This project implements a simple web service wrapper around the Jasper Reports libraries for report and label generation in Specify 7.
- Java JDK >= 1.7 (never versions work too)
- Apache Maven 2 or 3
After cloning the repository, build with mvn compile. The test
server can be started using the Maven Jetty plugin: mvn jetty:run. The service will run on port 8080 on localhost
adapter. These values can be changed in jetty.xml. Because there is
no authentication, the report service should run on the same machine
as the Specify 7 server or on a private subnet and only bind an
address that is not routed externally.
In the Specify 7 (development branch) settings file, typically
specifyweb/settings/local_specify_settings.py, set the values
REPORT_RUNNER_HOST and REPORT_RUNNER_PORT appropriately and
restart. A Reports task will now be available on the taskbar at the
top of the Specify 7 web application.
Unless the report runner service is provided with the fonts used in a report it will use built-in PDF fonts. The consequences range in severity from slight differences in appearance to rendered text overflowing bounding boxes resulting in truncation to report runner throwing exceptions.
To provide fonts to be used by this service, a font extension jar file
can be added to src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/lib/ before compiling. There
is a good description of creating the font extension file at
http://javaskeleton.blogspot.com/2010/12/embedding-fonts-into-pdf-generated-by.html
If you follow the iReport instructions in that guide, be sure to
include the variants (italic, bold and bold italic) for each font added.
If using the report runner in a Docker container, the font extension jar can be mounted into the container using a volume directive such as:
docker run -p 8080 --name report-runner -d -v ./report-fonts.jar:/var/lib/jetty/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/report-fonts.jar specifyconsortium/report-runner
Use the following SystemD script to start report runner service
PS: change User and home path to your needs.
[Unit]
Description=Specify Report Runner Service
# Author Job Diogenes Ribeiro Borges
Wants=network.target
ConditionPathExists=/home/specify/report-runner-service
[Service]
User=specify
WorkingDirectory=/home/specify/report-runner-service
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mvn jetty:run
[Install]
Alias=ireportrunner.service
When running with a headless JRE, there is a bug in the barbecue barcode generation library that prevents the text value of a barcode from be included even if that option is turned on in the report definition. The bug has been fixed in the barbecue repository in an unreleased version, 1.9-dev. The solution is to clone the barbecue repository locally and build and install the maven artifact.
git clone https://github.com/barbecue-sf/barbecue.git
cd barbecue/barbecue
mvn compile
mvn install
Then update the pom.xml in this repository to depend on version
1.9-dev instead of the currently released 1.5-beta1.