Learning Pentaho CTools

Learning Pentaho CTools

By : Miguel Gaspar

Buy this Book

Learning Pentaho CTools

By: Miguel Gaspar

Buy this Book

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.

Learning Pentaho CTools

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

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

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

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

Leverage the Process with CDE

A brief introduction to CDE

Working with the editor

Parameter, parameters, and listeners, again

Putting it all together

Summary

Applying Filters to the Dashboard

The select component

The multi-select component

The filter component

Date range input component

The multi-button component

Summary

Tables, Templates, Exports, and Text Components

Table component

Template component

Export button component

Export Popup button component

Text component

Summary

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

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

Pentaho App Builder

Understanding Pentaho App Builder

Installing Pentaho App Builder

Create a new plugin

Summary

Embed, Deploy, and Debug

Embedding dashboards

Debugging

Delivering a solution

How to get help and help others

Summary

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Changing properties in preExecution or postFetch

We are able to change the properties for the charts, as with any other component. Inside preExecution, the keyword this, refers to the component itself, so we will have access to the chart's main object, which we can also manipulate and add, remove, and change options.

For instance, you can apply the following code:

function() {
   var cdProps = {
        dotsVisible: true,
        plotFrame_strokeStyle: '#bbbbbb',
        colors: ['#005CA7', '#FFC20F', '#333333', '#68AC2D']
    }; 
    $.extend(true, this.chartDefinition, cdProps);
}

What we are doing is creating an object with all the properties that we want to add or change for the chart, and then extending the chartDefinitions (where the properties or options are). This is what we are doing with the JQuery function.

Tip

Use the CCC website and make your life easier

This way to apply options makes it easier to set the properties. Just change or add the properties that you need, test it, and...

Learning Pentaho CTools

By : Miguel Gaspar

Learning Pentaho CTools

By: Miguel Gaspar

Overview of this book

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Learning Pentaho CTools

Changing properties in preExecution or postFetch

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