirable properties
Mapping data
Making use of CCC in CDE
Changing properties in preExecution or postFetch
Handling the click event
Internationalization of CCC Charts
What are extension points and how do you use them?
Formatting a basis axis label based on the scale
Customizing tooltips
Pie chart showing the value in the center
Dimensions
Debugging the CCC charts
CGG – Community Graphics Generator
References
Summary
9
Pentaho App Builder
Pentaho App Builder
Understanding Pentaho App Builder
Installing Pentaho App Builder
Create a new plugin
Summary
10
Embed, Deploy, and Debug
Embed, Deploy, and Debug
Embedding dashboards
Debugging
Delivering a solution
How to get help and help others
Summary
Index
Index

Creating a new CDA data source

There are multiple ways to create CDA data sources. One of the ways is to use CDE, where no code or XML is needed, and we will cover this later in the CDE chapter. There is another way, which is using the CDA editor, or just editing the file by hand using the Pentaho Text Editor plugin.

For now, I want you to understand the internals of CDA, so we need to start with the hardest way to create a CDA file—by creating/editing an XML file. The CDA files that are XML files will define the Pentaho repository and will have a .cda extension. This way, Pentaho will recognize the file extension and will provide the capability to preview the results or edit the file. The main structure of a CDA file is the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CDADescriptor>
   <DataSources>
      <!—- HERE LIVES EACH ONE OF <Connection>-->
   </DataSources>
   <!—- HERE LIVES EACH ONE OF <DataAccess> -->
</CDADescriptor&gt...
Previous Section
End of Section 3
Next Section