From: Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@...>
Date: 2007-05-30T23:23:21+09:00
Subject: [ANN] ruport-util 0.6.0

== Ruby Reports Utilities (ruport-util)

== What is it? ==

A collection of tools / helper libs to use with Ruby Reports.

Current support includes:

* PDF Form Drawing Primatives (New!)
* A Report runner class
* A code generation for Ruport (rope)
* Simple Invoice Support
* Graphing Integration via Scruffy
* A basic Report Manager
* Report Emailer using MailFactory

== New in this release ==

Mike Milner has started working on some form drawing primitives for
our PDF support.
These aren't the 'user fillable' PDF forms, but rather drawing tools
that can help you generate programmatic reports.

A couple example functions are:

# will be checked if options.fruit == :apple
option_box :apple, options.fruit, :label => "Apple", :y => 600, :x => 340

# draw a field at 125,650 of width 200 with 1px wide borders and no
bottom border
form_field "Name:", options.name, :y => 650, :x => 125,
                                                               :width
=> 200, :border => [1,0,1,1]

There is a full example here:
http://tinyurl.com/39befe

You can see what the output looks like here:
http://rubyreports.org/samples/form.pdf

These functions are brand new and still rough around the edges.
We'll probably be continuing development on this as we have to deal
more with generating forms.

Suggestions and patches welcome on the Ruport list.

== Get it ==

Available via RubyGems on RubyForge

gem install ruport-util

Also available via file download:
http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=856&release_id=12047

Also available via SVN:
http://stonecode.svnrepository.com/svn/ruport/ruport-util/tags/rel_0_6_0

== Caveats ==

This code is experimental, incomplete, and possibly buggy.
Don't expect it to stabilize for a while.

== Get Help ==

If you find bugs, have questions, or want to share some ideas, catch
up with us on the Ruport mailing list (http://list.rubyreports.org) or
via #ruport on Freenode.

Also, keep an eye out for content at http://ruportbook.com , there
should be some ruport-util related content up there within the next
couple weeks.