grails renderpdf plugin, how does it work?

i´m trying to render PDF with renderpdf grails plugin, but their documentation is very short.

i made a button in my gsp view/file

<button type="button">PDF Me!</button>

and

ByteArrayOutputStream bytes = pdfRenderingService.render(template: "/pdfs/report", model: [data: data])

in a view for binding images

<rendering:inlinePng bytes="${imageBytes}" class="some-class" />

model data is domainInstance and how do i connect the button with this renderpdf?

may be i should more specify my code

def invoice ={
    def vermittlungInstance = Vermittlung.get(params.id)


    def aa = vermittlungInstance.lieferungen.id
    def lieferungInstance = Lieferung.get(aa)

    def bb = lieferungInstance.packete.id // .id
    def packetInstance = Packet.findAllByIdInList(bb)

    if (!vermittlungInstance & !lieferungInstance) {
        flash.message = "${message(code: 'default.not.found.message', args: [message(code: 'vermittlung.label', default: 'Vermittlung'), params.id])}"
        redirect(action: "list")
    }
    else {
        if(vermittlungInstance.rechnungen.id!=null || vermittlungInstance.lieferungen.id!=null || lieferungInstance.packete.id!=null ){
            def a = vermittlungInstance.rechnungen.id
            def rechnungList = Rechnung.findById(a)

            def b = vermittlungInstance.lieferungen.id
            def lieferungList = Lieferung.findById(b)

            def c = lieferungInstance.packete.id
            //println c
            def packetList = Packet.findAllByIdInList(c)//findById(c)

            def d = packetInstance.artikel.id//id
            def artikelList = Artikel.findAllByIdInList(d)//findById(d)

            def e = lieferungInstance.adressen.id
            def adresseList = Adresse.findById(e)

            [vermittlungInstance: vermittlungInstance,
                    rechnungInstanceList:rechnungList,
                    lieferungInstanceList:lieferungList,
                    packetInstanceList: packetList,
                    artikelInstanceList: artikelList,
                    adresseInstanceList: adresseList
            ]



            //System.out.println(c)

        }

        else{

            def rechnungList = Rechnung.all
            def lieferungList = Lieferung.all
            def packetList = Packet.all
            def artikelList = Artikel.all
            def adresseList = Adresse.all

            [vermittlungInstance: vermittlungInstance,
                    rechnungInstanceList:rechnungList,
                    lieferungInstanceList:lieferungList,
                    packetInstanceList: packetList,
                    artikelInstanceList: artikelList,
                    adresseInstanceList: adresseList
            ]
        }



    }

}

this is my def in a controller, i tried to put this renderpdf on many places, but it won't render the page, actually i am changing some values in html (browser), so it should render in html.

the controller seems to be a wrong place to renderpdf than, but there is no render function for .gsp

thanks

Solution

Add a new action which generates the pdf version of your invoice and link them from your view.

Here is your link:

<g:link action="downloadInvoice" id="${yourInvoiceID}">Download invoice</g:link>

In your controlle add following:

def downloadInvoice = {
    def invoice = Invoice.get(params.id) //replace with your logic

   renderPdf(template: '/templates/pdf/invoice', model: [invoice: invoice], filename: "yourTitle")
}

Your invoice template is a simple gsp view where you could place all your HTML (including images) and CSS:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Invoice</title>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="${resource(dir:'css',file:'your.css')}" />        
    </head>
    <body>
        <img src="${resource(dir:'images',file:'invoiceLogo.png')}" />
        <h1>Invoice: ${invoice.id}</h1>
         .
         .
         .
    </body>
</html>

Hope that example helps!