Unfinished PDI Tuto...

In early 2008, I started writing a tutorial on the excellent Pentaho Data Integrator, which I never finished.

Hopefully, there is sufficient content for it to still be a worthwhile read.

You can download it here.

Mono-free

OK, call me a fanboy if you want to...

...but I really see the point of Richard Stallman's rant about how to avoid being faced with a software patent issue with ongoing use of Mono.

After a little searching, I finally took the plunge and removed Mono from my Ubuntu-based operating system.

I won't miss the Tomboy notes taker much, and my system is not running any faster without mono. Since doing that, I've been reading up on trying to determine how wise my action was, and judging from some of the many writeups on the topic. I convinced that I did the right thing.

Using CDF dashboard templates

A short while ago, I wrote up and quick tutorial to create a new look and feel to your CDF pages.

http://wiki.pentaho.com/display/COM/Creating a new dashboard look and feel

In there, I wrote:

In order to replace the CE demo look and feel with my own, I needed to make changes to the template-dashboard.html file.

While this is certainly possible, another approach is to leave the current dashboard templates alone and create a new set of dashboard templates. In this way, it may even be possible to use different templates withing the same solution.

All dashboard template reside in this directory:

biserver-ce/pentaho-solutions/system/pentaho-cdf/

In order to create a new template, simply insert a new file in this directory, and name it as follows:

template-dashboard-templatename.html

Note: In the file name above, only the "templatename" portion may be changed. everything else must remain as indicated.

You can then proceed to create the template as indicated in the linked page above.

To call up the dashboard page with the new template, add the template parameter to the URL

http://localhost:8080/pentaho/content/pentaho-cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=bi-developers&path=/dashboard-custom&action=custom.xcdf&template=templatename 

Creating a new look and feel with the Pentaho CDF

The Pentaho Community Dashboard Framework (CDF) has moved the Pentaho platform to new heights by offering much flexibility over how your Pentaho based BI solution now look and feel.

It was always possible to embed Pentaho into a custom application with your own functionality and look and feel. So the CDF is offering nothing new. It's the ease and simplicity of its solution that stands it apart from other alternatives.

I've created a quick tutorial that explains how to use the CDF to create your own look and feel.

You can read the article on the Pentaho WIKI.

http://wiki.pentaho.com/display/COM/Creating+a+new+dashboard+look+and+feel

Welcome

Welcome to the Crafters Loft

My move to blogs have been long overdue, and I've finally taken the step towards publishing my blog.

Not much to see just yet, but hopefully this will change over the next few months.