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Merlin – Adding an option in a report template

Vicky Stamatopoulou on 1. August 2011

Report template options are saved in the /Contents/info.plist within a Merlin‘s report template package and shown in the order they are defined. Therefor, should you want to add another option for your custom report:

• You open the info.plist as found in your report template package under /Contents
• Check the dictionaries defined for the key PWReportParameters
• And define your own dict in the position you would like it to be shown

Note: Use existing options as reference on how to define checkboxes, lists, or text entry fields

Some examples:

1. You have created a copy of the existing Next Due Activities report (as explained here) and want to add an option to disable the “Group” column in the outputted table.

Your workflow

• Open the info.plist as found in your report template package under /Contents
• Copy the dict definition for another checkbox option (for example this for withProjectImage)
• And paste
• Edit the strings for key and title in the pasted dict.

<dict>
<key>key</key>
<string>withGroup</string>
<key>title</key>
<string>Group</string>
<key>valueClass</key>
<string>NSNumber</string>
<key>style</key>
<string>bool</string>
<key>defaultValueString</key>
<string>0</string>
</dict>

Note: A defaultValueString of 1 means that this option is on per default. You may enter a 0 if you want this option to be off.

• Save your changes
• Open the Report.xslt from your lproj folder (for this post, we assume you are editing Report.xslt out of /Contents/Resources/English.lproj)
• Locate on the start of the Report.xslt the rows defining the parameter names. You can search for

  param name="withProjectImage"

• Copy this line and paste
• Enter withGroup instead of  the pasted withProjectImage:

<xsl:param name=”withGroup”/>

• Locate the row outputting the Group title in the table, it is

  <th>Group</th>

• Do a test for the value of $withGroup by 1 and allow it to be shown only then

  <xsl:if test="$withGroup = 1"><th>Group</th></xsl:if>

  

• Locate the row outputting the Group’s value in the table, it is

  <td width="18%"><xsl:value-of select="../title"/></td>

• Do a test for the value of $withGroup by 1 and allow it to be shown only then.

<xsl:if test="$withGroup = 1">

<td width="18%"><xsl:value-of select="../title"/></td>

</xsl:if>

Note: There are 2 rows to change. Once the table outputting when <xsl:if test=”$showResource = ” “> and a second time for <xsl:if test=”$showResource != ” “>

• Save your Report.xslt file
• Restart Merlin if it is already running
• Open your project
• Call File > New Report…  and select your thus changed report
• It won’t show the “Group” column per default, but you can enable its display in the options:

2. You have created a copy of the existing Cost Distribution report (as explained here) and want to add an option to disable the “Group” column in the outputted table.

See next blog post for the workflow

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Related Posts:

• Modifying existing reports
• Edit description or report template names
• Creating your own report templates
• Localize a Merlin report template
• Further tips for localizing an XSLT report template

Tags: Report, Templates