However, it??™s not enough to simply create a report; you need to place the report in a context
where it will be useful. Often, this means making the report accessible on the users??™
desktop in a format that??™s familiar to them. You can accomplish this in a number of ways,
as you??™ll learn in this chapter.
Choosing a Desktop Format
One powerful way to deliver reports to your users is to create a stand-alone graphical
user interface (GUI) application that they can run on their desktop. This application can
blend in with native applications written in other languages, so it will be familiar to the
users. Furthermore, it won??™t be subject to the security restrictions that apply to web applications,
so it can even control other applications??”launching them and so forth.
Of course, deploying desktop applications isn??™t an option for some applications.
Many Ruby developers are restricted to deploying web applications only. If that??™s true for
you, you??™ll need an alternate approach.
One alternative is to offer the users the ability to download a file that can be opened
in a desktop application.
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