[ANN] Ruby Reports 1.0 RC1 (0.10.0)

ruby-talk
1

== Ruby Reports 1.0, Release Candidate 1 (0.10.0) ==

After 2.5 months of extremely overactive development since our last
major stable release, clandestine behaviours, and other things that go
bump in the night, a rough cut of what will become Ruport 1.0 is
finally ready.

We can really use your feedback, so if you've been waiting to try out
Ruport, now would be a good time to start. And since it's now on
RubyForge, you don't even need to trust our sketchy gem-server to try
it out!

== What is Ruport? ==

Ruby Reports (Ruport) is an extensible reporting system. It aims to
keep things as simple as possible while still providing the core
toolset you'll need for most reporting tasks.

== What can Ruport do for me? ==

(If you're already familiar with Ruport, you might want to skip this section)

We provide a solid data model that can be easily hooked up to a number
of sources, including CSV files, ActiveRecord models, and raw SQL
connections through DBI.

We also provide an insanely easy to extend formatting system which
provides a consistent interface as well as a set of helper functions
for a number of output types (HTML,PDF,CSV, and plain text).

On top of that, Ruport offers a bunch of little tools to tie things
together and help you be more productively lazy. This includes a high
level report interface, as well as a code generator (rope) that will
help lay out a project for you and do other cool things like generate
boilerplate code and tests when needed.

We're not aiming to be a comprehensive reporting solution, our primary
goal is to make reporting applications easier to build in Ruby, not
build them for you. That having been said, you can find things like
basic support for graphing and invoices in our ruport-util package.
This is likely going to take a little while to build up and stabilize,
but it should be a good way to add higher level functionality to your
Ruport projects as time goes on.

== Major Changes since 0.8 ==

* Real support for Grouping operations and rendering
* Row based rendering support
* A whole slew of PDF helper functions
* Built in support for ActiveRecord via acts_as_reportable (now in Ruport)
* Majorly revamped formatting / rendering system
* API impovements throughout
* All subsystems are more extensible now
* rope now has a ton of new features
* Plenty of things I've already forgotten

By Example:
http://tinyurl.com/33m88x

New, cooler examples will be out soon.

== Get it ==

Ruport and it's dependencies:
gem install ruport -y

The Ruport Utilities package(optional)
gem install ruport-util -y

== Get Help ==

Mailing List:
http://list.rubyreports.org

Please sign up even if you want to not receive any mails, so we know
who is interested in Ruport out there. All questions are welcome on
the list, both support related and development.

IRC:
#ruport on Freenode

API Documentation:

http://api.rubyreports.org/

We've fallen behind a bit on docs, sadly.
However, we did try to remove all deprecated documentation.

If you spot defects in the docs, or are having trouble understanding
them, please file bug reports

Trac Wiki:

Our wiki is at:
http://code.rubyreports.org

Keep an eye on it for helpful resources in the near future.

== Get Involved ==

We'd really appreciate feedback on this release so we can make tweaks
before 1.0. This is an early candidate, so we may end up changing
some things before Ruport is production ready.

You can file change requests and bug reports at:
http://code.rubyreports.org

Use the account ruport / blinky to file tickets, and tie them to the
milestone "1.0 RC1 Change Requests"

== That's all for now ==

We'll collect change requests for a little while, clean some stuff up,
add some more docs, and have a new release candidate out soon.
Looking forward to hearing what folks think!

2

<snip>

may I add this :wink:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/ruport/

Robert

···

On 4/23/07, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> wrote:

== Ruby Reports 1.0, Release Candidate 1 (0.10.0) ==

3

Gregory Brown wrote:

API Documentation:

http://api.rubyreports.org/

Hm, 404's for me, with this redirect:
http://api.rubyreports.org/edge

Keep an eye on it for helpful resources in the near future.

Is there an actual tutorial to using ruport? I'm very much interested in using it (and eventually hacking it, too).

···

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski
http://cynicalryan.110mb.com/
http://clothred.rubyforge.org

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character, so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.
- Mal, Firefly

4

FYI - Looks like builder is a dependency but is not installed during
'gem install ruport'.

Here's the error (below) I got when trying to run the line_plotter
example. After installing builder it worked like charm.

