NextCharts: Display Widget

A new widget was added to NextCharts html5 library: Display.

"Display" shows a value (without min/max boundaries like those used for Indicator) which is associated with a period of time. You can think as example for: Number of site visitors per day, Interest Rate per month, Profit per year.Although, this widget has the possibility to show how this value performed regarding a previous value (on previous period of time).

Json for such widget is like:

{
   "value": "2.354",
   "valueColor":"#004CB3",
   "title":"Visitors",
   "titleColor":"blue",
   "previous":"1.17%",
   "previousColor":"#c0c0c0",  
   "up":true,
   "shouldRise":true,
   "background":"white",
   "shadow":true"
}

Besides title, value and previous values and colors, we can have a background color and some boolean expressions:
- shadow: to show or not a shadow
- up: true for up arrow, false for down arrow
- shouldRise: true to indicate that a rise in value is a good thing, false to indicate that a lower value is a good thing.  For example: a rising number of visitors is good, a lower value of bounce rate is good.

Depending on last two properties we can have a green or a read arrow if the value evolves in the "good" direction or not.

NextCharts: Indicator

Indicators are special widgets that were added in 6.0 version of NextReports. You can read about them here.

Because NextCharts HTML5 library appeared in 7.0 version, it was time to move our indicator to NextCharts. So, NextCharts 1.2 will contain a new nextWidget function and this will be used by NextReports Server from 7.2 version.

A sample Json object for indicator is like:

{
     "title": "Balance",  
     "description":"monthly",
     "unit":"$",
     "value":200,
     "min":0,
     "max":1000, 
     "showMinMax":true,                          
     "color":"blue"             
 }

with following result:

You can view an HTML test in NextCharts github repository.

NextReports: Header Expressions with Functions

NextReports designer layout allows to insert functions and expressions.

Function is created on a column or on one existing expression.
Expression can contain columns, variables, parameters and functions.

Till version 7.2, expressions could contain functions, only if expressions were found in footer or group footer. Also functions could be inserted only in footers till 6.2 and also in headers from 6.2+.

From version 7.2, expressions in headers can also contain functions. To see this in action we create a Timesheet report with functions and expressions in headers (instead of footers, like in demo report).

Report Layout is as in following picture.

We can see in header band all the functions and also expressions that compute percent values from total. For example "Administration Hours Percent" is a simple expression like:

You can see that "Functions" selection is possible here.

Similar, in group G1 header we compute the percent of worked hours per project:

HTML result will show us computed values for expressions with functions:

NextReports Server: Auto open generated reports

Everytime you run a report in NextReports Server, a new message will popup when the report is done, showing the link of the artifact. User clicks that link and the report is opened with the default viewer. This is the normal way, especially if your reports take some time to run.

But there are some cases when all your reports are fast (instant running) and users want an option to automatically open generated reports. From version 7.1, settings contain a new property called "auto open". If this is checked,  after a report is run, the message will popup like in normal case, but the report will also be automatically open.

So, feel free to use this option.