Through its public APIs and the BIRT extension framework, BIRT enables a Java developer to expand the capabilities of BIRT. BIRT uses Eclipse extensions to enable extending the functionally of the framework. The extension points provided by BIRT support the creation of new graph types, additional data sources, report controls, and emitters for rendering to additional outputs. These extension points appeal to users who have specialized data access and formatting needs. The following list shows some of the possible custom extensions:
A custom report item
A custom report item is a report item extension. This report item can be an extension, an existing BIRT report item, or a new report item.
A custom ODA data source driver
A custom ODA data source driver is a custom ODA extension that connects to a data source type other than those that BIRT directly supports.
A custom report emitter
A custom report emitter generates a report in a format other than HTML or PDF.
Later sections provide fully worked examples of all these types of extensions.
A custom report item