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For the example in this chapter, you can create an executable with the following command:
rubyscript2exe desktop_team_performance_graph.rb
CHAPTER 4 n CREATING REPORTS ON THE DESKTOP 72
As you can see, this gem is very easy to use. Using various options, you can modify the output. You
can find out more about RubyScript2Exe in my Apress book, Practical Ruby Gems, as well as from the
RubyScript2Exe home page: http://www.erikveenstra.nl/rubyscript2exe/index.html.
Summary
This chapter covered how you can extend your applications directly onto users??™ desktops.
You saw how to use the spreadsheet-excel gem to create an Excel spreadsheet report,
which can be extremely helpful to end users. Then you created a desktop application that
displays beautiful graphs using Gruff and Active Record.
As you can see, Ruby isn??™t a web-only or console-only language. It offers a great deal
of flexibility for creating applications that extend directly to the user??™s desktop in familar
formats, including thick-client and common office applications.


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