I read more of the code and saw that several report settings are stored in the column parameters, so I added logic to read and write pdf customization settings using the parameters.
Seems to be the fastest way with lowest impact on existing reports and installations and doesn't need some database changes.

At the current state the headline implementation is finished and working.
Settings are persisted and all pdf reports can be customized with a custom headline.

I would be very happy if someone would advance an opinion to this PR... :-)
If there are further questions or if some changes have to be done, feel free to tell me.

Hi @Fensterbank

Thanks for your pull request!

Is there some interest to implement this feature?

That's a good question... I don't think that we need this feature. Ideally, it would be done in a plugin published on the Marketplace. Some users will love this feature, while most users don't need it. We prefer not to add a feature in the UI when only few users would benefit from it. In general, we even try hard to simplify the UIs :-)

One challenge I can think of is that maybe it's not completely possible to do this in a plugin yet... maybe this is related to our vision in #6951 where we would have consistent "Manage entity" screen, and these screens would be extendable by plugins via a documented API. cc @tsteur

I'm not sure how this would be related but I also haven't read everything? "Manage entitiy" screen wouldn't affect PDF reports but they could maybe allow to add such settings.

Refs #7893 as we will introduce "Measurable Settings" there. Maybe we need at some point even "Manage Entity settings" if "Manage Measurables / Manage Websites" was built with a "#6951 Manage Entities component" but not really related.

I'm not sure how this would be related but I also haven't read everything? "Manage entitiy" screen wouldn't affect PDF reports but they could maybe allow to add such settings.

I thought that when we build a generic "Manage entity" screen, it would include the "Listing" view as well as the "Edit" view. The "Edit" view would be pluggable by plugins. This would make automatically all listing + edit templates editable by plugins. But maybe I'm wrong and it wouldn't be so magically powerful ;-)

Hi all,

thanks for your replies.
I also thought of create a plugin for this, but ScheduledReport themselve is already a plugin.
So I modified the plugin by adding the settings to the template and by modifying some lines of ReportRenderer/pdf.php.

I don't think a plugin can extend a menu template or the pdf rendering logic of an existing plugin, so I would have to make a bareley new plugin which replaces the ScheduledReports plugin, copy the whole code and add my changes. Then I would have to put ongoing effort in it to keep my plugin in sync with all potentially new features of ScheduledReports.

This is a huge effort for such a small change. Or am I wrong and the current PDF render methods and the UI could easily be extended by a plugin?
At the moment I also don't understand what "Managing Entity" would bring or how it would change things... :-)

But is it the right way, expressed with some exaggeration, to say "Let the pdf reports simple and ugly like it had ever been since Piwik 0.1 and bring new features only with a plugin"? ;-)
In my eyes a headline setting for pdf could be a default feature as enabling or disable page numbering or select another front page image.

Adding options via a "Manage Entity component" would be possible but think the main problem is to modify the look of Scheduled Reports (PDF / HTML / ...). That's why I was wondering how it is related. That component would be most likely extensible yes.

@Fensterbank Thanks for suggestion, What would be really perfect is when we can do this via a plugin rather than in core. I prefer not to merge the pull request for now in core. I hope you understand and hope to see more PR from you in the future still :-) in the future, maybe you could first ask in an issue, whether we would likely merge a given feature/PR. Cheers

@mattab Okay. I think I will take a look to the plugin system.

The way I made it (to define pdf customizing settings in the edit scheduled report form) I don't think it is possible as a plugin, because I need to extend the plugin ScheduledReports by a plugin.

But maybe I find an alternative way to provide this user friendly in a plugin.

Cheers