Using a connection profile store with BIRT

After a bit of trial-and-error I managed to get connection profiles to work with BIRT. It is important to keep to the following sequence.

• Open the Data Source Explorer view
• Create all the connection profiles you need. e.g. test, staging and production for each connection type. Give them names which indicate the environment they are in (MS_SQL_Test, MS_SQL_Prod etc.)
• Export the required connection profiles to a file in the report project e.g. connectionStore.xml
• In the report project, create a new DataSource and select the second radio button 'Create from a connection profile in the profile store'
• Select the profile store file and choose a connection profile. Perhaps deselect the 'Use default data source name' and enter a environment-independant name (e.g. MS_SQL instead of MS_SQL_Test). Choose Ok to end
• Open the Data Source and select 'Property Binding'
• Edit 'Connection Profile Name' -- params["__runtime"].value.toLowerCase() == 'prod' ? 'MS SQL Prod' : 'MS SQL Test' -- or something similar. The returned value must correspond to the name of a connection profile in the store.
• Define a parameter named '__runtime' and use the Combo Box option to set the valid values: 'test', 'prod' etc
• That's it

You should now be able to select the connection environment using the report parameter.
Update
When I deployed this to the server (websphere) the profile switching between prod & test did not work. This was because the profile store was not being found. Unfortunately, there is no error message - it just takes the default connection settings. The connection store needs to be placed in the server's context root.

Success with pvc.webcontainer

Finally got my little app working with com.ibm.pvc.webcontainer. I installed the Domino upgrade 8.5.3 and my plugin works! Seems there were problems with 8.5.2.

One important point is to refresh the target definition in eclipse: Window->Prefs->Plug-in Dev->Target. Reload. Otherwise there will be unresolved plugins in the projects.

OpenJPA as an OSGi bundle

http://hwellmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/openjpa-and-osgi.html

Create bundles for non-OSGi components

This is in German but looks helpful. http://oli.blogger.de/stories/1864695/

I'll do a write-up in English when I've tried it out.

Mixing Linq-to-SQL and Linq-to-XMl

I have been trying to select a column containing XML text from a database and then selecting nodes from the XML using Linq. It didn't work. My guess is that deferred execution causes the queries to be mixed and taken as Linq-to-SQL. As a result the XML stuff causes problems.

My solution was to force an intermediate result so that there is a break between SQL and XML queries. My code for LinqPad is as follows.

var all = from bm in mytable
          select new { name=bm.SPP_USER_ID, xml=(string)bm.SPP_BOOKMARKS_XML};

var docs = from x in all
           select XDocument.Parse(x.xml);
var docs2 = docs.ToList(); // FORCE RESULT

XNamespace ns = "http://acme/bookmarks";
var href = from h in docs2.Descendants(ns + "href")
           select h.Value;  

Strange and annoying problem with {NOBR}

I wrote a web app about 10 years ago which used Javascript to pop up a hidden table when an input field gets focus. Each cell in the table contains a checkbox and text which are surrounded by a NOBR to keep them together.

Recently users with IE8 complained that the first cell is not visible when the table pops up. After MUCH trial and error I narrowed it down to the NOBR tag. I replaced it with a SPAN with style set to white-space : nowrap and this seems to solve the problem :-/

Using 3rd party libraries in Silverlight

I downloaded a 3rd party library for a Silverlight app I am writing. When I ran the app I got an error message telling me to add

<loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/>

to 'devenv.exe.config' (Usually in 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE').

It seems you also need to edit the 'Blocked' property of the DLL.

See How to: Use an Assembly from the Web in Visual Studio for full details.