Cheers,
David

/opt/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in
`gem_original_require': no such file to load -- builder (LoadError)
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in
`require'
        from line_plotter.rb:33:in `initialize'
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruport-0.10.0/lib/ruport/renderer.rb:316:in
`new'
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruport-0.10.0/lib/ruport/renderer.rb:316:in
`use_formatter'
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruport-0.10.0/lib/ruport/renderer.rb:202:in
`send'
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruport-0.10.0/lib/ruport/renderer.rb:202:in
`build'
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruport-0.10.0/lib/ruport/renderer.rb:167:in
`render'
        from /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ruport-0.10.0/lib/ruport/renderer.rb:288:in
`method_missing'
        from line_plotter.rb:59

···

On 4/23/07, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> wrote:

== Ruby Reports 1.0, Release Candidate 1 (0.10.0) ==

After 2.5 months of extremely overactive development since our last
major stable release, clandestine behaviours, and other things that go
bump in the night, a rough cut of what will become Ruport 1.0 is
finally ready.

We can really use your feedback, so if you've been waiting to try out
Ruport, now would be a good time to start. And since it's now on
RubyForge, you don't even need to trust our sketchy gem-server to try
it out!

== What is Ruport? ==

Ruby Reports (Ruport) is an extensible reporting system. It aims to
keep things as simple as possible while still providing the core
toolset you'll need for most reporting tasks.

== What can Ruport do for me? ==

(If you're already familiar with Ruport, you might want to skip this section)

We provide a solid data model that can be easily hooked up to a number
of sources, including CSV files, ActiveRecord models, and raw SQL
connections through DBI.

We also provide an insanely easy to extend formatting system which
provides a consistent interface as well as a set of helper functions
for a number of output types (HTML,PDF,CSV, and plain text).

On top of that, Ruport offers a bunch of little tools to tie things
together and help you be more productively lazy. This includes a high
level report interface, as well as a code generator (rope) that will
help lay out a project for you and do other cool things like generate
boilerplate code and tests when needed.

We're not aiming to be a comprehensive reporting solution, our primary
goal is to make reporting applications easier to build in Ruby, not
build them for you. That having been said, you can find things like
basic support for graphing and invoices in our ruport-util package.
This is likely going to take a little while to build up and stabilize,
but it should be a good way to add higher level functionality to your
Ruport projects as time goes on.

== Major Changes since 0.8 ==

* Real support for Grouping operations and rendering
* Row based rendering support
* A whole slew of PDF helper functions
* Built in support for ActiveRecord via acts_as_reportable (now in Ruport)
* Majorly revamped formatting / rendering system
* API impovements throughout
* All subsystems are more extensible now
* rope now has a ton of new features
* Plenty of things I've already forgotten

By Example:
http://tinyurl.com/33m88x

New, cooler examples will be out soon.

== Get it ==

Ruport and it's dependencies:
gem install ruport -y

The Ruport Utilities package(optional)
gem install ruport-util -y

== Get Help ==

Mailing List:
http://list.rubyreports.org

Please sign up even if you want to not receive any mails, so we know
who is interested in Ruport out there. All questions are welcome on
the list, both support related and development.

IRC:
#ruport on Freenode

API Documentation:

http://api.rubyreports.org/

We've fallen behind a bit on docs, sadly.
However, we did try to remove all deprecated documentation.

If you spot defects in the docs, or are having trouble understanding
them, please file bug reports

Trac Wiki:

Our wiki is at:
http://code.rubyreports.org

Keep an eye on it for helpful resources in the near future.

== Get Involved ==

We'd really appreciate feedback on this release so we can make tweaks
before 1.0. This is an early candidate, so we may end up changing
some things before Ruport is production ready.

You can file change requests and bug reports at:
http://code.rubyreports.org

Use the account ruport / blinky to file tickets, and tie them to the
milestone "1.0 RC1 Change Requests"

== That's all for now ==

We'll collect change requests for a little while, clean some stuff up,
add some more docs, and have a new release candidate out soon.
Looking forward to hearing what folks think!

5

Doh. I did forgot to link the project page, huh? Thanks Robert!

···

On 4/23/07, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/23/07, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> wrote:
> == Ruby Reports 1.0, Release Candidate 1 (0.10.0) ==
<snip>

may I add this :wink:
http://rubyforge.org/projects/ruport/

6

Gregory Brown wrote:

> API Documentation:
>
> http://api.rubyreports.org/

Hm, 404's for me, with this redirect:
http://api.rubyreports.org/edge

It shouldn't redirect there, I don't think I ever had it doing
that.... strange. I removed the edge docs though, since our dev
releases are now one and the same as our stable releases, at least
until 1.0

Is anyone else having this problem?

> Keep an eye on it for helpful resources in the near future.

Is there an actual tutorial to using ruport? I'm very much interested in
using it (and eventually hacking it, too).

We've got two tutorials that are close to releasable, one on the
formatting system (updated to the latest stuff) and one on our code
generation tool, rope.

