Implementing the Chronoscope Plug-in for Pentaho Sample Data

By leveraging the Timepedia Chronoscope framework, BizCubed has developed a method of visualising time-based data in an interactive way using standard Web technologies.

You can see a demo of this at our Pentaho Demo site. The version of Chronoscope used here works best with standards-based Web browsers like Mozilla Firefox, and does not (yet) work with Internet Explorer. Our demo is down for maintenance. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Below is a simple HOWTO to replicate that demonstration. These steps have been tested with Pentaho 1.6.

Acknowledgments

Ray Cromwell of Timepedia. He has built and maintains the Chronoscope project. Hats off to his great work. If you want some good information about AJAX and JavaScript check out his blog.

Implementation Instructions

Start with a working installation of the Pentaho BI Server, with the Sample Data enabled.

Download the zip file attached here. Unzip it and follow the instructions below.

"chronoscope" directory

Copy this directory to {pentaho}/pentaho-solutions/

"widget" folder

Copy this directory to {pentaho}/jboss/server/default/deploy/pentaho.war

"chronoscope.jsp" file

Place this file in {pentaho}/jboss/server/default/deploy/pentaho.war/

You will need to modify it to suit your deployment.

First, find this section (line 197) and set the location of the JS file on your Pentaho server:

<!-- content -->
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://localhost:8080/pentaho/widget/chronoscope.js"></script>

If you want to change the location of the action sequence, modify this part (line 59):

// Run the action sequence
		    try {
			runtime = ChartHelper.doAction( "chronoscope",  "test",  "date_amount.xaction",  "chronoscope.jsp",  parameters,  userSession,  messages,  null );

The solution, path, action and JSP names are respectively passed to ChartHelper.doAction.

Update Pentaho

Update the Pentaho Solutions repository — Go to the Admin page and click on "Update Solutions Repository".