I'm building an application where the user is working with something that is a combination of a spreadsheet and an outliner (a statement of corporate finances, actually). This requires the user to work with multiple data points arranged in a spreadsheet-like presentation (a grid). Each individual data point can be stored as a record, but the user should not need to work with the data on a record-by-record basis; instead, they should be able to select a cell (ideally by keyboard as well as by mouse), edit the data in it, and then continue in the same way.
At the moment I'm not too worried about recalculations--they can be done on the server and passed back by Ajax. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to use views and other Rails features to get the desired UI. Both the presentation of multiple records in a grid, and the desire to move seamlessly in that grid, aren't supported by Rail's builtin functionality, as far as I can tell.
Does anyone have any suggestions, or examples to point to? I'm sure I can find a nasty, difficult way to do this, but it'd be nice if someone else could advise me of an elegant, easy way :-).
Thanks,
Ken