# Ruport Roundtable **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [June 8, 2007, 4:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruport-roundtable/106289 "2007-06-08T04:44:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikem836)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 4:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruport-roundtable/106289/1 "2007-06-08T04:44:14Z")
It’s been a few weeks now since the 1.0 release of Ruport and now that the dust has settled, it seems like a good time to have a roundtable discussion to see how things are going. We’re mainly hoping to get some feedback and general impressions of the 1.0 release and talk about the activity in the ruport-util package. Plus, we want to start thinking about plans for future releases, so this is a chance to provide some input on the direction of the project. Anyone who’s interested is welcome to join us at 9pm EDT on Tuesday (June 12) on the #ruport channel on freenode. Mike ---
**Author:** ![mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikem836)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruport-roundtable/106289/2 "2007-06-08T15:29:30Z")
Mike, Why don’t you guy’s get off your ‘high perch’ and write some beginner to intermediate documentation? I’ve approached this forum a few times and always been rebuffed when asking for some understandable examples or documentation. The term ‘arrogant ?’ was raised at the last Rails conference. I can never understand why you guys’ spend so much technical energy on your products and don’t realize they won’t be used unless you make them intellectually available? It’s something like Hollywood learned when sound came out. The user experience is half visual and half sound. David ---
**Author:** ![mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikem836)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruport-roundtable/106289/3 "2007-06-08T16:02:33Z")
On Jun 8, 9:28 am, BraveDave [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Mike, > Why don’t you guy’s get off your ‘high perch’ and write some beginner > to intermediate documentation? [http://ruportbook.com/](http://ruportbook.com/) [http://stonecode.svnrepository.com/ruport/trac.cgi/wiki/TutorialsAndArticles](http://stonecode.svnrepository.com/ruport/trac.cgi/wiki/TutorialsAndArticles) [http://rubyreports.org/resources.html](http://rubyreports.org/resources.html) > I’ve approached this forum a few times > and always been rebuffed when asking for some understandable examples > or documentation. The term ‘arrogant ?’ was raised at the last Rails > conference. [http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-reports/browse\_thread/thread/e133a153f5908861/218f778deaec172b?lnk=gst&q=BraveDave&rnum=3#218f778deaec172b](http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-reports/browse_thread/thread/e133a153f5908861/218f778deaec172b?lnk=gst&q=BraveDave&rnum=3#218f778deaec172b) > I can never understand why you guys’ spend so much technical energy on > your products and don’t realize they won’t be used unless you make > them intellectually available? It’s something like Hollywood learned > when sound came out. The user experience is half visual and half > sound. Our list is full of people who think we’ve been pretty kind and helpful. I’m sorry you had a sour experience, maybe we can be a bit more constructive and you can come ask some specific questions, and get some answers, too. ---
**Author:** ![mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikem836)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2007, 6:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruport-roundtable/106289/4 "2007-06-12T06:34:32Z")
On Jun 10, 12:56 pm, tonypm [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Am I looking to do something that is not appropriate for Ruports, or > should I persevere and dig deeper? The real power of Ruport is not the built in outputs but the rendering system itself. You will have a much easier time building a formatted PDF reportwith it than you would with PDF::Writer directly. That having been said, it’s still a low level toolset. You’ll be working with text drawing and geometry methods, you’ll need to be able to do layout geometry, etc. We’d happily add higher level tools to ruport-util, and are slowly doing that. (PDF invoices and form helpers) If you’d like to dig deeper, search the Ruport mailing list archives and if you have specific questions we’ll be happy to help. This tutorial might get you started, but we’re still working on creating higher level documentation about complex PDF documents [http://rubyreports.org/cheatsheets/formatting.html](http://rubyreports.org/cheatsheets/formatting.html) ---
**Author:** ![mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikem836)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2007, 2:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruport-roundtable/106289/5 "2007-06-13T02:14:56Z")
On Jun 7, 10:43 pm, mikem836 [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Anyone who’s interested is welcome to join us at 9pm EDT on Tuesday > (June 12) on the #ruport channel on freenode. Just a reminder, this will start in a little under an hour. Hope to see you there, there is a lot of great stuff to talk about, and some of our contributors have things they’d like to get comments on, such as OOo integration with Ruport. ---
**Author:** ![mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/3d9bf3/32.png) [@mikem836](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikem836)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2007, 6:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruport-roundtable/106289/6 "2007-06-10T18:56:41Z")
Hi, > > Mike, > > Why don’t you guy’s get off your ‘high perch’ and write some beginner > > to intermediate documentation? That seemed rather harsh. The problem I find is that one can spend an enormous amount of time finding out if some particular app/module/plugin is actually right for the particular job in hand. I had a look at the site, and a quick scan of the examples (and humor). But I was left uncertain if Ruport would do what I wanted. I have an RoR app, with some printscreens (customer orders etc). Now I am looking for a better approach and in particular to get pdf files that can be uploaded for email attachments or stored/printed/faxed etc. Most of the examples of Ruports seemed to produce a table as an output, but what I am looking for is more of a flexible layout (eg, some fields in various positions on the page, and a couple of positioned tables and a page header and footer, with multiple page management.) Obviously I am prepared to build these as much as necessary, but I didnt find any documentation that would get me started on layout and building a page in a RoR app. Am I looking to do something that is not appropriate for Ruports, or should I persevere and dig deeper? Thanks tonypm