ODF-REPORT

Gem for generating .odt files by making strings, images and tables substitutions in a previously created .odt file.

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INSTALL

gem install sandrods-odf-report --source=http://gems.github.com

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USAGE

Step 1 — the template

First of all, you need to create a .odt file to serve as a template

Templates are normal .odt files with placeholders for Substitutions

There are now three kinds of substitutions available: fields, tables and images.

Fields placeholders

It’s just an upcase sentence, surrounded by brackets. It will be replaced for wathever value you supply.

In the folowing example:

report = ODFReport.new("Users/john/my_template.odt") do |r|

  r.add_field :user_name, @user.name
  r.add_field :address, "My new address"
  
end

All occurences of [USER_NAME] found in the file will be replaced by the value of @user.name whereas all [ADDRESS] ’es will contains My new address

It’s as simple as that.

Table placeholders

To use table placeholders, you should create a Table in your document and give it a name. In OpenOffice, it’s just a matter of right-clicking the table you just created, choose Table Properties… and type a name in the Name field.

If the table has two rows, the first one will be treated as a header and left untouched. Otherwise you should use a table with one row only.

As with Field placeholders, just insert a [FIELD_NAME] in each cell and let the magic takes place.

Taking the folowing example:

report = ODFReport.new("Users/john/my_template.odt") do |r|

  r.add_field "USER_NAME", @user.nome
  r.add_field "ADDRESS", @user.address

  r.add_table("TABLE_1", @list_of_itens) do |row, item|
    row["ITEM_ID"] = item.id
    row["DESCRIPTION"] = "==> #{item.description}"
  end

end

and considering you have a table like this in your template

---------------------------------
|  [ITEM_ID]  |  [DESCRIPTION]  |
---------------------------------

* this is my lame attempt to draw a table. 
  you don't suppose to type this. 
  you have to use an actual table. 
  i don't know... just thought I'd mention it ;-)

and a collection @list_of_itens, it will be created one row for each item in the collection, and the replacement will take place accordingly.

Any format applied to the fields in the template will be preserved.

Images

You must put a mock image in your odt template and give it a name. That name will be used to replace the mock image for the actual image.
You can also assign any properties you want to the mock image and they will be kept once the image is replaced.

An image replace would look like this:

report = ODFReport.new("Users/john/my_template.odt") do |r|

  r.add_image :graphics1, "/path/to/the/image.jpg"

end

And that’s it.

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Step 2 — generating the document

It’s fairly simple to generate the document. You can use this inside a Rails application or in a standalone script.

Generating a document in a Rails application

In a controller, you can have a code like this:

def print

  @ticket = Ticket.find(params[:id])

  report = ODFReport.new("#{RAILS_ROOT}/app/reports/ticket.odt") do |r|
   
    r.add_field(:id, @ticket.id.to_s)
    r.add_field(:created_by, @ticket.created_by)
    r.add_field(:created_at, @ticket.created_at.strftime("%d/%m/%Y - %H:%M"))
    r.add_field(:type, @ticket.type.name)
    r.add_field(:status, @ticket.status_text)
    r.add_field(:date, Time.now.strftime("%d/%m/%Y - %H:%M"))
    r.add_field(:solution, (@ticket.solution || ''))

    r.add_table("OPERATORS", @ticket.operators) do | row, op |
      row["OPERATOR_NAME"] = "#{op.name} (#{op.department.short_name})"
    end
   
    r.add_table("FIELDS", @ticket.fields) do | row, field |
     
      if field.is_a?(String)
        row["FIELD_NAME"] = 'Materials'
        row["FIELD_VALUE"] = field
      else
        row["FIELD_NAME"] = field.name
        row["FIELD_VALUE"] = field.text_value || ''
      end

    end

  end

  report_file_name = report.generate

  send_file(report_file_name) 

end

The generate method will, er… generate the document in a temp dir and returns the full path of the generated file, so you can send it back to the user.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Generating a document in a standalone script

It’s just the same as in a Rails app, but you can inform the path where the file will be generated instead of using a temp dir.

report = ODFReport.new("ticket.odt") do |r|

... populates the report ...

end

report.generate("./documents/")

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REQUIREMENTS

rubyzip: for manipulating the contents of the odt file, since it’s actually a zip file.

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THE FUTURE

Well, this is my first attempt. This gem was extracted from an actual project we developed internally, to fulfill our specific needs.

That said, I would really appreciate any input you can come up with. Critics, suggestions, bug reports are welcome and will be thoroughly examined.