The custom emitters in BIRT are implemented as plug-ins and packaged as JAR files. To make them available to the Actuate products that support them, copy the emitters to the following folder:

To deploy custom emitter to iHub copy the plug-ins to:

The MyClasses folder appears at different levels on different platforms but it is always available in the product’s installation folder.

Plug-ins depend on other plug-ins to function properly. It is a good practice to verify all required plug-ins are installed in the system. To get the list of all required plug-ins open MANIFEST.MF file of your custom plug-in, as shown in Listing 6‑1. Depending on the way the plug-ins are developed, Import-Package or Require-Bundle entries declare plug-in dependencies on a package or bundle level.

Every time you deploy a custom emitter you need to restart the product. This ensures the emitter JAR is added to the classpath and the product can discover the new rendering format.

The following tools support custom emitters: