From: Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@...>
Date: 2007-06-08T01:27:50+09:00
Subject: [ANN] ruport-util 0.7.0 : csv2ods and other fun stuff

== What is it?

ruport-util provides a home for marooned former parts of Ruby Reports,
and newer fringe ideas.

== Examples of new stuff

## csv2ods and Ruport::Formatter::ODS

ruport-util now comes with a tool called csv2ods which will convert a
csv file to an OpenDocument spreadsheet file.  You do not need
OpenOffice.org installed to use this tool.

-- usage:

  csv2ods my.csv my.ods

This is simply implemented as a Ruport table formatter, so you can use
it programatically, too.

For example, if you're reporting against an ActiveRecord model

  class MyModel
    acts_as_reportable
  end

  MyModel.report_table(:all,:conditions => ["name = ?", "Fat Louie"]).to_ods

## Streamlined Report class

Our report runner has been simplified and many dumb features were cut out of it.

One cool new feature is implicit file type handling:

#------
class MyReport < Ruport::Report

  renders_as_table

  attr_accessor :file

  def renderable_data
     t = Table(file)
     t.sub_table { |r| r.a == "foo" }
  end

end

MyReport.generate do |report|
  report.file = "in.csv"
  report.save_as "out.csv" # renders to csv
  report.save_as "out.pdf" # renders to pdf
  puts report.to_text # renders to screen as text
end
#-----

rope has been updated to generate the new Report definitions.

== Getting Ruport

To use ruport-util, you'll need Ruport >= 0.12.0

  sudo gem install ruport -y

== Installing ruport-util

It's on RubyForge:

  gem install ruport-util -y

== Using

  require "ruport"
  require "ruport/util"

  # then just use whatever tools you want.

== Full Feature List as of 2007.06.07:

  * Basic Graphing (util/graph)
  * Report runner  (util/report)
  * Report Mailing (util/mailer)
  * Report Manager (util/report_manager)
  * Invoices       (util/invoice)
  * PDF form helpers (util/pdf/form)
  * ODS formatter for tables (util/ods)
  * Benchmarking Tool (util/bench)
  * Ruport centric code generation via the rope command.
  * csv to OpenDocument conversion via csv2ods

See example/ for more information

== Help?

This code is unstable, evil, and possibly buggy until further notice.

Please report any problems on the Ruport mailing list:
http://list.rubyreports.org