XPages did get a great addon more than a year ago to be more exact 13:th of September 2013. It was when Christian Güdemann uploaded the first version of POI for XPages. Apache POI is a rather old apache project, 13 years to be exact. And there have even been a Notes in 9 show by Paul Calhoun on how to use the standalone version of Apache POI.
But Christians version makes everything that much simpler to get the Excel file out to the end user, start by going to poi4xpages.openntf.org/ or essentials.openntf.org/ if you want lots of more great XPage addons. Download the latest version of one of the project.
Now you need to install the OSGI plugins into your designer and to the server, and David Leedy as recently created a notes in 9 video on how to install plugins into the designer and the server.
And when you have installed POI for XPages in both places you are good to try it out.
It’s very simple, Add the poi library to the database you want to use it in you do this in xsp.properties in the Page Generation tab
Now you are ready to create a new XPage, when you have created the XPage.
Drag the simple View Export into you new Export XPage also create a button on your XPage
Click on the button and create a simple action
Select the sveId, you should find the ID of your simple Export control in the list.
Select you export component and select “All properties”
Fill out the downloadFileName with a name of you choice i.e export.xlxs
also select if you want if the view headers should be exported includeHeader and write the name of the view you want to export view.
Open up the XPage and click on the button and you export will be sent to you client.
It is certainly a great addon. I used in a recent project. Customer was amazed I only needed 5 minutes to implement the Export to Excel requirement 😉