We'll be spinning more and more of these as soon as things start to
solidify, but for now our number one focus is finishing up the API
docs, rewriting the bits that got out of date during our sprint on 0.9

In the mean time, just ask questions as they arise on the Ruport list.
I'll try to get anything generally useful into recipe form and at
least get it up on the wiki.

Doc patchers and tutorial writers are very welcome!

···

On 4/23/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@googlemail.com> wrote:

7

I forgot to mention, there is a very short tutorial on our
ActiveRecord support which I think is (mostly) up to date:

http://stonecode.svnrepository.com/ruport/trac.cgi/wiki/ActsAsReportable

···

On 4/23/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@googlemail.com> wrote:

Is there an actual tutorial to using ruport? I'm very much interested in
using it (and eventually hacking it, too).

8

Oh, good catch. Builder is actually not a dependency of Ruport, it's
only used in that example. (If that's not correct, please file a bug
report)

However, I'll add something to that example that fails gracefully and
tells you to install the gem. Thanks!

···

On 4/23/07, David Chelimsky <dchelimsky@gmail.com> wrote:

FYI - Looks like builder is a dependency but is not installed during
'gem install ruport'.

Here's the error (below) I got when trying to run the line_plotter
example. After installing builder it worked like charm.

9

Philip, did you click the link on the wiki? It looks like that was
pointing the wrong place. I fixed it just now, though.

···

On 4/23/07, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/23/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Gregory Brown wrote:
>
> > API Documentation:
> >
> > http://api.rubyreports.org/
>
> Hm, 404's for me, with this redirect:
> http://api.rubyreports.org/edge

10

Gregory Brown wrote:

It shouldn't redirect there, I don't think I ever had it doing
that.... strange. I removed the edge docs though, since our dev
releases are now one and the same as our stable releases, at least
until 1.0

Odd, I can't reproduce it now. Maybe I got served a page out of my browser's cache.

We've got two tutorials that are close to releasable, one on the
formatting system (updated to the latest stuff) and one on our code
generation tool, rope.

Well, I'd be happy to beta test them, if you want, as I don't have any real knowledge about ruport (never got around to toy with it until now), so it could server as an "Aunt Tillie" test. :wink:

In the mean time, just ask questions as they arise on the Ruport list.

Already subscribed :slight_smile:

I'll try to get anything generally useful into recipe form and at
least get it up on the wiki.

>

Doc patchers and tutorial writers are very welcome!

I'd be happy to help out in that regard, as much as I can.

···

On 4/23/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@googlemail.com> wrote:

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski
http://cynicalryan.110mb.com/
http://clothred.rubyforge.org

Rule of Open-Source Programming #20:

Open Code != Good Code

11

http://stonecode.svnrepository.com/ruport/trac.cgi/changeset/840

That's what it now does in trunk and I'll include it in either the
next maintenance release of RC1, or in RC2, whichever comes first.

Thanks!

···

On 4/23/07, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/23/07, David Chelimsky <dchelimsky@gmail.com> wrote:
> FYI - Looks like builder is a dependency but is not installed during
> 'gem install ruport'.

However, I'll add something to that example that fails gracefully and
tells you to install the gem. Thanks!

12

Gregory Brown wrote:

···

On 4/23/07, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4/23/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Gregory Brown wrote:
>
> > API Documentation:
> >
> > http://api.rubyreports.org/
>
> Hm, 404's for me, with this redirect:
> http://api.rubyreports.org/edge

Philip, did you click the link on the wiki? It looks like that was
pointing the wrong place. I fixed it just now, though.

That explains why I don't get the 404 anymore. Yes, I was using the link in the Wiki.

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski
http://cynicalryan.110mb.com/
http://clothred.rubyforge.org

Rule of Open-Source Programming #37:

Duplicate effort is inevitable. Live with it.

13

> We've got two tutorials that are close to releasable, one on the
> formatting system (updated to the latest stuff) and one on our code
> generation tool, rope.

Well, I'd be happy to beta test them, if you want, as I don't have any
real knowledge about ruport (never got around to toy with it until now),
so it could server as an "Aunt Tillie" test. :wink:

Cool, I'll keep this in mind.

> I'll try to get anything generally useful into recipe form and at
> least get it up on the wiki.
>
> Doc patchers and tutorial writers are very welcome!

I'd be happy to help out in that regard, as much as I can.

Please join up on our dev list then:
http://groups.google.com/group/ruport-dev

It's extremely low traffic but is useful for folks who want to sit a
little closer to the metal. It's not a public list, but I pretty much
approve anyone who isn't a spammer. :slight_smile:

···

On 4/23/07, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@googlemail.com> wrote: