2.4. Starting Chart Designer

Chart Designer can be run in two ways, as a stand-alone application or as an a JNLP(More about Applets in JNLP: Section 2.6 - Run Applets As JNLP) loaded through a web browser. In either case, you must have EspressManager running in order to start the Chart Designer. Please see previous section for instructions on how to start the EspressManager.

Running as application

To start the Chart Designer as application, execute Designer.bat or Designer.sh file located in root directory of the EspressChart installation. For Windows installations, you can use program shortcuts from Start menu or desktop, depending on the options that were specified during installation. A dialog will appear prompting you to enter a username and password. If you have set up users in the config.txt file enter your user name and password. If you have not set up users, enter the user name guest and password guest. Click the Start EspressChart button and the application will start.

Chart Designer Login Window

Running through a Browser

If you're running Chart Designer remotely, make sure that EspressManager is running on the remote machine, then type the URL for EspressChart in your browser, i.e. http://machinename/espresschart/index.html. The page will contain a dialog prompting you to log on to EspressManager. If the config.txt file has been modified to set up users, enter your username and password to log in. If the config.txt file has not been modified, enter the username guest with no password, then click the Start EspressChart button and the Chart Designer will launch.

	Caution
	Because EspressChart requires a JVM the equivalent of Java 1.8 or higher, you will need to download the Java plugin in order to run Chart Designer via browser.

2.4.1. Connecting to EspressManager Running as a Servlet

If EspressManager is running as a servlet, as described in Section 2.3.1 - Starting EspressManager as a Servlet, you will need to make some modifications before ChartDesigner can be started successfully.

Stand-Alone

If you're running ChartDesigner using .bat or .sh file, you will need to modify the file to indicate that EspressChart is running as a servlet and to point to the location of the EspressManager servlet. To do this, add the following argument to the .bat or .sh file -servlet:http://IP Address:Port/Context.

For example:

-servlet:http://127.0.0.1:8080/servlet indicates that the EspressManager is running on localhost with port 8080 in /servlet/ context. Below is an example of the modified reportdesigner.bat

set JAVA_EXECUTABLE=C:\ER70\jre\bin\java set PATH=%PATH%;.\lib "%JAVA_EXECUTABLE%" -Xmx256M -classpath ".\lib\axis.jar;.\lib\axis-commons-logging.jar;.\lib\axis-commons-discovery.jar;.\lib\axis-jaxrpc.jar;.\lib\barbecue.jar;.\lib\ExportLib.jar;.\lib\FlashExport.jar;.\lib\hsqldb.jar;.\lib\javaws.jar;.\lib\jsqlparser.jar;.\lib\jsyntaxpane.jar;.\lib\qblicense.jar;.\lib\ReportDesigner.jar;.\lib\SVGExport.jar;.\lib\wsdl4j.jar;.\lib\xercesImpl.jar;.\lib\xml-apis.jar;.\lib\zxing-core.jar;.\lib\zxing-javase.jar;.;.\lib\commons-codec.jar;.\lib\commons-collections.jar;.\lib\commons-compress.jar;.\lib\commons-io.jar;.\lib\commons-math3.jar;.\lib\log4j-api.jar;.\lib\poi.jar;.\lib\poi-ooxml.jar;.\lib\poi-ooxml-schemas.jar;.\lib\SparseBitSet.jar;.\lib\xmlbeans.jar;" quadbase.reportdesigner.designer.ReportClient -templatesDirectory:Templates -servlet:http://192.168.0.51:8080/ER70/servlet

Browser

If you're running ChartDesigner through a Java Web Start jnlp application that is connecting to EspressManager running as a servlet, you will need to add the following applet-desc parameter tags near the end of EC70\EspressChart.jsp file, which in our example, is shown below

The following parameter tags need to be added within the element of applet-desc of jnlp contents:

<applet-desc
      name="Espress Chart Designer"
      main-class="quadbase.chart.designer.InitApplet"
      width="300"
      height="150">
      <param name="comm_protocol" value="servlet"/>
      <param name="comm_url" value="http://127.0.0.1:8080/EC70"/>
      <param name="servlet_context" value="EC70/servlet"/>
  </applet-desc>

The first parameter indicates that the EspressManager is running as a servlet. The second one is the URL (saved in a JSP expression, <%codebase%>) that the application server is using, and the third one is the servlet context under which the EspressManager is deployed.

Restart your Tomcat server.

To access the ChartDesigner, open your web browser and go to the following address: http://127.0.0.1:8080/EC70/index.html. You may either need to open EspressChart.jnlp (Firefox/Chrome) directly or save it to your download directory and run the jnlp file from there to open the ChartDesigner (Microsoft Edge).

Tip

	Tip
Sometimes `ReportDesgner.jnlp` cannot be launched after it is downloaded. In Windows 10, go to Java Control Panel to: Enable 2 Options: From Security tab: Enable Java Content in Browser (Required for Applets and Web Start Applications) From Web Settings tab: Keep temporary files on my computer. The jnlp file can be launched.

Sometimes ReportDesgner.jnlp cannot be launched after it is downloaded. In Windows 10, go to Java Control Panel to:

Enable 2 Options:

From Security tab: Enable Java Content in Browser (Required for Applets and Web Start Applications)
From Web Settings tab: Keep temporary files on my computer.

The jnlp file can be launched.

	Caution
	Jnlp file is cached since the "Keep Temporary files" enabled. You need go to Java Control Panel, from Web Settings, click Delete Files to delete "Cached Applications and Applets". Then you can get updated Jnlp file launched.