Many reporting environments require dynamic report customization and implementation of specialized business logic. These needs can range from simply changing text colors based on field values to creating hyperlinks and drilldowns between reports. Style Intelligence provides a complete scripting environment to support such dynamic report behavior.
The Style Intelligence scripting language is based on the ECMA-262 (JavaScript) standard. The scripting environment provides full access to all report elements, and can be used to perform actions on report initialization and loading, as well as handling ongoing user interactions.
The following sections introduce you to the basics of JavaScript programing, and explain how to apply JavaScript in the reporting environment. Since there are many publicly available JavaScript resources, the Report Scripting Guide concentrates mostly on the Style Intelligence host environment, and provides extensive examples of report scripting.
Introduction to JavaScript Programming
The purpose of this section is to provide a broad overview of JavaScript programming, and to explain how JavaScript works within reports.
The JavaScript Language
Netscape originally introduced JavaScript as the scripting language for its Navigator web browser. This scripting language allows code to be embedded in HTML pages and executed inside a browser, which acts as the host environment for the scripts. The browser exposes HTML page elements and browser controls to the scripts as host objects and functions. By manipulating these host objects, JavaScript is able to control the behavior of the browser and add interactivity to the web pages.
Since the release of Netscape Navigator 2.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, JavaScript has established itself as the standard browser scripting language. Subsequent standardization efforts have produced the specification known as ECMA-262, which is the standard implemented in Style Intelligence.
As a standardized scripting language, JavaScript provides an excellent foundation for report scripting needs. Its origin as a web scripting language makes it ideal for the reporting environment. The integration of JavaScript with Style Intelligence therefore combines two powerful paradigms for report generation and gives developers maximum flexibility in controlling reports and user interactions.
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